NEW GROUP SEEKS TO REALISE OLD DREAM
December 2002

Over 130 peace workers from 47 countries are meeting for five days outside New Delhi to create an unarmed alternative to military peacekeeping forces. Mahatma Gandhi was trying to create such a "peace army" when he was killed not far away 55 years ago.

The participants include a former head of state, Sheikh Hasina, who now leads the opposition party in Bangladesh; parliamentarians; conflict resolution specialists; former diplomats; and veterans of nonviolent interventions in conflicts across the globe. Israelis and Palestinians, black and white Zimbabweans, Serbs and Croats are working together to create the Nonviolent Peaceforce.

The Nonviolent Peaceforce project is the latest effort to create an unarmed civilian alternative to military intervention in conflicts. Mahatma Gandhi had begun organizing a conference to create what he called "Shanti Sena", literally Peace Army, when he was cut down by an assassin's bullet. The current effort began at the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace Conference and is the first major citizen's initiative to achieve the goals of the UN's Decade of a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. Seven of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates who persuaded the United Nations to proclaim the Decade have endorsed the Nonviolent Peaceforce, including Lech Walesa, Oscar Arias and the Dalai Lama.

At the opening session, noted Gandhian Rajiv Vora quoted Mahatma Gandhi, whose life and writings are the source for most nonviolent activists throughout the last century: "Nonviolence is as old as the hills." Vora clearly sees nonviolence as an idea whose time has come. He heralded the Nonviolent Peaceforce as the first citizen's
initiative of the United Nation Decade of a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence.

The nonviolent heritage and its applicability to contemporary conflicts were constant themes on the opening day of the conference. In her opening address, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina reviewed the history of war and the history of nonviolence through concrete examples. She concluded "We must forge a world wide grand alliance for peace." Gandhi's granddaughter Ela, herself a Member of the South African Parliament, told
participants she saw the Nonviolent Peaceforce "as the necessary intervention to stop the cycle of war and violence."

Over the next three days, the 130 delegates will choose a governing board representative of all six populated continents, ratify a bare-bones constitution and decide on the site of the Nonviolent Peaceforce's first mission.

NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE LAUNCHED!

The final day of the Nonviolent Peaceforce Convening Event began with the participants sitting in silence, and ended with an exchange of prayers and reflections at the spot where Mahatma Gandhi died. On the final day of plenary meetings, delegates discussed organizational issues, heard reports from regional groups and proposed a work agenda to the newly selected International Governing Council.

It was a day of looking to both the future and the past. As the delegates spoke about the tasks to be accomplished over the short term, some looked to the far future. One reflected that it would take "fifty years, at least, to begin to make this (the Nonviolent Peaceforce) a reality." The day ended with a pilgrimage to the site where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated nearly fifty-five years ago. It was his granddaughter Ela Gandhi's first visit to the site; she is a member of Parliament in South Africa and was an early supporter of the Peaceforce proposal.

As the delegates and staff solemnly filed by the spot where Gandhi died, they gathered nearby for a period of prayer and reflection. One of the Indian delegates chanted Gandhi's favorite Hindu prayer, followed by a Pakistani delegate who led the group in an Islamic prayer. Others followed in their own traditions, including a Tibetan Buddhist chant, the Hail Mary in Spanish and the Lord's Prayer in both French and English. Ms. Gandhi ended the reflection with a short reading from her grandfather's writings.

Asked what each would carry back to her or his country, many responded with affirmations of solidarity or proclamations of hope. Claudia Samayoa, Guatemala, had been on the Interim Steering Committee and was selected for the International Governing Council. She summed up the four days this way:
"We have committed many mistakes over the past few days, and will make more tomorrow, but we will learn from our mistakes. And we will grow and expand the Nonviolent Peaceforce in our own countries, in our regions and around the world."

David Hartsough, one of the first to work on the Nonviolent Peaceforce project, said, "Behind the shrine are footsteps marking the steps Gandhi took from the house where he was staying that day. He knew that any step might be his last in pursuit of nonviolence, in pursuit of justice. But he kept taking the next step, and that is our task now. I take home a great sense of encouragement that a whole community of people around the world have caught the vision of the Nonviolent Peaceforce and are committing themselves to the hard work ahead of converting that vision into reality."

NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE TO GO TO SRI LANKA

December 2002

In a long day of business sessions the delegates to the Nonviolent Peaceforce Convening Event chose Sri Lanka as the site of the new organisation's first project. The group also elected its first International Governing Council for a three-year term.

