November 2000

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

An International Nonviolent Peace Force for the New Millennium

Mel Duncan and David Hartsough work with Peacemakers, 721 Shrader St., San Francisco, CA 94117; 415/751-0302. This is an abridged version of their article which first appeaced in Tikkun magazine.

The new millennium finds us at a significant crossroads. Will we see an incessant stream of devastating arms conflicts and just as devastating sanctions, or will we find an alternative more worthy of human ingenuity and compassion?

Over the last 20 years, a remarkable development in international peacemaking promises an optimistic answer. Beneath the notice of the world media, modest-sized non-governmental organizations like Peace Brigades International, Balkan Peace Teams, Witness for Peace, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Peaceworkers, and dozens more have been fielding "peace teams" that offer "protective accompaniment" to threatened persons and interfere with the war process through nonviolent intervention.

When the US-backed Contras were trying to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, a North American-based organization called Witness for Peace began sending delegations to document the "low intensity conflict." Hundreds of international volunteers stayed in Nicaraguan villages, picking cotton and coffee, and helping to rebuild the war-damaged infrastructure. Soon they found they were doing something else they hadn't dreamt of; no Nicaraguan village was ever attacked by the Contras while the internationals were present. Protective accompaniment was born.

Long-term presence like this has proven to be the most desirable form of action, but there are always going to be conflicts that flare up suddenly and cry for a "rapid response"--a rapid, compassionate response. On the Philippine island of Negros in 1989, 500 villagers who had taken refuge in a church hall were being threatened by death squads when Bishop Antonio Fortich (who had heard about PBI and Witness for Peace) called on worldwide religious leaders for help. Twenty-five representatives were there in the church hall within twenty-four hours, declaring that they too would undergo anything done to the refugees and the world would know of it. That threat fizzled.

But such quick responses have been the exception. The peace movement has lacked a credible, coherent, and comprehensive response to brutal aggression throughout the last decade. Some international activists did stand with endangered people in nonviolent solidarity, but it was often too little, too late, and ignored by the world media.

There is now hope we can make some kind of international peace force a reality in our lifetimes. Effective examples of this type of third-party nonviolent intervention have grown dramatically in the last 20 years: Peace teams have "seen action" in Colombia, Guatemala, the Balkans, the US, Israel-Palestine, Mexico, and Nicaragua, to name a few battlegrounds. Most of these groups are undertaking small-scale, highly specialized activities, but in each case they are an active presence, reducing levels of violence and supporting local peacemakers. They are saving lives, creating a space for civil society, and creating the invaluable knowledge and experience base. As a result of their efforts, the world now has a cadre of experienced nonviolent peace-workers, qualified trainers, and a unique set of organizational techniques on which to draw. Funders have expressed an interest. We should not forget that by now ordinary people in hundreds of thousands have demonstrated willingness to resist repressive regimes nonviolently even in this violence-torn era.

Last spring, a proposal to create an international, multi-ethnic standing peace force trained in nonviolent strategies that could be deployed to violent areas was drafted at the Hague Appeal for Peace.

We have recently entered a new stage of organizing that includes the formation of an interim steering committee with advisors from throughout the world, and a growing list of endorsers, including Nobel laureates the Dalai Lama, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, and Jose Ramos Horta of East Timor. In May the People's Millennium Forum at the UN included a peace force in its formal recommendations.

An international peace force would represent what many people across the political spectrum feel is our only hope for an alternative to increasingly large-scale military interventions. Building on the important peace teamwork already happening, this project would bring peacemaking to a dramatic new level. Effective interventions have sometimes been carried out with fewer than a dozen hastily trained volunteers. What could we not do with, say, 200 people committed to two years of training and active nonviolent engagement, with thousands of supporters, and an effective organization at their backs?

When Mahatma Gandhi fell to an assassin's bullets in 1948, he was about to go to what would have been a historic meeting to establish a nonviolent shanti sena, or "peace army" on a grand scale. That dream did not die with him.

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