COLOMBIA

General situation

On June 20^th, Colombian citizens were asked to elect their new president, successor of Alvaro Uribe. Manuel Santos was elected as expected.

“Veredas” situation

Despite unceasing difficulties and threats, the Peace Community is succeeding in its plan of strengthening.

In the area of Urabà bay there are many families who live in some veredas, Alto Joaquin, Nain, Las Claras, and Puerto Nuevo some of whom are members of the peace Community. The area is known for the economical development which have followed the construction of the dam Urà1. It is actually a transit area for arms and drugs. Such families are having hard times because of lack of electricity, of schools facilities and because of frequent threatens by illegal armed groups of the area. Trades within close cities are hard because people have to move by boat which is really expensive for peasants. Despite that Community families have close relationships and are trying to stay united in order to make their life better. Recently they succeeded in buying a rice cleaning machine which will save them many hours of hand work.

Unfortunately, their will of doing better is disturbed by an unpleasant situation. It looks like that in the military harbour of Frasquillo, a forced crossing for trades with the city of Tierra Alta, soldiers are forcing peasants to pay a tax on pesticides, about 5-10 thousands pesos each litre.

There are many reports of paramilitary groups presence which do not care to enter houses exposing people to the risk of being involved into shootouts.

Veredas of Antioquia Department are getting larger too. In Mulatos new houses have been built for new families which moved there. In La Resbalosa some families which once lived distant from each other have decided to gather together in the same area because of the frequent harassment they are subjected to. Operation Dove volunteers collected a testimony from one peasant whose had been threatened by soldiers of sexual abuse on his 12 years old daughter if he will not cooperate with them, because his other son is a member of the Peace Community counsel. These parents are frightened since they live in quite an isolated area where no International volunteer is present. They do not have an alternative except to leave their land and survive in some city.

Updates about Apartadò bomb

On June 23^rd a peasant was arrested by the police. It seems there is a video showing him while getting out of the shop where the bomb went off. He is charged of being a member of the FARC 5^th front. Some witnesses stated he was working his land on that day. It is hard to tell the truth, but the risk is that the man arrested is a blameless scapegoat used to cover any one of the armed group involved for a number of different political and strategic reasons.

Sharing and volunteers

Volunteers were particularly busy in accompanying to Mulatos some Peace Community leaders and some Native Communities members from Chocò, La Guajira and Cauca on the occasion of the Community Assembly and “Campesina University”. This last one is an exchange of agricultural knowhow and civil resistance strategies. It consists of group workshops where different situation lived by members are told and analyzed. Almost a hundred participants were present in Mulatos, together with many international volunteers. Fortunately no armed group showed up although such a presence was noticed for sure.

KOSOVO

General situation

European Mission Eulex has been extended for 2 years more, ending in 2012.

During the month a shootout took place in South Kosovo with two Macedonians and two Kosovans who were killed. Lately there is a growing tension between the Albanian minority of the area and the Macedonian administration. A Macedonian soldier was killed as well during a shootout between armed rebels and police.

During a Serbian demonstration held in Mitrovicë/Kos.Mitrovica against the opening of a representative office of the Prishtinë/Priština government a bomb went off killing a Serbian participant and wounding 11 people.

Sharing

Volunteers keep visiting in Zallq/Zać a group of Serbian who came back to Kosovo three months ago, they are still waiting the building of their new houses to begin. Harassment toward them is still present even though the situation looks under control by Kosovan police and KFOR.

Study group

The aim of this last period is to make the group able to work on its own. Official meetings with OD volunteers have stopped, even though a supervision is going on by means of unofficial talks.

Conflict team

Soccer matches between Serbian Goraždevac and Albanian Poqestë youths get on pretty well, mixing alternatively the teams. Youth point broadcasted World Cup soccer matches, which saw a high participation unlike cinema meetings, which did not took place in the last weeks ‘cause no audience were present.

The team was directly involved during both visits and analyses of the situation in Zallq/Zać.

