By Cliff Kindy
27 January 2005

The thirteen people in the circle were activists, committed to human rights. On this day Peggy Gish invited the circle to examine the topic of trauma as part of the five-day training that CPT Iraq brought to the group in Kerbala.

The nine Iraqis hemmed and hawed after Nadia, the facilitator for the day, held up a red paper heart and asked them to tell a story of trauma and then tear out a piece of the heart to indicate symbolically how each was wounded by the trauma. “The heart isn’t big enough to show all the pain we each have experienced.” “Every Iraqi could tell stories without end.” Finally two of the CPTers told an example of trauma in their lives.

The floodgate opened.

Donna Mulhearn has spent the last week in the Palestinian West Bank “sleepy farming town” of Saida under curfew and military occupation with its people. The following are her last three letters and photos describing the effects of this military occupation of a small village.

27 January - 1 February 2005

House arrest in Palestine

By Donna Mulhearn
27 January

Dear friends,

I am writing this by candlelight in a family living room in the Palestinian West Bank town of Saida where I am currently under military-enforced house arrest, along with 3,500 others. The living room of my adopted home is packed full of people. Grandma with the white scarf and wise face and several of her 13 children: four cheerful sisters with their various tribes of children, three younger brothers and several cousins.

They have no choice but to stay inside. If they open their front door they will be confronted by the machine gun of one of the hundreds of heavily armed Israeli soldiers who invaded and occupied this sleepy farming town three days ago.