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CPT Team
Joins Las Abejas in Lenten Presence on Military Base from CPTNet accounts
For five weeks, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams’ (CPT) Chiapas
team accompanied members of Las Abejas (The Bees), a Mayan Indian group
that is committed to nonviolent action, in their presence at a civic
action camp of the Mexican Army located half a kilometer from the settlement
of over 1000 displaced Abejas near X’oyep. (See Las
Abejas: Nonviolence on the Line, PTNv3i2.)
Las Abejas is the group of people who suffered the massacre of forty-five
of their members in December, 1997, while they prayed and fasted in
Acteal. Thousands of them have been forced to flee from their homes
because of paramilitary threats in the counties of Chenalho and Polho.
As part of a “winning hearts and minds” strategy of the Mexican Army,
thirty to fifty soldiers have taken over land near one of the displaced
people’s settlements, and offer food, medical and dental attention,
and other services, which the people have refused. Previously, Abejas
have entered the camp area and planted corn there, reclaiming the land
for themselves and life.
After Ash Wednesday, they entered the camp, constructed a shelter of
blue tarps (exactly like the shelters the displaced people are living
in) and began presence that included at least three CPTers and three
to ten Abejas who were fasting and praying every four hours around the
clock. On Easter, they rearranged the white rocks that mark the helipad
to say “Paz” (peace). They engaged in many conversations with (somewhat
puzzled) soldiers and officers, consistently asking them to lay down
their arms and leave the land. The presence remained peaceful, as was
Las Abejas’ departure after Easter services. But they plan to return
to tend and harvest their corn.
For more information regarding CPT and its projects in Chiapas, Mexico;
Hebron, West Bank; Vieques, Puerto Rico; and Burnt Church, New Brunswick,
see: www.prairienet.org/cpt/.
A Calendar link has the dates and sites of upcoming short-term teams
(delegations), and CPTNet has detailed stories about their work.
For more on Las Abejas see PTNv5i3, Fall 2000.
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