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PBI-Guatemala posts update on hearing for two officers indicted for crimes at Creompaz

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project accompanies the Chicoyogüito Neighborhood Association (AVECHAV) which represents the 250 families displaced by an army base constructed on their lands on July 28, 1968.

That army base, then known as Military Zone 21, was the site of extreme violence against men, women and children in the 1980s.

In December 2019, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) reported, “11 former military were indicted on charges of forced disappearance and crimes against humanity committed between 1981 and 1988, based on evidence uncovered at the Creompaz military center in Cobán, Alta Verapaz.” Two of those officers were José Antonio Vásquez García and César Augusto Cabrera Mejía.

On May 11 of this year, Nomada reported, “Today the military José Antonio Vásquez and César Augusto Cabrera were transferred to the Tower of Courts to ask Judge Claudette Domínguez to modify their preventive detention for house arrest.”

That article adds, “Both are accused in the case known as Creompaz, initiated by the disappearance of 564 people between 1981 and 1982.”

On May 12, PBI-Guatemala shared a Facebook post from Caso Creompaz indicating that the judge rejected the request for substitute measures.

Reporting on this hearing, the alternative radio FGER 1420AM notes “it is considered the largest clandestine cemetery in Latin America.”

In Creompaz: Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’, Canadian journalist Dawn Paley writes, “Evidence uncovered by forensic anthropologists shows that people disappeared from various regions were later brought to the base at Coban by soldiers for interrogation and torture, followed by extrajudicial execution and secret burial.”

Creompaz is now a United Nations training base for peacekeepers.

Paley has commented, “Regardless of the mass graves at the base, military and police training continues there, supported by countries like the US and Canada.” The support from Canada has included a CAD$250,000 grant in 2009 and the purchase of specialized equipment in 2014 for a training program at Creompaz.

The survivors and relatives of the displaced families continue to ask that their lands be returned to them and that their dispossession by the military ends. Last year, PBI-Guatemala accompanied the community at a ceremony outside Creompaz to commemorate the anniversary of their eviction.

PBI-Mexico and accompanied defenders comment on the National Guard and the impact of militarization on human rights

By
Brent Patterson
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Had it not been for the pandemic, Peace Brigades International-Canada would have been able to host Javier Martínez Hernández, the legal coordinator for the Saltillo Migrant Shelter, on an advocacy tour to Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

One of the issues he may have addressed is the role now being played by the National Guard in Mexico, an issue the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project has also monitored.

This issue was in the news this week.

On May 11, The Guardian reported, “Human rights groups in Mexico have expressed disquiet over a presidential decree expanding the role of the armed forces in public security.”

“The decree, published on Monday by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, demonstrates an ongoing dependency on the army and navy for public security work – even though soldiers and marines have been frequently accused of human rights violations.”

“The decree perpetuates the practice of deploying Mexico’s armed forces for policing duties as the country’s homicide rate races to new records.”

The article also quotes Santiago Aguirre, the director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre in Mexico City, who comments, “In effect, the army and navy are going to be handling police duties until 2024.”

López Obrador (AMLO) became the President of Mexico in December 2018, Mexico’s national legislature voted to approve the formation of the National Guard in February 2019, and the National Guard was formally established on June 30, 2019.

In its January 2019 commentary Weighing up the new government, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project noted:

“Militarisation in Mexico continues to concern both Mexican and International civil society. Since the government of Felipe Calderón, the ‘War against drugs’ has resulted in a drastic increase in violence in the country with very high numbers of human rights violations. The organisations that PBI accompanies link this militarised strategy with the human rights crisis the country is still in. In this framework, the proposal of a National Guard, by AMLO’s government, is a serious concern to human rights organisations.”

In its February 2019 article The Alvarado Case: militarisation continues to threaten human rights, PBI-Mexico further noted:

“In a context of debates and proposals in Mexico around the conformation of a National Guard in charge of pubic security, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) published it´s sentence in the Alvarado Case on 28th November 2018, an emblematic case of forced disappearances caused by the context of militarisation, that happened in 2009 in the State of Chihuahua.”

And in January 2020, PBI-Mexico interviewed Yésica Sánchez Maya, a feminist lawyer and the joint director of Consorcio Oaxaca.

In response to PBI’s question about the National Guard, she commented, “Our main concern are the impacts that the arrival of military bodies have on territories. Problems that have been extensively documented in Oaxaca. We also don’t know about the existence of control protocols nor clear and precise sanctions. It’s a military body with another name, it’s the army with another name, and yes that does concern us.”