A seminary about memory and conflict (reprocessing and transformation) took place during the month. It was addressed to cooperation staff of Tavolo Trentino con Kraljevo, Progetto Prjedor and Tavolo Trentino con il Kossovo. The aim was to exchange experiences and strengthen cooperation between the three different projects since they operate in different areas in the country .

Prishtinë/Priština

An important meeting took place during the month with youth from Prishtinë/Priština and Gračanica/Graçanicë aimed to inform and make the group responsible about production of the touring exhibition. Technical aspects were dealt and some picture showed in order to understand what basic themes should be underlined while choosing pictures.

Many informal activities took place: after last month participation of two Albanian youths a concert in Gračanica/Graçanicë, some Serbian youths went a big musical event close to Prishtinë/Priština. And again youths from Prishtinë/Priština were back for a concert in Gračanica/Graçanic cultural centre.

PALESTINE – ISRAEL

General situation

On June 10th school was up in At-Tuwani, OD volunteers monitored for the last time in the current school year the military escort which accompanied to school Tuba and Maghayr Al Abeed kids who were going to pick up their school reports. The military escort report shows many bad marks: many times were late or did not fulfil the whole path, exposing kids to settlers violence.

These same kids often help their parents to graze the flocks: at the beginning of the month some settlers get off their car frightening the kids and attempting to steal their sheep. Parents reported the fact to Kyriat Arba Police station.

During the month of June new buildings arouse in Havat Ma’on outpost, pictures were taken.

Soldiers put up check-points at the entrance of the village about ten times during the month.

The month was rich of visits by International groups.

A particularly worrying event troubled the village on June12th. Thirty masked settlers armed with slings and iron bars attacked a house in the village which is the closest to the outpost of Havat Ma’on. In that moment only women were present. One of them, pregnant fell while attempting to run. Villagers rushed there to make the settlers escape, soon after OD volunteers and Israeli Ta’yush activists arrived, one of them was arrested by police. During the following week, groups of settlers organized nightly rounds around the outpost, and Israeli police patrolled the area. Worried about the possibility of new attacks OD volunteers spent the nights monitoring the house. On one occasion settlers got close to the house screaming threatens of a new imminent attack.

A military operation interested Humra valley, close to At-Tuwani. A check-point was set up at the entrance of the village, seven jeeps and about ten soldiers on foot combed the fields around the village messing up all the villagers.

Despite the pressure by the Army nonviolent resistance keeps going on. In Jimba, a village located close to areas usually used for military trainings, people decided to fence in the almond plants they recently planted in order to trace their property borders.

CASTEL VOLTURNO

Background

Ministry of Interior recently announced the building of ten new CIE (Centre for Identification and Expulsion) on the national territory by the end of 2010. Unofficial sources locate one of them in an area 10 Km far for Castel Volturno.

The checking activity of Police is continuous. Immigrants which documents are not regular are arrested and released soon after with an expulsion sheet ordering them to leave the country in 5 days.

Operation Dove

After-school activities stopped together with the end of the school year. Volunteers will soon move in a new house in Pescopagano area, where volunteers were already working with the Italian lectures for Immigrant activity. Lately, such lessons usually end up with a soccer match.

OD volunteers have been asked for new Italian courses by a group of people attending an Adventist Church and another group attending a Mosque.

In cooperation with a priest from Caserta, volunteers began to visit immigrants in their houses, organizing small meetings to discuss various issues and to try to give them a tiny legal support.

Eventually volunteers attempt to build relationships with the Italian population as well is getting real. They are now committed with children animation in the local parish in Pescopagano.

Together with other associations operating in the area an open-air day of games was organized, named “the journey”. The aim was to make people meeting, promoting trust and prejudices erasing between Italians and immigrants. It took place in the central square of Castel Volturno.

