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Five reasons to donate to PBI-Canada

By
Brent Patterson
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The work of Peace Brigades International-Canada is sustained by individual donors like yourself. When you donate to PBI-Canada you support:

1- The writing of daily updates on the human rights defenders that PBI accompanies. PBI works on the principle that the higher profile the human rights defender the less likely it is that their opponents can do harm to them.

2- The sharing of those stories with thousands of people via PBI-Canada’s social media channels. Visibility means protection for at-risk human rights defenders and the making of space for them to do their vital work in the public interest.

3- The recruiting of volunteers to accompany human rights defenders in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Kenya. In 2018, 84 PBI volunteers accompanied 48 organizations and 35 individual human rights defenders.

4- The organizing of speaking tours featuring human rights defenders. This November, PBI-Canada will bring three human rights defenders from Colombia to this country to talk with government officials, allies and the broader public to build support for their work to stop fracking and global climate change.

5- The rapid circulation of emergency response network alerts. When Indigenous human rights defenders Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro were disappeared in Mexico this past February, we helped to get word out quickly. Thankfully, they were both freed after four days in captivity.

To make a one-time or monthly donation to PBI-Canada, please click here. A donation of just $5 a month helps protect front-line human rights defenders and their struggles in defence of land and water, Indigenous rights, migrant justice, LGBTQI+ rights, press freedom, and peace and social justice that we accompany.

Peace Brigades International is a leading global human rights organization that was founded just south of Ottawa in 1981. We are a registered charitable organization and can provide a tax receipt for your donation to our work.

Peace Brigades International and the human right to sexual orientation and gender identity

By
Brent Patterson
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The global human rights organization Peace Brigades International accompanies human rights defenders around the world, including those engaged in struggles related to the right to sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Yogyakarta Principles were unanimously adopted in 2006 by a group of human rights experts and then updated in 2017. Those principles affirm that “sexual orientation and gender identity are integral to every person’s dignity and humanity and must not be the basis for discrimination or abuse.”

Principle 27 calls on all states to, “Ensure the protection of human rights defenders, working on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, against any violence, threat, retaliation, de facto or de jure discrimination, pressure, or any other arbitrary action perpetrated by the State, or by non-State actors, in response to their human rights activities.”

PBI has undertaken that work in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

The International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia March in Honduras

On May 17, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project accompanied the advocacy group LGBT Arcoiris (Rainbow Association) at the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia march in Tegucigalpa.

Between 2009 and mid-2018, 296 members of the LGBTQI+ community in Honduras were murdered. Honduras also had the highest per capita number of transgender murders in the world between 2008 and 2014, according to a report by Transgender Europe.

From June 2015 to March 2016, six members of Arcoíris were killed. Other Arcoíris activists have survived assassination attempts. Many others have faced intimidation, harassment and physical attacks.

Arcoíris coordinator Donny Reyes says, “The biggest problem that we face is the violence of the state security forces towards the LGBT+ community: the armed forces, the police, the criminal investigation police, military police, municipal police.”

Dina Meza, an independent investigative reporter who is also accompanied by PBI-Honduras because of the risks she faces, says that reporters who cover violence against the LGBTQI+ community have been physically assaulted by security forces, expelled from public events, and have been the subject of smear campaigns.

PBI-Honduras began accompanying LGBT Arcoiris in July 2015.

For more, please see The struggle for LGBTQ rights in Honduras continues.

The XII Pride of Chihuahua March in Mexico

On July 6, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project accompanied the XII Pride March in the city of Chihuahua.

In October 2018, El Universal reported that Mexico has the second highest number of murders of transgender and transsexual people in the world every year.

PBI-Mexico has highlighted that according to a survey conducted by the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) and the State Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), the state of Chihuahua has the second highest number of homicides against members of the LGBTQI+ community.

For more, please see PBI-Mexico accompanies LGBTI+ pride march in Chihuahua.

The Parade of Sexual Diversity and Gender Identity in Guatemala

And on July 20, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project observed the XIX Parade of Sexual Diversity and Gender Identity in Guatemala City.

El Periodico has reported, “Between January and June 2019, the murders of 28 gays, lesbians and trans were reported. This figure doubled compared to the cases recorded last year, according to a report by the Organizing Committee of the Parade.”

And PubliNews has reported, “There is no moment to mark the beginning of the LGBTIQ movement in Guatemala, but it is recognized that during the armed conflict, which lasted 36 years, the police and military authorities committed thousands of harassments against people who identified themselves as diverse.”

For more, please see PBI-Guatemala observes the 19th Annual Parade of Sexual Diversity and Gender Identity.