The National Guard’s first deployment was to Mexico’s borders. Reuters reported that 15,000 soldiers and National Guard were deployed on its northern border and 6,500 members of the security forces were sent to Mexico’s southern border area with Guatemala.

In March 2020, PBI-Mexico posted an advocacy tour video that featured interviews with staff from the Saltillo Migrant Shelter. (Unfortunately, as noted above, the planned tour to Canada that same month had to be postponed due to the pandemic.)

In that video, Jose Luis Manzo Ramirez, the humanitarian care coordinator for the shelter, comments that this deployment of the National Guard happened “in exchange for the US not increasing tariffs on certain products.”

Also, in the video, the shelter’s legal coordinator Javier Martínez Hernández says, “The National Guard started coming here to Casa Migrante.”

In July 2019, El Pais reported, “The Saltillo Migrant House has denounced the harassment that it has suffered in the last week by elements of the National Guard and the municipal police of this city in the State of Coahuila, in northern Mexico.”

That article adds:

“A video replicated thousands of times on social networks shows National Guard officers withdraw from the refuge in Saltillo, after [Alberto Xicoténcatl, director of this shelter] warned them that they were committing an illegal act. According to article 76 of the Mexican Migration Law, the authorities cannot carry out verification visits to places where there are people housed by civil society organizations and establish a radius of five kilometers of neutrality.”

The 46-second video of that encounter can be seen at La Guardia Nacional hace verificación en la puerta de la Casa del Migrante de Saltillo.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the Saltillo Migrant Shelter since 2014 and Consorcio Oaxaca since March 2016.

PBI-Guatemala posts Monthly Information Package highlighting the situation for human rights defenders during the pandemic

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 11, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted its Monthly Information Package outlining the current situation and the project’s work in April.

While we encourage you to read the full Monthly Information Package, key excerpts from it include:

Due to the restrictions imposed by the Guatemalan Government, and the severity of the pandemic, PBI has transformed and adapted our way of providing accompaniment to human rights defenders.

At the moment we have ceased out physical presence in the field but have maintained continuous contact with the organizations we accompany, other civil society organizations and with the Guatemalan and international authorities, through calls and virtual meetings.

We continue to monitor the security situation of the members of the Chicoyogüito Neighborhood Association of Alta Verapaz (AVECHAV). During this month’s communications with the organisation they shared their concerns over the lack of work and the food shortages caused by the COVID crisis and the consequent harm that this has caused the community.

Due to the high number of security incidents that the members of the Community Council of the Highlands (CCDA) – Las Verapaces Region continue to suffer, we continued to monitor their situation closely throughout April.

We remain attentive to the situation of the imprisoned human rights defenders Jorge Coc and Marcelino Xol. Overcrowding in prisons has increased, within the context of the pandemic, as well as the lack of access to basic hygienic products. Furthermore, visits are prohibited. Jorge and Marcelino’s families have shared their concern for the physical and emotional health of both human rights defenders in these circumstances. We are awaiting new dates for appeal hearings.

As part of our accompaniment of the Union of Peasant Organizations (UVOC), this month we maintained contact with their members over the telephone as well as a number of virtual meetings.

We continued to monitor the worrying security situation of the New Day Chorti Campesino Central Coordinator (CCCND) closely throughout the month. They have shared their strong concerns about: the rise in the price of food and transportation; the increasing lack of work in the territory; the inequity in the distribution of food by the municipal government, which is not prioritizing the most vulnerable population, such as single mothers and widows.

The Peaceful Resistance of La Laguna, San Pedro Ayampuc, shared their concerns about the lack of drinking water in the community, as well as the food shortages suffered by the most vulnerable families. They are organizing food distribution in solidarity with the community.

The members of the Peaceful Resistance, Cahabón (Alta Verapaz) are facing similar problems to those currently experienced across other territories. Their main concerns relate to the increase in the price of food, especially corn, and the difficulties in accessing water. Furthermore, we remain attentive to the situation of one of the organization’s human rights defenders who has received threats and attacks with strong sexist overtones.

The members of TZ’KAT – Network of Ancestral Healers from Community Feminism have shared with us that they continue to provide various healing processes by telephone to human rights defenders.

With respect to the Chinautla Multisector, the members of the organization have reported that the problems with access to water persist. They also confirmed an increase in domestic violence against women and girls in this difficult situation caused by the pandemic.

To read the full bulletin, please click here.

PBI-Guatemala’s “Monthly Information Package details the activities of PBI during every month including a short summary of relevant events regarding the human rights situation. It explains the accompaniment work realised by the volunteer team and lists all meetings with national authorities and the diplomatic corp.”