Twice a week volunteers reach Kalifoo Ground early in the morning, where Carabinieri often check immigrants who are there to find a job for the day. Immigrants claim that such checks are only directs toward “blacks” and that it is unfair since they go there to find job meaning they are not those who live committing crimes. Volunteers had occasions to exchange words with many Carabinieri, finding out that some of them do not agree with the present laws about immigration. They reported that they are asked to achieve a determined number of arrest of immigrants with no regular documents.

New meetings with the Caserta Network Against Racism are taking place. The idea is to study new activities aimed at asking the government new possibilities for immigrants to gain regular documents.

On a national level, after the announcement of the building of new CIE an activity of info collection has begun, with meetings and interview to people with dealt in the past with such places with different roles. Volunteers went in Crotone, where a multifunction place is present (S.Anna CDA, CARA e CIE).

Volunteers had an interesting meeting with S. Marcellino Imam. They wanted to know about its activities since he is particularly committed with immigrant situation.

ALBANIA

Thanks to the medical doctor who provides health assistance to the families under blood revenge, volunteers can meet often such families. She provides as well a health education to family members.

The computer course is going one and volunteers are trying to make him creative making small videos. It is a good tool to know the families and to gain their trust.

On June 24th a round table took place trying to gather all the associations in Scutari area that are already working on the issue in order to promote a network. The principal aim was to introduce a common reflection about reconciliation. Participation was not complete, but the debate was really constructive. You can find some of the most importand issues dealt and the whole speech of Simone Mori on the Italian website of Operation Dove (www.operazionecolomba.it). (Simone Mori is Pope John XXIII Community missionary who lives in Albania and is the promoter of the project for family under blood revenge).

COLOMBIA

General situation

During the current month presidential election will begin. Surveys suggest that there will not be a change. It is likely that the winner will be Mr Santos who is outlining a continuity with the previous government. Unlike him, the other candidate Mr Mockus is proposing a refusal to defend the extremes of the Army behaviour, that were not only tolerated by the government but also rewarded. This will have consequences on human right violations.

Sharing and volunteers

Many accompaniments were done, especially toward Mulatos and La Resbalosa veredas, which are in the most critical situation, because of the high presence of military groups and because there were actually various shootouts between the Army and the Guerilla close to presidential elections.

Some fights took place on the paths peasants and volunteers usually walk to reach the veredas thus arising lot of worrying for everybody’s safeness.

KOSOVO

General situation

Gibuti and Somalia governments have recognized Kosovo as a independent state leading to 69 countries members of the United Nations which have done that.

In Mitrovicë/Kos.Mitrovica Kosovan police had to stop some uprising on the occasion of the Serbian parallel local government elections.

In Zallq/Zać, a group of Serbian who recently came back to Kosovo is experiencing violent facts while they are waiting for their houses to be re-build by the Kosovo Government.

Sharings

As a consequence of the harassments in Zallq/Zać, volunteers accompanied a lady from Goraždevac to visit her relatives there, who are temporarily living under military escort. New visits followed, both to Serbian and to Kosovan inhabitants of the small city.

Study group

A meeting was held with A. from “Tavolo Trentino con il Kosovo” in order to gather information about the possible development of the group into an association. Since members of the group were asking to be more active in their territory, it has been decided that in next three months they will operate together with OD volunteers in their daily activities.

Conflict team

The main commitment during the month was to get youths from Goraždevac more involved, but participation was poor.

Youth point rules were designed in order to save all the material available in the centre.

Prishtinë/Priština

The first phase of the photograph project involving youth from Prishtinë/Priština and Gracanicë/Gračanica is getting to the end. Next step is to organise the touring exhibition. Informal meetings between the groups are becoming frequent. Concerts and music events are playing a role in it.

PALESTINE – ISRAEL

General situation

May 2010 will be marked as the month of the insane bloodbath operated by the Israeli Army in International waters against the crew of Freedom Flotilla, which ended with 9 Turkish activist being killed.

In South Hebron Hills May was a month of harvest. This is part of the nonviolent resistance of Palestinians, since many of the fields are close to Ma’on settlement and Havat Ma’on outpost. No violent incidents took place, but one morning the fence which had been built to prevent settler intrusion was partially destroyed. Villagers reported the fact to the police.