#PBIacompaña #Pride2019 #Stonewall50 #MarchaDelOrgulloGT #OrgulloGT2019 #TRANSitandoSinMiedo #LGBTambienEsFamilia

PBI-Colombia accompanies remembrance at Trujillo Monument Park

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 17, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted that it accompanied Sister Maritze Trigos with AFAVIT (the Association of Relatives of Trujillo Victims) and Father Javier Giraldo (who founded the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission) at the Trujillo Monument Park (Parque Monumento de Trujillo).

PBI-Colombia has explained, “The Massacre of Trujillo refers to multiple and successive human rights violations committed between 1988 and 1994 in the municipalities of Trujillo, Bolivar, and Riofrio (Valle del Cauca).”

That massacre included “enforced disappearances, torture and the murders of approximately 340 people at the hands of a coordinated criminal structure which included members of the Army, Police, local politicians and paramilitaries from the North Valle cartel.”

Colombia Reports adds, “Among the victims were unionists, alleged guerrilla supporters and a priest. Some of the victims were tortured and dismembered as a warning to rebels groups FARC and ELN, and their sympathizers.”

This article notes that Father Giraldo arrived at the town after hearing of the murder of the pastor of Trujillo, Tiberio Fernández Mafla.

Father Tiberio Fernández was tortured and murdered on April 17, 1990.

PBI-Colombia also tweeted, “During the pilgrimage in memory of the victims of the massacres suffered by Colombia in Trujillo a tribute was made to the defenders of human rights and leaders who were killed in history.”

The Trujillo Monument Park was inaugurated in June 2002.

A 3-minute video about the park can be seen here.

Mohawk land defender Ellen Gabriel on the continuing struggle for land and territory

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International closely followed the July-September 1990 confrontation between Mohawk land defenders (who opposed the expansion of a golf course onto Indigenous burial grounds) and the Quebec police and Canadian army.

That 78-day confrontation took place just 50 kilometres west of Montreal and about 150 kilometres east of Ottawa and is the subject of Alanis Obomsawin’s National Film Board documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance.

The PBI Annual Report in 1991 notes that PBI was invited by members of the Mohawk communities of Kahnawake and Kanesatake to provide training.

Toronto-based author-activist Len Desroches has written, “The summer after the ‘Oka crisis’, some members of Peace Brigades International and myself spent an intense week in Kanesatake and Kahnawake [and] explored the possibilities of active nonviolence with members of the Mohawk community.”

The PBI Annual Report further explains, “Part of the training was held in The Pines, site of the armed confrontation between the Sûreté du Québec [the provincial police] and Mohawk Warriors a year before. PBI’s internationalism was especially valued, above all because one of the trainers was himself an indigenous person from Central America.”

This recent interview with Ellen Gabriel in Canadian Dimension magazine highlights that the 300 year long Kanien’kéha:ka (Mohawk) struggle for the return of their land continues. Gabriel was the official Mohawk spokesperson during the Oka Crisis of 1990.

Gabriel says, “Once the federal government stopped its siege on our community in September 1990, it promised to resolve the land issue; however, when the tanks left and the 2500 troops were redeployed, we didn’t get the land back.”

She adds, “In the years afterwards, the government promised to work with the community to transfer the land back, but instead fraudulently sold it to a developer who in turn sold it to [real estate developer Gregoire] Gollin. People need to understand that this is what has been going on for 300 years.”

Gabriel says, “We are people of the land. We are made from this land. It is priceless. We want to have the ability, like everybody else, to be able to live in a safe and secure environment, and we cannot do that when the Government of Canada continues to control our lives and our lands. And if Canadians want to pressure their governments – municipal, provincial, federal – to do something, if they really care about peace in this country, then they need to learn their own colonial history.”

Tensions have continued to escalate with Oka Town Council passing a motion on August 6th calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to establish an RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) detachment in Kanesatake.

The Peace Brigades International-North America Project, which existed from 1992 to 1999, was established following the July-September 1990 Oka Crisis. It focused on Indigenous rights and visited various frontline struggles in the 1990s.

That included visits to Nitassinan (Quebec-Labrador) in December 1992 (when a hydroelectric dam was to be built on the Sainte Marguerite River); Ipperwash (Ontario) in September 1995 (following the police shooting of Indigenous land defender Dudley George); Barriere Lake (Quebec) in April 1996 (where the community has struggled to defend its unceded territory from logging and mining); and Esgenoopetitj (New Brunswick) in 1999 (when the Mi’kmaq people asserted their right to catch and sell lobster out of season).

