Video shows missing peacemakers alive in Iraq.

A video shown by Al Jazeera television on Jan. 28 showed four Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members alive in Iraq, but included a renewed death threat if the US does not release its prisoners in Iraq.

CPT has its roots in the Historic Peace Churches (Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, and Quaker) and is an ecumenical violence-reduction program that places teams of trained peacemakers in areas of lethal conflict. It has been present in Iraq since Oct. 2002, providing humanitarian aid in the form of training and human rights documentation.

The four peacemakers--Tom Fox, 54, from Clearbrook, Va.; Norman Kember, 74, from London, England; James Loney, 41, from Toronto, Canada; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from Montreal, Canada--have been missing since Nov. 26. A videotape in November claimed that the CPT volunteers had been taken hostage by a previously unknown group called Swords of Righteousness Brigades. Since December, when the group issued a deadline for the US to release all prisoners in Iraq or the peacemakers would be killed, nothing further had been heard from the four men.

"We are so grateful and heartened to see James, Harmeet, Norman, and Tom alive on the videotape dated Jan. 21," said a release from CPT. "This news is an answer to our prayers. We continue to hope and pray for their release."

"All of us in Christian Peacemaker Teams remain very disturbed by the abduction of our teammates," the release continued. "We pray that those who hold them will host them with the grace that so many of us in CPT have received as guests in Iraq. James, Harmeet, Norman, and Tom are peace workers who have not collaborated with the occupation of Iraq and who have worked for justice for all Iraqis, especially those detained."

Church of the Brethren leaders, the Brethren Witness/Washington Office, and On Earth Peace have made statements calling for the release of the peacemakers (see http://www.brethren.org/genbd/newsline/2005/dec0505.htm and http://www.brethren.org/genbd/newsline/2005/nov2905.htm), joining other religious groups and leaders around the world including Palestinian and Iraqi Muslim leaders along with the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches in the US. Some Church of the Brethren congregations and groups also have held prayer vigils for the peacemakers.

"The first pictures since last November of the Christian peacemakers held captive in Iraq shows the four men looking haggard and gaunt," the National Council of Churches (NCC) said in a press release. "Friends of the prisoners continue to reflect on the irony that the shadowy kidnappers selected these devout peace advocates and open critics of the Iraq war to make their point."

For more about Christian Peacemaker Teams see www.cpt.org.

Source: 2/1/2006 Newsline
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