Simon Moyle wrote: At dawn on December 9 2005 a group of four Christians, Bryan Law, Adele Goldie, Donna Mulhearn and Jim Dowling conducted a citizens inspection of the Pine Gap Military base near Alice Springs. Calling themselves Christians Against ALL Terrorism, they wanted to bring some moral and intellectual integrity to the terrorism debate by investigating Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war. Pine Gap is a US base that gathers military intelligence and uses a satellite tracking system to pinpoint targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. It provides a much larger contribution to the Iraq war than any amount of Australian troops, yet we know very little about its activities, which are shrouded in secrecy (even our government is not allowed to know what goes on there!). The four were arrested inside the compound, and charged under the Defence (Special Undertakings) Act, a piece of Cold-War legislation that has never been used, and now face a maximum of 9 years in prison for their actions.

I write this to invite you to consider supporting this group in your prayers and in other ways. They are people who, driven by their faith in Jesus, have taken the way of the cross in costly peacemaking. As a human shield in Iraq when war first broke out, Donna was able to witness first-hand the devastation being wreaked there, and the death and mayhem that continues today. The trial begins May 29th, and they can use all the support and solidarity they can get from the Australian public, and particularly from churches who support their message of peace. Whether or not you agree with their actions, I encourage you to talk about it, think about it, and be challenged by their commitment to peacemaking.

More information is available at their website http://www.pinegap6.org. If you’d like to know how you can help, please contact me, as there are many things you can do at many different levels. I commend them to you.

Grace and peace, Simon

If this task of building a peaceful world is the most important task of our time, it is also the most difficult. It will, in fact, require far more discipline, more sacrifice, more planning, more thought, more co-operation and more heroism than war ever demanded. — Thomas Merton

And as a footnote to Simon’s email, I’d strongly encourage you all to listen to Father John Dear (ABC radio national) – brilliant!

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/events/easter2007/

audioavailable if you scroll down the page

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Shalom! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.org.au/ (20,000 articles 4000 humor)