As noted in PBI’s Annual Review for 2019, “In Guatemala, 22 volunteers stood beside those defending their territories against the imposition of large-scale economic projects. They have witnessed the criminalisation of these brave people and raised the issue with the Guatemalan government and diplomatic corps. Despite challenges, PBI continues to support movements of resistance against injustice.”

As Canada seeks a UN Security Council seat on June 17, Wet’suwet’en land defenders reject man camps on their territory

By
Brent Patterson
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The Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation has stated, “We, the Unist’ot’en (Dark House), do not give our free, prior, and informed consent for Coastal GasLink or any company to establish an industrial work camp on our territories.”

The final report by National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (June 2019) quoted James Anaya, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, on the issue of these work camps.

Anaya said, “Indigenous women have reported that the influx of workers into indigenous communities as a result of extractive projects [have] led to increased incidents of sexual harassment and violence, including rape and assault.”

The Inquiry found that “work camps, or man camps, associated with the resource extraction industry are implicated in higher rates of violence against Indigenous women at the camps and in the neighbouring communities.”

Earlier this year, The Narwhal reported, “There are 14 work camps planned to support the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Nine are already in operation, with additional camps expected to be built in 2020, according to a spokesperson with TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, which owns the pipeline.”

One of those camps, which would hold 400 workers, is to be built just 13 kilometres from the Unist’ot’en healing centre, which offers land-based wellness, trauma and addictions treatment programs to Indigenous peoples impacted by intergenerational trauma and a forced disconnection from their land and traditional teachings.

On December 13, 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that it was disturbed by the “harassment and intimidation by law enforcement officials against indigenous peoples who peacefully oppose large-scale development projects on their traditional territories.”

It then called on Canada “to immediately halt the construction and suspend all permits and approvals for the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in the traditional and unceded lands and territories of the Wet’suwet’en people.”

And yet by January 13, 2020, Canadian police had set up an exclusion zone on the territory and on February 6 launched a pre-dawn raid on the territory and arrested Wet’suwet’en land defenders seeking to block construction of the pipeline.

As seen in this Unist’ot’en Camp video, construction on the pipeline has continued despite the social-distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the CBC now reports that Canada is “doubling down on its bid for a seat” on the UN Security Council that has already “set the government back $2 million.” That vote is scheduled to take place on June 17.

PBI-Canada has provided this online Urgent Action platform to enable people to send an email to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that calls on him to act in accordance with the UN Committee’s resolution before the UN vote.

Barbara MacQuarrie and the early days of PBI in Guatemala and El Salvador

By
Brent Patterson
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Canadian Barbara MacQuarrie was involved in the early days of Peace Brigades International.

In January 1990, Peace Magazine reported, “A veteran Peace Brigader, Barbara (a Montréaler) experienced arrest and three days of incommunicado imprisonment in Guatemala in 1987, and a severe bombing in El Salvador last February.”

That refers to the February 22, 1989 bombing of the Federación Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores Salvadoreños (FENASTRAS) office in San Salvador.

That article also highlights that Barbara had just been on a cross-country PBI speaking tour.

It notes, “Fresh from a tour in Ontario, Barbara continued through Halifax, Sydney, Mahone Bay, Yarmouth, Wolfville, Antigonish, Tatamagouche, New Glasgow, and Brule in Nova Scotia, Saint John, Fredericton, and Sackville in New Brunswick, and Charlottetown in P.E.I.”

As chair of PBI’s International Council in 1994, Barbara noted that one of the qualities that defines PBI is “a nonpartisan analysis of conflicts and investigative skills to explore both direct and structural violence.” She also mentions, “Our North America Project [based at 27 Third Avenue in Ottawa] continues to build lasting relationships with Indigenous peoples facing threats and harassment in Canada and the USA.”

In an August 1988 interview by Hamilton, Ontario-based McMaster University sociology professor Carl Cuneo titled Peace Brigades and Nonviolence, Barbara articulated the founding of Peace Brigades International in Canada: “It was set up in 1981 by people interested in non-violent conflict resolution. The original Gandhian idea was to have a team of people ready to go into any situation of violent conflict to mediate, negotiate, and separate the two sides as a nonaligned peacekeeping force. With more experience in the field, we realized that most conflicts today are not between two countries at war but situations of repression by a government’s military force against its own people.”