Sri Lanka was one of three conflict areas visited by Nonviolent Peaceforce teams to collect data for a set of criteria used to evaluate the invitations from local groups. The other sites were Guatemala and Israel/Palestine. Each of the three projects met the evaluation criteria differently but each attracted strong report. Consensus on Sri Lanka was reached after hours of impassioned discussion and at times profound deliberation. Donna Howard, who led the Sri Lanka team, commented, "The people who invited us (the Nonviolent Peaceforce) are facing serious dangers with land issues and spoilers of the peace process. I believe the Nonviolent Peaceforce can help them over the next few years. I can't wait to tell them!"

The new International Governing Council replaces the Interim Steering Committee that has guided the development of the Nonviolent Peaceforce since its origins in May 1999 at The Hague Appeal for Peace Conference. The members of the new governing body were selected through a consensus process that reflected the geographic and gender diversity of the international community. The members of the International Governing Council are:

Lyn Adamson, Canada
Omar Diop, Senegal
Donna Howard, USA
Young Kim, Republic of Korea
Akihiko Kimijima, Japan
Ramu Mannivanan, India
Michael Pokawa, Sierra Leone/USA
Renad Qubbaj, Palestine
Phil Ritter, USA
Elizabeth (Rabia) Roberts, USA
Claudia Samayoa, Guatemala
Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Thailand
John Stewart, Zimbabwe
Francesco Tullio, Italy
Tim Wallis, Britain

Three additional Council members will be chosen, one each by international organizations such as the International Fellowship of Reconciliation; Serpaj-Latin America; and Israeli organisations who are members of the Nonviolent
Peaceforce.

The Council meets tomorrow to elect a chair and other officers and begin considering a lengthy work agenda assigned by the delegates at the close of the business session.

VENERABLE SAMDHONG RINPOCHE CALLS NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE ESSENTIAL
December 2002

Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, told an international audience that the organisation they are founding, the Nonviolent Peaceforce, is "very much needed in today's world." Peaceworkers from 47 nations are meeting near Delhi to create an unarmed civilian alternative to military peacekeeping missions.

In his remarks, the Tibetan Buddhist monk noted, "The present escalation of violence around the world is unprecedented. Violence is in the very air we breathe and the very space through which we move." He urged his audience to put all its energy into making peace. Speaking of "the globalisation of violence" Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche said: "We are fooled into seeing it as a law and order problem or a national security problem. We are unable to see that both are manifestations of a malady in our civilisation. What is the remedy?"

"We must determine how to establish a nonviolent society," he said. "When violence is met with violence, one side can be temporarily subdued but much suffering results." He urged the Nonviolent Peaceforce to pay attention to the causes of violence and to be prepared to "take them on". Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche particularly stressed the "commercialisation of violence" by the weapons industry. He focused on the connection between the arms
industry and trade and increasing violence around the world, exhorting the audience to work to bring about a reduction in the arms trade and eventual total disarmament.

At the conclusion of his remarks, Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche recommended Gandhi's Hind Swaraj as compulsory reading for Nonviolent Peaceforce trainees, especially the chapter on violence and satyagraha (soul or truth force). He ended his prepared remarks as he began, by calling the Nonviolent Peaceforce "very necessary
and relevant."

OPPOSITION LEADER ADVOCATES NONVIOLENCE WHILE PROTECTED BY UNARMED CIVILIANS

December 2002

"Violence is self-perpetuating and if we look at the many instances of its use in conflict resolution we have to be sorely disappointed. Why then is there so much violence all around us?" Sheikh Hasina asked an assembly of peacemakers from around the world. The former prime minister of Bangladesh and now the leader of the opposition in the National Parliament delivered the keynote address at the opening of the Nonviolent Peaceforce Convening Event outside New Delhi.

Hasina has been a strong supporter of the Nonviolent Peaceforce since the very inception of the idea. In 2000, while still Prime Minister, she called on fellow heads of state to form an international peace force. "Tragically, the need has increased since then," she said.

For her the threat of violence is very close and immediate. Members of her party have recently been subject to harassment, arrest, torture and disappearance. Sheikh Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahmn is also considered the father of Bangladesh. He successfully led his country to independence from Pakistan, only to be murdered a few short years later along with almost his entire family. Only two of his daughters, one of them Sheikh Hasina, escaped alive because they were out of the country.

Protecting Hasina's security nonviolently was the Convening Event's first challenge in putting theory into practice. Volunteers from the conference provided Sheikh Hasina with Protective Accompaniment at all times while she was at the conference site. (Accompaniers surround vulnerable leaders with round-the-clock international presence, a proven deterrent to death squads and other human rights violators.) The Nonviolent Peaceforce had to negotiate this privilege from the Indian government, which insisted on sending armed guards to the nonviolent convention. That only showed how much work needed to be done to show the world a different way to create safety.

"Each and everyone of us, whether we represent the government, the civil society, the media or any other sector - must contribute to the making of a peaceful world," Sheikh Hasina declared. "Individually and collectively, we must forge a world-wide grand alliance for peace. This convention makes it obvious that such an alliance is on its way for establishment of a culture of peace."