The PBI-North America Project was started by Alaine Hawkins, a Toronto-based Quaker and director of PBI’s Central America Project, Steve Molnar from PBI-USA, and others who had volunteered with PBI in Guatemala.

In this PBI-USA article, Molnar said, “There were a lot of things that we did in Guatemala that were quite applicable and then some things that were just totally new.”

He adds, “In Guatemala, we might see massacres or open violence. We didn’t see as much of that in North America, but we did witness a type of genocide, a cultural genocide. A lot of our work was spent recording that.”

The story of PBI’s North America Project is more fully told in Joan Edenburg’s book Making Space for Peace.

PBI-Honduras and PBI-Guatemala accompany Indigenous communities opposed to dams

By
Brent Patterson
-

Peace Brigades International accompanies human rights defenders who oppose the construction of major hydroelectric dams that negatively impact rivers and Indigenous communities without their free, prior and informed consent.

The Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón which is comprised of Indigenous Q’eqchi Mayan communities.

Telesur has reported, “The communities claim the Oxec and Renace hydroelectric projects are illegal because the local Indigenous Q’eqchi’ peoples were not properly consulted and informed about it, as established by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.”

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the Resistance since July 2017.

You can read more about this here.

COPINH

PBI-Honduras accompanies the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

That’s the organization that was led by environmental activist Berta Cáceres who was murdered in March 2016 for opposing the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River on Indigenous Lenca territory.

In March 2019, Vice reported, “All three foreign investors—including Dutch bank FMO, Finnish finance company FinnFund, and the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI)—have withdrawn from the project, putting the construction project on indefinite hold.”

However, the article adds, “DESA [the company behind the construction of the dam] owns the concession for 50 years, [Berta Cáceres’ daughter Bertha] Zúniga says, meaning the company has the exclusive right to work the land until 2059. ‘They have not given up and apparently have no intention of abandoning the project altogether.’”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied COPINH since May 2016.

You can read more about this here.

ASODEBICOQ

PBI-Honduras also accompanies the Association of Defenders of Common Goods in Quimistán (ASODEBICOQ) situated in the department of Santa Bárbara.

In February 2019, Radio Progreso reported that Santa Bárbara is “threatened by more than 15 hydroelectric projects.”

That same article notes, “In the municipality of Quimistán, there is an imminent danger from the installation of the Santa Lucia hydroelectric dam, which is advanced by 90%. And, despite the fact that there is a strong rejection by the population, they currently intend to build a second hydroelectric dam also on the Cuyagual River.”

Kevin Ramírez Vásquez, a co-founder of ASODEBICOQ, says, “The impact the Cuyagual project has had is the pollution of the rivers from where they explode dynamite, explode bombs to loosen rocks and fell deeply-rooted trees.”

He adds, “The poison this bomb makes ends up in the freshwater springs, in the river, and it pollutes the river where it kills the animals, the fish, the water-snails.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied ASODEBICOQ since May 2018.

You can read more about this here.

Conclusion

The United Nations has noted, “Indigenous peoples continue to express their concern at States that grant concessions for extractive industries, infrastructure projects, large-scale agriculture or hydroelectric dams without their free, prior and informed consent.”

It adds, “The rights to lands, territories and resources are at the heart of indigenous peoples’ struggles around the world [and advancing these rights are an] effective way to protect critical ecosystems, waterways and biological diversity.”

Most recently in this country, Indigenous and community opponents have mobilized against the Site C dam (on Treaty 8 territory in northern British Columbia – see United Nations instructs Canada to suspend Site C dam construction over Indigenous rights violations) and the Muskrat Falls dam (on Innu and Inuit territory in Labrador – Nunatsiavut leader says ‘time bomb is ticking’ with Muskrat Falls flooding underway).

Peace Brigades International had a North America Project from 1992 to 1999 that focused on Indigenous struggles on Turtle Island.

In December 1992, the PBI-North America Project visited Nitassinan (Quebec-Labrador) when the Innu community of Maliotenam in Quebec was opposing the construction of the Sainte-Marguerite III hydroelectric project on the Sainte-Marguerite River.

PBI-Honduras visits community where mining and solar power are pending issues

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 12, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted, “Last week, PBI-Honduras Project traveled to the department of Choluteca together with CEHPRODEC [the Honduran Centre for the Promotion of Community Development] to observe the completion of a census of the inhabitants of the Nanasigure community.”

The PBI-Honduras Facebook post highlights, “Following this precise census, it is expected to consult with the community about possible future mining and photovoltaic [solar power] concessions in the area.”

