Taking Action
Building a Nonviolent Army
'There is no better legacy we can leave than an
effective nonviolent peace force.'
By David Hartsough and Mel Duncan
Source: SojoNet 2001
(c) http://www.sojo.net
from SoJo, the web presence of Sojourners
magazine
[posted here on 8-11-01]
For decades people have dreamed, strategized, and organized around the
vision of a nonviolent peace force. Mahatma Gandhi was building the
Shanti Sena (Peace Army) when he was assassinated. More recently, Peace
Brigades International (PBI), Witness for Peace, and others have
advanced the concept of nonviolent intervention with important successes
in Central America. For example, after two grassroots leaders were
murdered in the mid-1980s, Peace Brigades provided unarmed bodyguards to
human rights activists in Guatemala; no more leaders of the grassroots
organization were killed.
The courageous work of that grassroots organization -- known as the
Mutual Support Group -- led to a reopening of civil society in
Guatemala. "Thanks to their presence, I am alive," said Nineth
Garcia Montenegro, formerly a leader of the group and now a member of
the Guatemalan congress. "That is an indisputable truth."
Peace Brigades International, recently nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize, has 35 unarmed accompaniers in Colombia who are effectively
protecting human rights workers and others in the zones of peace.
Christian Peacemaker Teams has two small teams providing a peaceful
presence in Israel/Palestine. Germany has begun fielding a civilian
peace service.
The vision of a global nonviolent peace force came to Mel Duncan in a
Buddhist monastery where Thich Nhat Hanh teaches. "We have too many
people taking sides," Thich Nhat Hanh explains. "See that the
most essential thing is life." A similar vision came to David
Hartsough in a Serbian jail where he had been locked up for supporting
the Kosovar Albanian nonviolent movement. When Kosovo exploded in early
1998, the world did not respond to the invitation of the Kosovar
nonviolent movement for international nonviolent observers.
We (Mel and David) first met almost a year later, in May 1999, at the
Hague Appeal for Peace. There, as U.S. bombers pounded Serbia and Kosovo,
activists began to explore how to create larger-scale nonviolent
intervention. Based on our meetings at The Hague, we developed a
proposal for a global nonviolent peace force.
The mission of the Global Nonviolent Peace Force is to organize and
train an international standing peace force that could be sent to
conflict areas to prevent death and destruction and protect human
rights, thus creating the space for local groups to struggle
nonviolently, enter into dialogue, and seek peaceful resolution. A
dynamic research team led by Christine Schweitzer of Germany, former
head of the Balkan Peace Teams, is analyzing conflict situations where
large-scale nonviolent intervention would be effective, reviewing
nonviolent "best practices," and cataloguing training
resources.
In Asia, Hartsough found Japanese activists, Filipino religious leaders,
and Cambodian monks ready to join the effort. The Dalai Lama heads an
impressive list of endorsers from six continents that includes Nobel
Peace Prize laureates Mairead Maguire, Oscar Arias, Rigoberta Menchu,
and Jose Ramos Horta.
The People's Millennial Assembly at the United Nations included the
Peace Force as part of its formal recommendations. Sheikh Hasina, the
prime minister of Bangladesh, urged her colleagues to support the Peace
Force at the Head of State Millennial Summit last September. She wrote,
"There will be no better legacy that we can leave... than to have
in place an effective Global Nonviolent Peace Force by the end of the
decade."
The organizational, communications, and funding capacities to sustain a
large-scale global nonviolent peace force are being gathered and an
international convening event next spring will officially launch the
operation. At that time we will also begin recruiting the first corps
for a two-year commitment. We anticipate the first group will be sent to
a conflict area by early 2003.
Profound questions remain about the use of nonviolence in large-scale
conflicts -- but even more disturbing questions surround the reliance on
military force "for peace." Surely it is time to devote our
energies to a way of preventing and ending violence and wars that honors
life and leaves hope for the peaceful development of human destiny.