On May 27th at night time, the army performed a military training in the village, no civil was involved.

CASTEL VOLTURNO

Background

Tension between the new elected major Scalzone and associations operating in the area is growing. Associations asked for more dialogue and less discrimination and major answered with a public message on Corriere di Caserta marking a violent breach (published May 13^th).

The checking activity of Police is more frequent both on buses and in private houses. Obtaining papers is getting more and more difficult, possibilities for regular job are low and laws don’t help.

Operation Dove

Volunteers decided to join immigrants early in the morning in the places where they gather to find job since many told them about the frequent checking activity of Police and how it is done. This allowed volunteers to get in touch with many workers and to know more deeply their situation, beside monitoring how this checking activity is performed.

Italian lectures are going on as well as after-school activities.

Together with other associations the idea of a “touring office” is arising. Volunteers would collect requests by immigrants and would direct them to the proper association. This would allow volunteers to get closer to people.

ALBANIA

Sharing

Volunteers keep visiting families under blood revenge in the area of Shkoder thanks to the medical doctor who provides health assistance to them. A computer course has started with 6 kids. Some of them stay at home for security reason, volunteers bring their PC in their homes. Some others are collected by volunteers who drive them to S. house where the course is held.

Up to know the course consists in explaining them the basic components of a PC and to teach them how to use a program to process pictures and small videos. Both kids and families are showing a lot of interest in it.

On the morning of Wednesday, 4^thAugust 2010, Palestinians from At-Tuwani found that the fence built between the village and the wood bounding Havat Ma’on outpost had been partially destroyed during the night. The wire netting, funded by ECHO (European Commission for Humanitarian Aid), UAWC (Union of Agricoltural Work Committee) and Save the Children UK, was erected on last March with the aim of protecting the crop by defining the borders of the agricoltural land belonging to Palestinians and in response to the ongoing and rapid expansion of the nearby Ma’on settlement and Havat Ma’on outpost and, consequently, with the effect to protect the village from Israeli settlers raids (such as the events of the 26^thJanuary, see press release at: snipurl.com/w5a99, 12^th June, see press release at: snipurl.com/xluyo).

This morning, Palestinian villagers found 17 poles supporting the fence pulled up on the path running along the Palestinian properties illegally occupied by Havat Ma’on outpost and about 100 mt of net cut in pieces. They suspect that the perpetrators of this action are the Israeli settlers from the outpost. During this year the same fence had already been damaged on May 11^th (see press release: snipurl.com/xmb2w). On that occasion, the owner of the land filed a complaint to the Israeli police but he never received any update concerning the progress of investigation.

This property damage is just the last of several ongoing provocations carried out by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers which South Hebron Hills Palestinian communities have undertaken to respond to with nonviolent struggle.

Pictures of the incident: snipurl.com/106pjr

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma'on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Armed Israeli settlers steal a sheep from a Palestinian shepherd

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma'on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

July 22nd , 2010

At-Tuwani – South Hebron Hills

Yesterday, on Wednesday, 21st of July 2010, three settlers, one of them armed, stole a sheep from a young Palestinian shepherd, a resident of the village of Tuba, while he was watering the flocks at a well situated in Umm Zeitouna valley, which is located between the Israeli settlements of Ma’on and Karmel.

According to the shepherd, at around 8 am two Israeli settler vehicles pulled over on the roadside. A settler exited from one of the two cars, walked to the shepherd’s flock, and after grabbing a sheep by the ear, dragged the animal a few yards before loading it on his shoulders. He then walked away towards the road, where two other settlers, one of them armed, were waiting for him. The animal was loaded into one of the vehicles with the help of two other settlers, while the shepherd remained at a distance filming the theft with a camera from the Israeli association B’Tselem, given to Palestinians in the area to document attacks by settlers.