She also commented: “We don’t use the word ‘pacifism’ much; we prefer the word ‘nonviolence’, and even that is sometimes problematic. Nonviolence is a means of struggle. It doesn’t seek to pacify a situation; it seeks to confront what’s going on and to break the cycle of violence. It says this violence is not good for anyone and there has to be another way of addressing the problem.”

“I think the peace movement has to look for peace with justice – look at militarization and not just nuclear disarmament. That’s what PBI is doing.”

And in response to the question about how PBI relates to the guerilla movements in El Salvador and Guatemala, Barbara replied, “PBI doesn’t have any contact with the armed guerilla forces. If we did, we wouldn’t be allowed to stay in those countries. Because our philosophy is one of nonviolence, the purpose is not to condemn the armed movement. There are just too many reasons for it. But it’s not where we are best able to contribute.”

A fuller version of that interview is also available via Peace Magazine.

That longer version includes Barbara commenting:

“When I went to Guatemala I worked mostly with the GAM — the family members of the disappeared. I went there in November 1985, shortly after some of their directors had been assassinated. People who were the leadership of GAM felt extremely threatened. They felt we could offer them some measure of security by keeping a member with them all the time. PBI organized for the directorate to have a three-member around-the-clock escort.”

“In Guatemala, no other leaders of GAM were killed after we began escorting them. Some of the people who had accompaniment no longer do so. GAM — the group of families of the disappeared — is building up its reputation internationally and nationally. We can’t be sure how much we contributed to its strength and independence, but we were there. Historically there was a relationship. It helped.”

Barbara is now based at Western University in London, Ontario.

The university’s website notes, “Barb MacQuarrie is the Community Director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women & Children in the Faculty of Education at the Western University. She develops and promotes evidence based education and prevention initiatives involving both community-based and university-based partners.”

The February 6, 2015 Western Gazette article Western prof receives Order of Ontario notes that Barbara “worked for Peace Brigades International and El Salvador and Guatemala where she would accompany civilians fighting for social justice through nonviolent means. The presence of MacQuarrie and her colleagues protected civilians as militaries were unlikely to harm foreigners.”

Peace Brigades International is marking its 40th anniversary in 2021. PBI-Canada is helping to commemorate that occasion by posting stories and recollections of PBI’s early years to help inform and inspire our continued work.

PBI volunteers present when Salvadoran police raided the CRIPDES office in 1989

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: On April 19, 1989, PBI volunteers (seated) observed outside while Salvadoran police prepared to storm the CRIPDES office with 60 people inside, including PBI volunteer Eva Scarfe. Photo by Carolyn Mow.

As Peace Brigades International approaches its 40th anniversary in 2021, PBI-Canada is looking back at some key moments in our shared history.

In the book Unarmed Bodyguards, Liam Mahony and Luis Enrique Eguren recount a dramatic moment when PBI accompanied human rights defenders in El Salvador. The following are excerpts from their passage on what transpired one day:

CRIPDES worked with refugees and the rural displaced populations, aiding in their resettlement to the areas they had been expelled from by the scorched-earth strategy of the army. Since many of these resettlement areas were contested by the FMLN, the army was extremely belligerent with CRIPDES. PBI maintained a regular presence in the CRIPDES office and traveled with activists outside of the capital.

On the morning of April 19, 1989, Attorney General Jose Roberto Garcia was assassinated by an FMLN commando unit. The security forces immediately encircled the offices of three popular movement organizations, CRIPDES among them.

At CRIPDES, the door was barricaded, with sixty people inside [including] Australian PBI volunteer Eva Scarfe.

The military encirclement of the CRIPDES office lasted over eight hours. Salvadoran and foreign journalists arrived, as well as members of other Salvadoran organizations and three more PBI team members.

Eva Scarfe remembers, “Anti-riot police arrived as reinforcements, and they started preventing journalists from getting close enough to see what was going on…”

PBI volunteer Carolyn Mow was outside: “By 11 at night, many of the press had left, but we were still there.”

A little after 11 pm, the soldiers forced the door open and put everyone inside into a military truck, which took them to treasury police headquarters. Eva Scarfe was kept standing up for sixteen hours with no food or water and then handed over to the British consul.

Eva recalls: “A few times I was threatened, for instance one man said to me, ‘If I were the president of this country, old women like you would not exist.’ …The hate, palpable in a way I had not experienced before. A feeling of being in the hands of someone who would like nothing better than to hurt you, and only held back – precariously? – by some sense of political expediency.”

The rest of the Salvadorans were released a few hours later, except for six members of the CRIPDES directorate, who were tortured and imprisoned for four months.

