My Friend Norman has Been Taken Hostage in Iraq!

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Wednesday November 30, 2005 12:57 by Ciaron O'Reilly - Dublin Catholic Worker 087 918 4552

I have known Norman Kember for the past ten years. We have met through mutual nonviolent activism against the arms trade, nuclear weapons and opposing the various wars that unfolded while I was living in England ('96-'02)....on Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq.

We are both faith based activists. Norman is a Baptist minister and active with the Baptist Peace Fellowship and Fellowship for Reconciliation. He is 74 years of age. He is a pacifist and a humble man. He is a father and a grandfather and now a hostage in Iraq.

It is surreal watching Sky and seeing Norman pictured under two crossed swords as a communique is read out claiming he and his three colleagues are spies.

Christan Peacemaker Teams have responded to the question raised by Dan Berrigan during the long war on Vietnam...
" the war continues, because the making of war is total,
peacemaking by our own cowardice remains partial,
we wage peace with half a heart and will"

Christian Peacemaking Teams have asked the question what would happen if Christians took the making of peace as seriously as warriors taking the waging of war. CPT nonviolent interventions flow out of this spirit of nonviolence, solidarity and responsibility.

The broader Christian church like most elements of civic society in the West remains silent and sedated in the face of this ongoing illegal war on Iraq. The Muslim hostages being shipped through Shannon on the way to Guantenamo remain invisible and secreted.

Norman and friends are visible. We call for their immediate release. As Norman has done before, we call for the release of all hostages of this war from the gulags and cells of Iraq to Guantenamo.

LINK BELOW Christian Peacemakers Teams.......