The young Palestinian pointed out that during the theft, on the road not far from the settlers cars, there was an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) military jeep. Although the soldiers were present during the incident, after a nod by the settlers they left the scene without intervening.

The shepherd then reported the theft of the sheep to Israeli police, who arrived on the scene with Ma’on settlement’s Security Guard and two other settlers identified as Havat Ma’on residents and responsible of previous attacks against Palestinians. The police refused to talk to the shepherd who wanted to make a complaint, saying they did not know Arabic or English and insisting on speaking with the boy’s father, although he was not present at the time of the robbery. A few minutes later the police went to the village of Tuba to pick the parent and bring him to the police station in Kiryat Arba. Then the young shepherd, accompanied by international volunteers, followed his father to the Israeli police station to make a complaint and bring the video of the incident.

Episodes like this are frequent in the South Hebron Hills, where the national-religious settlers from the settlements and the outposts attack Palestinian shepherds and farmers to intimidate and force them to leave their lands. These kinds of illegal actions are usually left unpunished and many of them occur with army and police complicity. The Palestinian community of this area have chosen nonviolence to resist to the continuous abuses of the Israeli settlers and military.
Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the incident: snipurl.com/zpfgg
The video of the incident: snipurl.com/tsth3

Yesterday, 17th July 2010, the Summer Camp for children began in the primary school of At-Tuwani, a small village in the South Hebron Hills. Every morning for two weeks, Palestinian and International trainers will organize games and activities for children from 6 to 14 years old. Part of the Summer Camp will take place in Al Fakheit, a village in the desert further south of At-Tuwani, where the school started only last September to guarantee the right to access education for children. The Israeli military escort started, at the beginning of the summer camp, accompaning the children that daily join the camp from the villages of Tuba and Magayr Al-Abeed.

Since 2001, Israeli settlers from Havat Ma’on outpost have routinely attacked the children on their journey to and from school but it was not until November 2004 that Israeli authorities established a daily military escort.

The soldiers carrying out the escort have at times failed to protect the children, as result from the annual report about the 2009-2010 school year, available in the next few weeks. From the last statistics, in fact, it has emerged that during the last school year the children have been victims of violence by settlers 19 times.

Furthermore, the military failed to provide a consistent escort for the children not walking with them along the path in 75% of the cases, refusing to complete the escort until the end of the settlement in 94% of the cases and forcing them to run in 11 cases.

During the last school year, soldiers have also frequently arrived late, causing the children to wait, sometimes for hours, before and after school. Children missed almost 27 hours of school and waited a total of 53 hours for military escort after school.

The data collected during the 2009-2010 school year will be released in few weeks inside the annual school patrol report. The report documenting the 2008-2009 military escort of the schoolchildren, “The Closed Road to Education. Palestinian students suffer under violent settlement expansion,” is available at: snipurl.com/ubr2w

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Published: June 30, 2010

The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country’s image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant.

On one side of a barbed-wire fence here in the southern Hebron hills is the Bedouin village of Umm al-Kheir, where Palestinians live in ramshackle tents and huts. They aren’t allowed to connect to the electrical grid, and Israel won’t permit them to build homes, barns for their animals or even toilets. When the villagers build permanent structures, the Israeli authorities come and demolish them, according to villagers and Israeli human rights organizations.

On the other side of the barbed wire is the Jewish settlement of Karmel, a lovely green oasis that looks like an American suburb. It has lush gardens, kids riding bikes and air-conditioned homes. It also has a gleaming, electrified poultry barn that it runs as a business.

Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, nodded toward the poultry barn and noted: “Those chickens get more electricity and water than all the Palestinians around here.”

It’s fair to acknowledge that there are double standards in the Middle East, with particular scrutiny on Israeli abuses. After all, the biggest theft of Arab land in the Middle East has nothing to do with Palestinians: It is Morocco’s robbery of the resource-rich Western Sahara from the people who live there.