Miguel Mejia, a CRIPDES member, believed that PBI’s presence was important, despite the arrests: “When they captured us, I remember the woman from Peace Brigades. We could see that when she spoke with her tormenters, she was very brave. She asked why they were doing it, and she explained to them what respect for human rights meant.”

Whereas other offices had been broken into at once, at CRIPDES, the military had delayed entry for eight hours, probably calculating the cost of the international and media presence. As night wore on and the press left, the calculation changed: PBI alone was not sufficient.

Nevertheless, Eva’s presence throughout the process of arrest and detention made a difference. Even during the standoff, PBI supporters all over the world sent hundreds of messages to the authorities. This pressure – from other urgent action networks as well – continued until everyone captured was released and accounted for.

In fact, after Eva’s release, the treasury police published a list of those still detained. The list omitted the name of CRIPDES leader Inocente Orellana, and it was feared that he might be disappeared. Eva’s testimony that she had seen him in custody contributed to minimizing this risk.

This event strengthened the relationship between PBI and CRIPDES. PBI volunteers visited regularly those who were imprisoned.

In addition, despite the apparent failure to deter arrests, the remaining CRIPDES members were even more appreciative of the ongoing presence.

According to Carolyn Mow, “After the capture, they went right back the next day to clean up the ransacked office, but first they came up to us and said, ‘We’re going back. Are you coming with us?”

For more, please see Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights by Liam Mahony and Luis Enrique Eguren.

PBI’s Principles and Mandate – and Founding Statement

By
Brent Patterson
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Photos of George Willoughby and Steve Kaal (from Montreal) at Camp NeeKauNis (about 130 kilometres north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada) where a General Assembly first adopted PBI’s Principles and Mandate statement in June 1992.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) was founded in 1981 to undertake the task of peace-keeping, peace-making and peace-building under the discipline of nonviolence.  It draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and experience in the field of nonviolent social change, strengthened by similar movements throughout the world.  As a third-party force it applies methods of nonviolent intervention in situations of conflict to establish peace and justice.

General principles

Nonviolence

PBI is committed to giving the highest consideration to human life and its defence.  It respects everyone’s basic human rights, democratic values and freedoms.

PBI is convinced that enduring peace and lasting solutions of conflicts between and within nations cannot be achieved by violent means and therefore it rejects violence of any kind and from any source.  PBI aims to support the processes of building a peaceful society by encouraging cooperation between groups working in democratic ways and striving to find political solutions to conflicts by nonviolent means.

PBI believes the philosophy and politics of nonviolence are dynamic and develop historically by those who resist different forms and structures of violence, such as gender and other identity based discriminations, and socio-economic exploitation. Therefore, PBI, with its experience and international presence, endeavours to overcome injustice and violence in order to build a humane society.

International Character

PBI is a global organisation.  It represents the concerns of the international community in relation to conflicts and crises which affect all, and to peace which benefits everyone.

PBI welcomes the services of people from all the cultures, languages, religions, beliefs and geographical regions to cooperate with and serve in the local, national, regional and transnational Peace Brigades.  It offers possibilities for volunteers to act as links and/or representatives of the international community to help in generating mutual dialogue between conflicting parties and provide them with opportunities for contact with the outside world.

The nonviolent intervention work of PBI teams in conflict situations also has the effect of stimulating and promoting peace initiatives by the people themselves in the conflict areas.  Therefore PBI encourages the formation of domestic Peace Brigades with the hope of strengthening its own work as well as building local peace activities.

PBI respects the autonomy and the right of self-determination of all people, and sees its services as a complementary contribution to their own efforts for peace-making.  Hence it avoids imposing or interfering with their own ways of thinking and acting.  As a corollary of this approach PBI goes into a situation only if requested by the concerned people of the area.

Non-Partisanship

As an international third-party force PBI acts in an independent and non-partisan manner.  According to its Vedchhi Declaration non-partisanship implies: dealing with all parties with an open mind; reporting as objectively as possible; refraining from judgemental responses; voicing concerns to those responsible without being accusative.

Non-partisanship does not mean indifference, neutrality or passivity towards injustice or towards violation of human rights, personal dignity and individual freedom.  On the contrary:  PBI is fully committed to these values and struggles against violence – physical or structural – as a means of establishing enduring peace.

Therefore the work of PBI, as a non-partisan third-party, requires that PBI teams and their members do not become involved in the work of the groups or the individuals whom they assist or escort; that they try their utmost to remain non-judgemental, despite their possible emotional identification with the oppressed or the victim; that they do not become involved in the official policies of the host country; that they share the tools of conflict resolution they have at their disposal with those who ask for them, whether as information or in the form of workshops and training programmes without intervening with or imposing their own opinions.

