Understanding Peace Brigades International and unarmed civilian protection as a form of civilian-based defence
PBI-Colombia “25 years of solidarity” video still: “The paramilitary took me off a vehicle and there was a moment if two PBI women hadn’t been with me, an Italian and a Norwegian, they probably would have made me disappear.”
The concept of “civilian-based defence” appears to be coming up in multiple spaces in this current political moment of increased tension and concern.
Last month, authors Peter MacLeod and Richard Johnson explained in The Tyee: “Civil defence is the ability of an entire society to withstand crisis.”
They further explain: “In Sweden and Finland, civil defence is built around training, community preparedness and personal responsibility. Every adult is expected to have the knowledge and basic skills to help in an emergency — whether that’s first aid, defending critical infrastructure or organizing local response teams.”
And they comment: “The shift from ally to adversary could happen overnight, as a protectionist United States looks at Canada’s vast energy reserves, fresh water… We must be strong enough to push back, resilient enough to survive cyberwarfare and economic coercion… We must be prepared to defend our sovereignty — not just with military spending, but with a population that is engaged, trained and ready.”
Civil defence not militarism
Then this week the Green Party of Canada pledged if elected later this month: “The provision of universal civil defence training, ensuring all Canadians—regardless of age or background—have access to basic emergency preparedness skills, including first aid, crisis response, and cybersecurity awareness.”
Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May further commented: “This is not a call to militarization [it is a call to] support one another in times of crisis.”
Active nonviolence
And yesterday the Canadian Friends Service of Canada (Quakers) stated: “We are disturbed by the voices we hear within Canada loudly proclaiming the need to strengthen the military as a means of defence against invasion. …As we’ve explained elsewhere, civilian-based defence and related techniques of active nonviolence are viable ways for nations to defend themselves… We urge Canadians to learn more about active nonviolence. …We urge Canada to engage in nonviolent resistance focused on justice and peace.”
Peace Brigades International (PBI) and civilian-based defence
“Work concretely to realize peace”
Shortly before her death in 1992, German ecofeminist peace activist Petra Kelly, a friend of Peace Brigades International co-founder Hans Sinn, wrote in Nonviolent Social Defense: “The ending of the cold war has brought little change in our militaristic outlook. Why not invest in peace studies and peace actions? We need to support groups like Peace Brigades International that intervene nonviolently in situations of conflict. We need to work concretely to realize peace and nonviolence in our time.”
Unarmed civilian protection
The concept of “unarmed civilian protection” or UCP can be situated within the concept of civilian-based defence. It can also be connected to the Gandhian concept of “Shanti Sena” (peace army or peace brigade) that informed the formation of Peace Brigades International (PBI) and our teams of “unarmed bodyguards”.
PBI’s current practice of “accompaniment” of threatened organizations, defenders and communities grew out of and evolved from our founding statement: “We are forming an organization with the capability to mobilize and provide trained units of volunteers. These units may be assigned to areas of high tension to avert violent outbreaks. If hostile clashes occur, a brigade may establish and monitor a cease-fire, offer mediatory services, or carry on works of reconstruction and reconciliation.”
Just as MacLeod and Johnson wrote last month in The Tyee about civil defence in Sweden and Finland involving “organizing local response teams”, PBI’s founding statement in September 1981 references “individuals and groups enlisting their services in the work of local, regional and international peace brigades.”
For instance, PBI co-founder Daniel N. Clark has written that in late 1981 another PBI co-founder Lee Stern was “working to establish a local brigade in New York City to respond to Ku Klux Klan activities.”
How to fight fascism
While PBI thought about how to respond to the KKK in 1981 with a New York City-based brigade, this week Guardian columnist Zoe Williams wrote a column titled: How to fight a fascist state – what I learned from a second world war briefing for secret agents that references the arrests last weekend of Youth Demand activists at the Westminster Quaker Meeting House in London, United Kingdom.
On “non-state actions” by movements and Youth Demand’s self-description as a “non-violent civil resistance campaign”, Williams comments in her Guardian column: “There’s no point in a narrative that yields nothing concrete, no point in a protest that doesn’t disrupt, no point in disruption without a plan.”
Civilian-based defence defending civilians
The organizations, defenders and communities who Peace Brigades International accompanies fundamentally challenge power. The power of a transnational corporation to impose a megaproject on a territory without consent. The power of an illegal armed group to derive profit from the extraction of resources. The power of the state to impose an order that benefits the few and immiserates the many.
That challenging of power is why more than 2,106 land and environmental defenders have been killed over the past ten years. That is why PBI is in countries including Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, where most of these defenders were killed.
Our form of civilian-based defence is to defend civilians who are challenging the power of transnationals, paramilitaries and the state to enable a vision of a just and sustainable world rooted in rights rather than impunity.
You can stay in touch with us through our daily articles about unarmed accompaniments of defenders here.
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