CBC has reported: “Since the start of the Russian invasion, Canada has pledged military aid to Ukraine valued in the tens of millions of dollars. The promised aid includes anti-tank systems, rockets, handguns, machine-guns and ammunition.”

It has also included up to 7,500 hand grenades.

The war has also been invoked with respect to the Canadian government’s decision to purchase 88 Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes and the possibility of increasing its military budget by about $20 billion a year to 2 per cent of Canada’s GDP.

This past week, Karen Ridd wrote: “All-too-often, conflict leads to a renewed call for greater military spending, and more weaponry. It’s hard enough to be a peace activist in peace times; much harder to be so in times of war.”

On April 6 starting at 7:30 pm CDT, Karen along with David Balzer will host a Zoom conversation that will talk about “about nonviolent resistance we can take to support people facing war in Ukraine, and around the world.”

A video preview of that discussion can be seen here.

Karen, who now teaches conflict resolution studies at Menno Simons College in Winnipeg, was a PBI volunteer in Guatemala in 1988 and in El Salvador in 1989.

While in El Salvador, she was arrested by the National Guard along with four other PBI volunteers. Three Spanish PBI volunteers were handed over to their Embassy, but despite threats and intimidation, Karen refused to leave the jail until her Colombian PBI colleague was also released from captivity.

Karen has written: “At the time I was arrested, I was in a church refugee centre, trying to protect the safety of Salvadoran refugees and church workers who were inside. The Salvadoran military invaded the centre, scattered the refugees, detained the workers, and took me and four other PBI workers to the Treasury Police Jail. I was blindfolded, handcuffed, interrogated, kept standing without food and water, and threatened with rape and mutilation.”

In her article Nonviolent resistance: we need talk, Karen further reflects: “In my capacity as an ‘unarmed bodyguard’ for Peace Brigades International I watched as [people] led marches, strikes, ‘lightning’ actions, sit-ins, dance-ins, and so much more. I watched as their actions defeated their opponents, and simultaneously crumbled my former beliefs about ‘naïve’ nonviolent actions, or the ‘need for violence’.”

Waging Nonviolence

Additionally, Waging Nonviolence recently published the statement: Ukrainians could defeat a Russian occupation by scaling up unarmed resistance.

That statement says: “We would establish contact with international organizations such as Peace Brigades International or Nonviolent Peaceforce.”

It continues: “Over the past 40 years, organizations like these have learned how international observers can make a significant difference to local human rights activists living with threats to their lives. Their experience from countries such as Guatemala, Colombia, Sudan, Palestine and Sri Lanka can potentially be developed to fit the circumstances in Ukraine.”

Among the many people who signed this statement are Mary Girard (Quaker, Canada), David Swanson (World Beyond War, US), William Geimer (Greater Victoria Peace School, Canada) and George Lakey (a former PBI field volunteer and retired professor, US).

PBI statement on Ukraine

On March 18, Peace Brigades International issued this statement that highlights: “As an organization committed to peace, nonviolent conflict resolution and an end to militarization, we add our voice to those calling for an immediate end to this war.”

“PBI stands in solidarity with Ukrainian and Russian civil society initiatives providing mutual support and nonviolent alternatives in the midst of war, particularly women’s organizations and movements.”

It further notes: “The dominant security discourse associated with the militarization of societies is a setback. Billions more spent on weapons will not make the world safer.” 

To watch a video excerpt of this statement in Spanish, please click here.

In this media release, the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability calls for all-party support for two private members bills:

Bill C-262, An Act respecting the corporate responsibility to prevent, address and remedy adverse impacts on human rights occurring in relation to business activities conducted abroad, would require companies to review all their business activities, identify actual and potential risks to people and the planet, take steps to mitigate the risks, and ensure remedy for those harmed. This is called human rights and environmental due diligence.

Bill C-263, An Act to establish the Office of the Commissioner for Responsible Business Conduct Abroad and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, also tabled today, would invest the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) with the powers needed to do its job. Effectively, when the government created CORE, it was in name only. Without powers to order the production of documents and compel witness testimony under oath, the CORE is an ineffective office. Bill C-263 would change that.

“Respecting human rights and protecting the environment are non-partisan issues,” says Emily Dwyer, Policy Director for the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) accompanies human rights defenders impacted by Canadian oil and gas extractivism in Colombia, the sugar imported from Guatemala by two Canadian companies, the mines operated by Canadian companies in Honduras, and a pipeline constructed by a Canadian company on Indigenous territories in Mexico.

PBI supports both the implementation of effective and credible due diligence legislation as well as the passage of a UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.

Our recent statement on the war in Ukraine highlights: “PBI calls for binding legislation that requires companies to fully respect human rights throughout their supply chain and guarantee sustainable economic, social, and environmental investment.”

PBI-Canada is also concerned by the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders in this country, notably the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline on Secwepemc territory and the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory.

We have highlighted the call from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that construction of these pipelines be halted until consent is gained and that the RCMP and other security forces be removed from these territories.

We are following with interest Bill C-262 and Bill C-263.