Horizontality

PBI uses a non-hierarchical model of organising and decision-making, which places importance on relationships and processes and not just on outcomes.

Mandate

The mandate of PBI is to create space for peace and to protect human rights.

The central focus of PBI’s work is that of international presence defined as one or more of the following: physical presence, physical accompaniment, public relations, networking, observing, reporting, and building international support networks.

Other methods that play a role in peace building such as, but not limited to, peace education and mental health recovery can be undertaken by a project provided that protective presence is considered.

PBI recognises that situations may arise that require a methodology that we have not used previously. This mandate is intended to allow the implementation of such a methodology after consultation with all constituencies.

Approved by the General Assembly in Ontario, Canada, June 1992, amended by the General Assembly, Manenbach, Switzerland, November 2001, amended by the General Assembly, Hamburg, 2008.

Founding Statement

PBI’s founding statement was adopted on September 4, 1981 at the Quaker Peace Education Centre (pictured above) on Grindstone Island, which is situated about 110 kilometres south-west of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

We have decided to establish an organization which will form and support international peace brigades.  We find this historically and morally imperative.

Peace brigades, fashioned to respond to specific needs and appeals, will undertake nonpartisan missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a discipline of nonviolence, and humanitarian service.  We also intend to offer and provide services to similar efforts planned and carried out by other groups.

We appeal in particular to:

–peoples of diverse cultures, religions and social systems ready to contribute in new ways to the nonviolent resolution of conflict;

–all those who seek to fulfill the high principles and purposes expressed in the Charter of the United Nations, and

–all who work to preserve human life with dignity, to promote human rights, social justice and self-determination, and to create the conditions of peace.

We call upon individuals and groups to enlist their services in the work of local, regional and international peace brigades.  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.

Those who undertake these tasks will face risks and hardships.  Others can provide support and show solidarity in a multitude of ways.

We are building on a rich and extensive heritage of nonviolent action, which no longer can be ignored.  This heritage tells us that peace is more than the absence of war.

We are convinced that this commitment of mind, heart and dedicated will can make a significant difference in human affairs.  Let us all join in the march from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, from death to life.

Daniel N. Clark writes, “The eleven participants [who drafted this founding statement] included Charles Walker, Ray McGee, Narayan Desai, Jaime de J. Diaz, a Catholic priest with the Corporation for Cultural and Social Development in Colombia, Murray Thomson of Project Ploughshares in Canada, Hans Sinn, a Canadian nonviolence trainer and social defense advocate, Henry Wiseman, a Canadian serving as director of Peacekeeping Programs at the International Peace Academy in New York, Gene Keyes, a Canadian scholar and writer, Mark Shepard, a U.S. peace journalist, Lee Stern, Peace Secretary of New York Yearly Meeting of Friends, and myself [Daniel N. Clark].”

New Internationalist article on PBI in Sri Lanka, Guatemala and Colombia from 1998

By
Brent Patterson
-

Illustration by Sarah John.

On January 5, 1998, New Internationalist published this article titled Foreign Bodies about ‘a day in the life’ of Peace Brigades International by Luis Enrique Eguren. As PBI approaches its 40th anniversary in 2021, we share this article for historical memory:

Have you ever had the experience of being in a foreign country and feeling distinctly uncomfortable, definitely unwanted?

Peace Brigades International (PBI) volunteers have this feeling most of the time. But rather than wanting to leave, it is the reason they are there in the first place, accompanying people whose lives are under threat or observing in situations of fear.

Committed to non-violent resistance, their approach is low-key. But it saves lives. Humberto Centeno, a trade unionist in El Salvador, was clear about the role of the volunteers: ‘I was accompanied 24 hours a day. I can say categorically that being accompanied by foreigners in this way is one of the reasons I am alive today.’

Colombo, Sri Lanka, 5.00 am

A refugee camp. Almut and Pete, members of the team in Sri Lanka, arrive at the camp at the request of the refugees. There’s been a threat, from irregular paramilitary forces, that the refugees will be thrown out of the camp so that it can be removed. Almut and Pete are the only international presence, and they place themselves at the entrance to the camp, in a clearly visible position. Some local journalists turn up. They all wait.

Peten, Guatemala, 6.00 am

A mountainous region, more than 20 hours from the capital by four-wheel drive. Members of various Guatemalan organizations and a forensic team are excavating a mass grave. In it are the presumed victims of army massacres dating back to the early 1980s. Emma and Judith, members of PBI in Guatemala, are there as international observers.

