Christian Peacemakers Team in Iraq

Tom Fox

Four human rights workers kidnapped in Iraq were recently identified as individuals associated with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an organization devoted to reducing violence in areas of lethal conflict around the world. The workers have been missing since Nov. 26.

Chantal Logan, assistant professor of French, was one of the first at EMU to hear the news. When Logan heard that a group had been taken hostage in Iraq and that some of them were Canadians she wondered if there might be MCC personnel involved. The American news sources would not give the names of the persons or the supporting organization at that point, but when she turned to French news sources, she discovered that the hostages were from CPT.

Two days later, CPT publically confirmed the identities of those being held. One of them, Tom Fox, had attended EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) before he left for Iraq. CPT workers abducted were American Tom Fox, 54, of Clearbrook, Va., Briton Norman Kember, 74, of London, and Canadians James Loney, 41, of Toronto, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, of Montreal. "We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," CPT said in the Nov. 30 update.

"We fear that whoever is holding them has made a mistake," the CPT website, www.cpt.org, quoted the Iraq Team. "Norman, Tom, James, and Harmeet are four men who came to Iraq to work for peace and explain their opposition to the occupation. They are not spies."

According to their website, CPT has been working in Iraq to provide first-hand, independent reports from the region, work with detainees of both United States and Iraqi forces, and train others in non-violent intervention and human rights documentation. Team members were aware of the risks in Iraq, but expressed their hope in a Statement of Conviction that "in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation."