News Flash, December 25:
Three weeks ago the U.S. government had announced plans for air strikes against the country of Iraq because Saddham Hussein's forces the previous week took over a 20 square mile section of Turkey, claiming it as its own historically. Turkey had called on its ally, the U.S., for military intervention.
20,000 nonviolent peacemakers from North America, Europe, Central and South America, Asia and Africa, came to Iraq and the tiny disputed section of Turkey. They were welcomed by those governments. The peacemakers took no public stand on Iraq's action in Turkey, but called for just negotiations rather than a military "solution" of the problem. Thousands camped outside or stayed in homes of Iraqi people in all major cities and towns of the country, and were present at all utility and power plants that comprised the country's infrastructure.
Witnesses have been amazed at the discipline, skill and democratic organization of the venture. It was obvious that all had undergone nonviolence training and had pledged to adhere to the nonviolent discipline. The international coordinating committee informed Washington of the exact sites where all peacemakers wereall the probable targets of U.S. missiles and bombers.
About 500 were prepared to stay for six months or longer as long-term delegates, while all the rest were to stay from two to four weeks, with others lined up to replace them in a continuous rotation plan.
After three weeks, when it was apparent to Washington that the peacemakers had the commitment, person power and logistics to continue the nonviolent campaign indefinitely, the U.S. government announced it had arrived at a diplomatic solution to the problem with the Iraqi and Turkish governments.
Looking Back to the Future
That type of scenario was not just drummed up today in someone's head. Mahatma Gandhi articulated it before the 1920s, and began the formation of the Shanti Sena (Peace Brigades) in India. He wanted to utilize such a nonviolent army to quell riots between Hindus and Muslims in his country and to counter a feared Japanese invasion there during World War II. He said it was "blasphemy" to say it would not work among nations.
In the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. and James M. Lawson, Jr. drew up plans for a "ten thousand person nonviolent army" to serve in the civil rights struggle. We know the results.
In the 1980s, a Shanti Sena was formed in India in the spirit of Gandhi. Witness For Peace (WFP) began its peace team presence in Central America. Peace Brigades International (PBI) began in Central America and Sri Lanka. By the end of the decade Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) formed and began to send out teams. The Global Peace Service (GPS) was born as a movement to create structures and prepare large numbers of nonviolent peacemakers for such a worldwide service.
Experiences Out in the Field
Someone has said that today we are about where Marconi and Edison were soon after the discovery of electricity. We have this awesome power, and have hardly begun to utilize it-- the power of nonviolent action in conflict and war zones.
The "experiment in truth" with peace teams up to now has been primarily on a small scale. In the early 1980s a delegation of U.S. citizens stood with the Nicaraguan citizens of Jalapa in protest against the U.S.-armed Contras. A Nicaraguan said, "Because you've been here this week, the Contras haven't attacked." Thus, WFP was born. For eleven years now it has sent delegations to Central America most often composed of from a handful to perhaps a dozen peacemakers. They have found that unarmed international nonviolent peacemakers cut down violence, provide support and advocacy for oppressed people, document humnan rights abuses, and come home on fire to change U.S. military policy and educate citizens about the issues.
Ernesto Cardinal, Nicaraguan Minister of Culture during the Contra war said of WFP and other peacemakers: "We need more of these groups and we need them quickly. Wherever they have been there has been no violence."
One form of peace team work is accompanyment. Thousands of Guatemalans had been driven from their homes by the brutal Guatemalan army. The refugees fled to southern Mexico. They have been returning home accompanied by many groups of peacemakers as a protection against military brutality.
PBI began with the big vision of large peace teams in war zones, but its mission evolved into being a protection for individuals targeted by death squads. Even Nazi-like military and para military groups do not want the world watching them kill such peacemakers. With PBI delegates as "bodyguards" targeted peasant organizers, church workers, human rights lawyers, etc., are not attacked.
Christian Peacemaker Teams has had a continuous presence for over a year in the city of Jeremie, Haiti. Perhaps from three to a dozen peacemakers have been there at any given time. Just this past October, the Chief of Police of the city said of them: "I am ashamed and embarrassed that those foreigners in St. Helens have been doing the work of keeping the people secure for the past year."
The Problems of Numbers
I was part of the Mir Sada peace team effort in Bosnia in August of 1993. Perhaps as many as 2,500 peacemakers came from all over Europe and North America (plus four from Mexico) to caravan into Sarajevo which was being shelled by Bosnian Serbs at the time. Thousands of families of the city were inviting us to live for those two weeks in their homes! We quickly found out that many coming had not been trained in nonviolence and did not adhere to the structure and discipline required for being part of the project. Organizational structure broke down, and in the heat of war the organizers called off the project. We never got to Sarajevo.
One thing that was clear to me was that there was no lack of courage, ingenuity and willingness to put up with hardship in a war zone by the majority who were there. I learned that it will take more work to ground individuals in nonviolence and skills, screen applicants, and have a system of deciding who may not go. It will also take more to work out the logistics for large groups in a war zone: food, water, communications systems, medical teams and equipment, reconnaissance expertese, etc. One hugh problem is that of money: how do you get the funds to organize and maintain such a nonviolent army in a war zone? (How about the $263 billion dollar Pentagon budget?)
Should We Use Existing Structures
The GPS believes the United Nations should be an integral part of the creation of large peace team ventures. It has structures, money, expertese, connections and global influence. Some think peace teams could evolve out of the peacekeeping structures of the U.N. Frank O'Donnell, Chief of the Humanitarian Relief Unit of the U.N. Volunteers is already setting up the organizational structure to field peace team projects in Bosnia, Burundi and the Caucasus. Some also urge the involvement of NGOs, which are nongovernmental organizations accredited to the United Nations.
Many in the peace movement, such as myself, do not want to hand over the task to the United Nations. We believe the United Nations is steered by political and economic decisions, mainly for the advantage of the First World nations. The Gulf War is a recent obscene example of that.
I believe that citizen peacemaker groups have to create the reality. When there are obvious success stories, the United Nations might imitate it because it works; but citizens must never turn peace team peacemaking over to the United Nations. We need to learn from the United Nations, militaries and other such groups how to create the logistics to make it possible. We must also find the best ways to fund it all. We don't have those answersyet.
Goran Backstrand of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Laison Office at the United Nations said we should use the Red Cross in this peacemaking capacity. He said at the 1993 GPS Consultation: "I think the time has come that this Red Cross/Red Crescent movement shall be more usedto prevent war You should look upon these Red Cross members, the 110 million around the world, as a sleeping giant." What a powerful thing that would be if the 110 million would become peacemakers as well as humanitarian aid workers.
Domestic Peace Teams
Daniel Alejandrez of Barrios Unidos in Santa Cruz told us at that GPS Consultation: "Is the GPS important? It's very important right here. It's very important in Watts, Chicago, Santa Cruz, East L.A., Omaha. In all these areas there is violence happening, and we need you. In California we have a war." Leigh Carter of WFP told us that someone has taken the Witness for Peace model and begun an organization that works in the urban areas of Charlotte, NC, with gangs. She said there are also delegations to U.S. migrant farm workers. Recently CPT began a peace team project in a Washington, D.C. neighborhood with serious crime problems. They have begun nonviolence training for people living there. They are helping to set up citizen patrols, facilitate gun control efforts, and track crime. They are exploring a program of accompanyment for domestic abuse victims. In their October report the delegates report that "this project is often more about community organizing than it is about peacemaking. Not that the two are incompatible by any means." In the future a large peace team could be fielded when a serious civil disorder breaks out in an urban area, instead of waiting for a governor to send in the National Guard.
A Piece of the Venture in Michigan
Michigan Faith and Resistance Peace Team is an ongoing project of Michigan Faith and Resistance, a faith-based peace and justice movement in the state. The idea of a Peace Team grew out of the desire to respond when the United States attacked or invaded countries like Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, and Iraq, instead of using true diplomacy to resolve conflicts.
Our major focus is to train thousands of peacemakers for present peace team projects and those to come-- big and small, domestic and overseas. We are conducting Training Workshops that help individuals shape their own lives in the ways of nonviolence and that provide the opportunity to develop skills of communication, creative nonviolent response in crisis situations, working cooperatively in crisis, and more. Role plays, strategy games, quick decision-making and situation analysis exercises are some of the important tools used for developing skills.
Networking is another important role for us. We network with groups that organize peace team projects and those that have current information on crisis situations. We network with people by advertizing upcoming projects needing volunteers and by sharing information we obtain.
We provide these services not only in Michigan, but throughout the Midwest, and beyond. Call on us!
There is one thing I have come to know. Developing a nonviolent heart and learning skills in one area, such as ending neighborhood violence, apply in another areas, such as peace team ventures in overseas war zones. Many individuals could go on short-term delegations in domestic or overseas war zones, utilizing nonviolence skills they learned in the peace movement, neighborhood and school conflict resolution programs, or elsewhere. The dream is great. It is realizable. It will take a lot of work. It is taking shape. And it is exciting!