It’s the beginning of the third day’s work. Anonymous threats against the work team have not been translated into action, as yet. Peasants have begun to trickle in from the surrounding area; among them are those who have broadcast the existence of this tomb. They want an investigation, at last, of the facts, after long years of silence.

Barrancabermeja, Colombia, 8.00 am

A group of people from local organizations are on their way to investigate claims of massive violations of human rights in a remote area, several hours by road from the nearest town. Francisco and Tessa, from PBI Colombia, join as international observers. The area is well known as a confrontation zone between guerrillas, the army and paramilitary forces. The paramilitaries have made death threats against ‘that human rights lot’, saying that ‘we’ll eat them for breakfast if they show their faces here’. Despite these threats, the commission and the international ‘accompaniment’ set out in two vehicles towards the area. They have given prior notice of their trip to the civil and military authorities.

Colombo, 11.30 am

After several hours of waiting in the morning heat, two vehicles arrive with armed people in military dress. They enter the camp shouting, but their attitude changes on seeing the international observers and the press. After a tense meeting with the refugees in the camp, the paramilitaries leave, visibly put out and not without issuing a threat: they will soon be back to evict the refugees once and for all.

Barrancabermeja 13.00 pm

The commission of investigation and its international accompaniment have arrived at their destination. The Colombian organizations have already begun several interviews with local inhabitants, who show great fear of talking. Threats permeate the atmosphere.

Peten, 14.00 pm

The exhumation takes its course. Shots are heard little more than a kilometre away, which causes unease among those present. The peasants say it is the army, firing into the air to frighten them. One of the international observers and a member of the forensic team set off to ask the nearby army post what is going on.

Colombo, 15.00 pm

Urgent meeting of the PBI team. Since the situation in the refugee camp appears serious they decide to tell the project office (in Oxford, England) to activate the Emergency Response Network, so that the Sri Lankan authorities can be pushed into intervening.

Barrancabermeja, 16.00 pm

The investigating commission and the observers set out on the return journey. A military patrol intercepts them along the way and interrogates them with some hostility. The patrol talks by radio with its commanders. Eventually the commission and the observers continue their journey.

Peten, 17.00 pm

The work team finishes for the day. The PBI observer and the member of the forensic team return from their visit to the military base: no-one there knows what the reason for the shots might be, but they will look into it. The atmosphere is very tense. PBI calls its office in the city of Guatemala to stand by in case anything happens.

Bogotá, 20.00 pm

The PBI team receives a call from an organization of lawyers working on human rights: one of its members has been detained. Since this lawyer has already received many threats, the organization asks PBI to visit the police station and ascertain his physical condition: two PBI people accompany a lawyer to the police station. The night will be a long one. One more among so many. The hope for better times and greater peace always remains. That is, precisely, what they are working for.

–by Luis Enrique Eguren

PBI-Honduras on defending and caring for the land in the time of coronavirus

By
Brent Patterson
-

“Honduras is currently suffering a double epidemic: on the one hand COVID19 and on the other hand the Army.”

The director of the LGBT+ rights group Rainbow Association expresses the situation of the Central American country in this way after the government of Juan Orlando Hernández announced the absolute curfew throughout the country on March 20.

A measure that the Executive is willing to enforce with an intensification of the police and military presence. For more than a month, members of the Military Police and the National Police have been patrolling and detaining anyone who does not stay home.

In fact, according to data from the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH), in the first days of the curfew, the security forces detained 1,115 people who, in his opinion, were violating the curfew. However, in many cases they were people authorized to circulate in search of food and purchase of medicines.

With the curfew implemented throughout the country and the suspension of some constitutional guarantees, such as freedom of movement, peasant defenders of the land and territory who depend on their crops to be able to eat cannot leave their homes either.

“The lands where we cultivate are far away and when we go out to work or gather our crops we find checkpoints that make us go home and even threaten to stop us,” explains Nora Ramírez, coordinator of the Regional Progress Board of the National Central of Field Workers (CNTC).

And even if they could reap the harvest, they would find closed markets without being able to sell. From the CNTC Colón, Adolfo Cruz points out that more than 300,000 loads of corn could be lost in this context.

In a country where almost half the population lives in rural areas and where more than 60% of the population lives below the poverty line, the coronavirus has made it more visible than ever how vulnerable the rural population is.

A situation that, according to national organizations, seems to worsen when the military and the National Police make a partisan delivery of the food promised by the Government within the ‘Honduras Solidarity’ campaign, with which the Executive intends to cover the needs of 800,000 families impoverished of the country.

