Note #9215 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06177 March 23, 2006
Rescue of 3 hostages brings joy, renewed sorrow that 1 didn't make it
'They've been checked out by the doctors, and they're skinny but fine'
by Alexa Smith
LOUISVILLE - After British forces rescued three kidnapped peace activists this morning in Baghdad, their colleagues' Easter-like joy at their release was tempered with the sadness of ongoing Lent.
Freed were Christian Peacemaker Team members Norman Kember, 74, of England, and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both Canadians. They apparently had been held in western Baghdad, according to CNN.
No shots were fired in the rescue. The pacifists were unguarded when troops acted on intelligence garnered from a detainee captured the previous night. The hostages' hands were tied, but doctors said they were in relatively good condition after their four-month ordeal.
"I'm the happiest girl there is; I really am," said Anita David, the Chicago Presbyterian who is one of the three CPT members now in Baghdad. "It is an answered prayer. To sit there talking with Harmeet today. To look at him was a blessing. To hear Norman. He's a really funny man. And to see Jim's smile. That smile. Those eyes ...
"Yeah, it's just great to be in their presence again," David said in a telephone interview with the Presbyterian News Service. "They've been checked out by the doctors, and they're skinny but fine."
Yet it was a bittersweet reunion, raising questions about how to continue CPT's resistance to the occupation and continue the witness of the hostage who didn't make it home: Tom Fox, 54, of the United States, whose body was found on March 9 near a train station in western Baghdad with gunshot wounds to his head and chest and physical evidence of torture.
All four peacemakers were abducted on Nov. 26.
CPT's Chicago office said the freed hostages had no comment on Fox's death.
David said CPT's Baghdad team was notified this afternoon of the rescue and is comforted that no violence was committed during it. CPT's role is to advocate non-violent alternatives to war. Its mission originated with the traditional peace churches - Quaker, Mennonite and Church of the Brethren.
In Baghdad, the team helps Iraqi families find detained relatives, working together with a Muslim peacemaker team.
Tonight, CPT is planning a vigil opposing the occupation in Independence Park. The three abductees will be heading home soon. And the Baghdad team intends to go to Amman, Jordan, to re-evaluate its strategy in Iraq and determine what is possible to accomplish there in keeping with its mandate.
In a statement dated March 23, it said: "We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion ...
"Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to our families. In the spirit of prophetic non-violence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves, so that, together, we can continue the non-violent struggle for justice and peace."
Presbyterian Beth Pyles, who arrived home from Baghdad on March 21, got a welcome wake-up call from CPT this morning, advising that the three hostages were free.
Pyles sat vigil with Fox's body at an Iraqi air base and accompanied 82 Palestinian Iraqis to the Jordanian border for safety before returning to Fairmont, WV.
Unfinished business nags at Pyles, a 2005 Princeton Theological Seminary grad.
"We're in wonderful space today ... Jim, Harmeet and Norman appear to be physically OK, but it is bittersweet," she said, not only because Fox is dead, but also because the situation in Iraq is unchanged.
She said she heard today that her Palestinian charges are being sent back into Iraq, where they have been targeted for abuse and detention. Going back, she said, is a death sentence.
Pyles is acutely aware, too, of the suffering of Iraqi families who have lost members either to death or detention. "Iraq is still in the situation that it is in," she said, "and the reality is that lots of people in Iraq won't come home tonight or tomorrow or the next day."
Pyles said one 21-year-old Iraqi told her that he has lost 10 friends in the past two months. If you ask Iraqis how they are doing, she said, they reply that they are still alive. Daily tasks and structured rituals for mourning keep people going. "If they didn't (keep going), they'd do nothing but grieve. ... Every day there is more bad news," Pyles said, adding that she will return to Baghdad if CPT wants her to.
The organization said in its March 23 statement that it stands with ordinary Iraqis, and went on:
"We have tasted the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis: Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?
"With Tom's death, we felt the grief of losing a beloved friend. Today, we rejoice in the release of our friends, Harmeet, Jim and Norman. We continue to pray for a swift and joyful homecoming for the many Iraqis and internationals who long to be reunited with their families. We renew our commitment to work for an end to the war and (an end to) the occupation of Iraq as a way to continue the witness of Tom Fox. We trust in God's compassion to show us the way."
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