None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year — a real improvement in quality of life — but the system is intrinsically malignant.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that I’ve long admired, took me to the southern Hebron hills to see the particularly serious inequities Palestinians face here. Apparently because it covets this area for settlement expansion, Israel has concocted a series of feeble excuses to drive out Palestinians from villages here or make their lives so wretched that they leave on their own.

“It’s an ongoing attempt by the authorities to push people out,” said Sarit Michaeli, a B’Tselem spokeswoman.

In the village of Tuba, some Palestinian farmers live in caves off the grid because permanent structures are destroyed for want of building permits that are never granted. The farmers seethe as they struggle to collect rainwater while a nearby settlement, Maon, luxuriates in water piped in by the Israeli authorities.

“They plant trees and gardens and have plenty of water,” complained Ibrahim Jundiya, who raises sheep and camels in Tuba. “And we don’t even have enough to drink. Even though we were here before them.”

Mr. Jundiya said that when rainwater runs out, his family must buy tankers of water at a price of $11 per cubic meter. That’s at least four times what many Israelis and settlers pay.

Violent clashes with Israeli settlers add to the burden. In Tuba, Palestinian children walking to elementary school have sometimes been attacked by Israeli settlers. To protect the children, foreign volunteers from Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove began escorting the children in the 2004-05 school year — and then settlers beat the volunteers with chains and clubs, according to human rights reports and a news account from the time.

Attacks on foreign volunteers get more attention than attacks on Palestinians, so the Israeli Army then began to escort the Palestinian children of Tuba to and from elementary school. But the soldiers don’t always show up, the children say, and then the kids take an hour and a half roundabout path to school to avoid going near the settlers.

For their part, settlers complain about violence by Palestinians, and it’s true that there were several incidents in this area between 1998 and 2002 in which settlers were killed. Partly because of rock-throwing clashes between Arabs and Israelis, the Israeli Army often keeps Palestinians well away from Israeli settlements — even if Palestinian farmers then cannot farm their own land.

Meanwhile, the settlements continue to grow, seemingly inexorably — and that may be the most odious aspect of the occupation.

In other respects, some progress is evident. Mr. Orian’s Israeli aid group — Community, Energy and Technology in the Middle East — has installed windmills and solar panels to provide a bit of electricity for Palestinians kept off the grid. And attacks from settlers have dropped significantly, in part because B’Tselem has equipped many Palestinian families with video cameras to document and deter assaults.

Still, a pregnant 19-year-old Palestinian woman in the village of At-Tuwani was hospitalized this month after an attack by settlers.

Israel has a point when it argues that relinquishing the West Bank would raise real security concerns. But we must not lose sight of the most basic fact about the occupation: It’s wrong.

June 22nd, 2010

At-Tuwani – Ten days after the attack launched by masked settlers from Havat Ma’on illegal outpost to the village of At-Tuwani, settlers keep on threatening Palestinians. Since the attack happened, every night groups of settlers have been seen walking along the road just outside the outpost. At the same time, the Israeli police and army patrolled the road to control settlers’ activity.
The threat of further aggression became more concrete yesterday night, 21st of June. Palestinians living in the most exposed house of the village claimed that several settlers approached their house, dazzling them with the light of their torches to avoid being recognized. Settlers started to shout against Palestinians saying they will soon launch a new attack at the village.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

“WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING IS ALL WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE … EXPEL THE ARABS. KICK THEM OUT!”
Yehoshafat Tor, a settler, Mt. Hebron

VIEW HERE: Eye-opening video from our investigation into Israel’s small but dangerous extremist settlers movement. Their long-term agenda is a war against the secular Israeli state itself.

Their vision: Restore the Kingdom of Israel, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. And more Jewish settlements in the West Bank — plus the expulsion of all Arabs from Jewish land — are at the heart of their strategy.

While outgoing Prime Minister Olmert backed a Palestinian state during his three years in office, settler population during that time grew by 35,000 to 285,000 in the West Bank. Overall, settlement growth in ’08 was 69 percent higher than in ’07.

So how will Prime MInister Netanyahu confront this explosive issue?