Published March 3, 2006

Since the bombing of the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra on February 22, 2006, the CPT Iraq team has been deluged with information from local media. Almost immediately we learned that the US military and Iraqi police were seen at the shrine the night before it was bombed. The next morning, two shrine guards were found alive but handcuffed inside. The Minister of Housing and Reconstruction said it would take 10 men working 10 to 12 hours to set up enough explosives to do this kind of damage. We have not heard this reported outside of Iraq. While the US made immediate gestures to rebuild the shrine, the Iraqi Islamic Party asked that repair be delayed in lieu of an independent investigation and the citizens of Samarra have locked down the shrine in order to preserve evidence.

While the city of Baghdad and some of the surrounding provinces were under strict curfew, CPT received calls from friends who described mosques under attack and gun battles in neighborhoods. A village was burned down by men dressed in black. The next day the same village was attacked by the Iraqi military, the Mehdi army and US Apache helicopters. A day later we heard that the TV station which aired the attack was bombed.

One night, team members counted the thuds as mortars were dropped on a neighborhood across the river. We've listened to gun battles, watched the smoke rise from a car bombing in our neighborhood and sat with our neighbors as they wept in despair. We've received reports of sectarian cleansing and mass deportations. The team has searched the prisons for friends taken in raids and gone to the morgue to identify the dead. Each night we try to make sense of what appears to be senseless and keep ourselves from falling into despair. We continuously ask ourselves who benefits from this.

In spite of the above and contrary to the New York Times focus on ethnic hatred, sectarian violence, and civil war, we receive news that almost all the world media ignores. A good friend of the team has taken on the role of the roving reporter and calls us daily with stories of Sunni/Shia unity, cries for peace, and deep passion of all Iraqis to live as one family. In neighborhoods that have been hotbeds of violence in the past, we hear of Sunni and Shia working together to repair and rebuild some of the damaged mosques. We are told of Shia neighbors who gather to protect Sunni mosques. In a Basrah shrine, Sunni and Shia gather to pray together.

We continue in our efforts to build a Sunni, Shia and Christian coalition to develop a human rights campaign for all people in Iraq. We learned of a cell phone campaign in which words of peace and unity have been systematically text messaged on people's cell phones. Human Rights groups continue to gather and plan for NGO conventions, teenagers attend classes in nonviolent conflict resolution classes and hope for the future still remains.

While people in power work to manipulate events and pit one group against another, military advisors trained in counterinsurgency plot terror campaigns behind closed doors and government officials rise one day and fall the next, thousands of heroic acts of love and kindness amongst the people in this tattered country go on unnoticed by most of the world. There is still a grassroots movement to build a decent Iraqi society.

Michele Naar-Obed, from the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth, Minnesota, has been with Christian Peacemaker Teams since 2002. She returned to Iraq in mid-January on her fourth tour of duty there.