“The military who distribute these bags, first go from house to house asking many questions and people are afraid to share so much information. Then they draw up a list of the ideal families to receive these bags. And it turns out that in the end they are only for people or families who vote for the National Party, the government party. But we defend that hunger has no color or political party,” explains Sebastian Reyes, Coordinator of the Regional Peace Board of the National Center for Rural Workers (CNTC).

“Sometimes they don’t even give us food for the crime of being organized,” adds Andrés Domínguez, also from the CNTC La Paz. In this Regional Board alone, they have counted nearly 500 organized families who are running out of food.

A human rights crisis

The organized peasant movement is being hit hard by this crisis, which in Honduras is not only being health but also economic, social, humanitarian and human rights, as recognized by Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights.

“In addition, this context will be used by multinationals and landowners to occupy the land,” warns the CNTC. “With the new food production project approved by the Government, it will be the entrepreneurs who are in charge of food production, not the small producers or peasants,” explains Franklin Almendares, coordinator of the Board National of the CNTC.

“The most serious thing is that it is ordered to inventory and register all the national lands to dedicate it to this activity, that is, to hand them over to the businessmen. This is going to mean a worsening of peasant and indigenous struggles and an increase in evictions and criminalization,” explains Almendares, while remembering that this adds to an increase, already prior to the coronavirus crisis, of the violent presence. of the military in the communities of various departments.

A violence that was not long in coming. At the beginning of April, human rights defender Iris Argentina Álvarez was assassinated during an attempted forced and illegal eviction according to the National Commission on Human Rights (CONADEH).

This farmer was shot by members of the security of the Sugar Company La Grecia along with members of the private security company CRAE`s. Iris Argentina Álvarez and her communities have lived in those lands since 2017, which, while the recovery process is over, belong to the State.

And in the Department of La Paz, the families organized around the CNTC fear what is to follow. “At the moment the cutting of forests is stopped, but the businessmen have declared that this situation is not going to stay like this and that at any moment they could start the work again.”

And the fact is that not even the coronavirus seems to be able to stop the extractive policies implanted in Honduras. In fact, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has already announced that applications and renewals of environmental licenses are being processed online, with the aim of not stopping the work of companies.

A measure that, from the National Coalition of Environmental Networks and Organizations (CONROA) involves “taking advantage of the crisis to continue dispossessing the territories and their natural assets.”

Between 2010 and 2017, more than 120 people were killed in Honduras for confronting companies that monopolize the land and destroy the environment. Figures that led the country to be considered the most dangerous country for defenders of land and territory, according to Global Witness.

Now COVID19 comes to remember the particularly risky situation in which these people carry out their advocacy work and the need to prevent this viral epidemic from also becoming an epidemic of human rights violations.

Work on Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline continues on Unist’ot’en territory during pandemic

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Unist’ot’en Camp has expressed its concern that construction on the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline has continued on Wet’suwet’en territory during the pandemic.

On April 2, they posted this 3-minute video to highlight their concerns.

Now, on May 11, Western Investor reports, “Work has continued to clear the natural gas pipeline route. The project is operating with a reduced workforce right now, with about 300 workers, about 30 per cent of whom are in work camps.”

That article adds, “That reduction was more about spring breakup than pandemic health and safety restrictions.”

On April 24, 2019, Unist’ot’en land defender Freda Huson addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about ongoing human rights violations against Wet’suwet’en people.

Huson told the Permanent Forum, “The pipeline company is violating Wet’suwet’en law, trespassing on our territory, and starting to destroy the land. …I am here today to make UN aware of the continued genocide happening in Canada, and to demand that our Indigenous rights and laws are respected.”

On December 13, 2019, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Canada “to immediately halt the construction and suspend all permits and approvals for the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in the traditional and unceded lands and territories of the Wet’suwet’en people until they grant their free, prior and informed consent, following the full and adequate discharge of the duty to consult.”

That resolution further urged that “the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and associated security and policing services will be withdrawn from their traditional lands.”

And yet by January 13, 2020, the RCMP had set up an exclusion zone on the territory and on February 6 launched a pre-dawn raid on the territory and arrested Wet’suwet’en land defenders seeking to block construction of the pipeline.

On May 5, the CBC reported that Canada is “doubling down on its bid for a seat” on the UN Security Council that has already “set the government back $2 million.” That vote is scheduled to take place on June 17.

PBI-Canada has provided this online Urgent Action petition to enable people to send an email to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that calls on him to act in accordance with the UN Committee’s resolution before the UN vote.

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