In April, this media release from Montreal-based Glen Eagle Resources Inc. noted a meeting with the Ministry of Mines of Honduras, the Small Miners Cooperative of the municipality of el Corpus, Choluteca, and Cobra Oro (Glen Eagle’s subsidiary in Honduras) “to explore various opportunities” related to two mining projects.

In May, this Business & Human Rights Resource Centre post noted, “Choluteca defenders have been arrested and sent to trial on charges of Scatec Solar.”

“More than 20 residents of Choluteca in southern Honduras have been charged by the Scatec Solar company and consequently detained in some cases irregularly. Villagers have led an opposition movement against the project to build a solar energy park.”

That BHRRC post reports that, “They accuse that at no time were they consulted and that the project is also putting their access to water at risk as well as the possibility of freely moving around the area.”

The headquarters for Scatec Solar is in Oslo, Norway, but it also has an office in the Honduran capital city of Tegucigalpa.

PBI-United Kingdom has noted, “CEHPRODEC provides legal and technical assistance to indigenous and small- scale farmer organisations that are defending their territory against extractive industries and hydroelectric schemes.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied CEHPRODEC since May 2014.

In an April 2016 interview with PBI-USA, attorney and human rights defender Donald Hernandez from CEHPRODEC highlighted, “CEHPRODEC was the first institution in Honduras to receive accompaniment from Peace Brigades. We are very thankful and content because this accompaniment has permitted us to carry out our work in a better way.”

Dr. Yésid Blanco and the struggle for environmental justice and the right to water in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
-

Pediatrician Dr. Yésid Blanco has been an outspoken human rights defender and environmental activist in Barrancabermeja, Colombia.

He has stated, “My commitment to community health has extended beyond the clinic’s walls, embracing the defence of human rights and the environment.”

Dr. Blanco notes, “In 2015 I founded an organization to defend the wetlands, which then evolved into the Corporación Yariguies the following year.”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project recently highlighted, “The Yariguíes Regional Corporation – Social Research Group into Extractives and the Environment in the Magdalena Medio Region (CRY-GEAM) works tirelessly to raise awareness of the impacts of oil refineries and extractives on nature.”

Dr. Blanco adds, “I have actively opposed fracking in the region in light of the threat it poses to the water supply, among other reasons.”

The Barrancabermeja-based Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) has supported the work of Dr. Blanco.

CREDHOS has noted, “Blanco has argued that fracking in Barrancabermeja and the surrounding region, known as the Magdalena Medio, would have a direct negative impact on the San Silvestre environmental protection zone, which provides water to the city, and is a strategic corridor for protected species such as the jaguar.”

The Ecologist has reported the wetland of the Cienega of San Silvestre is an area from which 300,000 people in Barrancabermeja source their drinking water.

In 2014, the local environmental authority the Autonomous Corporation of Santander permitted Empresa Rediba ESP to build a rubbish dump within the protected area, specifically in the village of Patio Bonito in the district of La Fortuna in Barrancabermeja.

Dr. Blanco reported on the occurrence of mercury in the drinking water and that children were being affected by this contamination.

He says, “There was a year in which I diagnosed 18 children with a very rare disease that consists of an immunological alteration. I started to look at what could be happening and, with the help of other colleagues, we saw that there was a direct relationship with exposure to heavy metals, including mercury.”

As a result of his environmental activism, and the vested interests it challenges, Dr. Blanco has experienced smear campaigns, threats and criminal proceedings.

He was forced to leave Colombia in November 2018.

PBI-Colombia has volunteers based in Barrancabermeja and accompanies CREDHOS. PBI-Colombia, CREDHOS president Iván Madero and representatives from the Luis Carlos Perez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP) will be visiting Canada this November to talk about extractivism, fracking and climate change.

For more on that tour, please click here.

PBI-Colombia visits Buenaventura following attack on social leader Carlos Tobar

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 10, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted that Lars Bredal, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Colombia, visited the Isla de la Paz neighbourhood in Buenaventura to learn about the serious risks experienced by ethnic communities and members of the Comité del Paro Cívico.

Recently, a member of the Comité del Paro Cívico (the Civic Unemployment Committee) was wounded in an attack.

On July 26, Semana reported that just hours before the “marches for life and the defence of social leaders” in Colombia, several armed men entered the home of Civic Unemployment Committee coordinator Carlos Tobar and shot him several times.

PBI-Colombia’s tweet notes that the visit to Isla de la Paz by the Deputy Head also involved the Black Communities Process (PCN) and the Association for Social Research and Action (NOMADESC), which is accompanied by PBI-Colombia.

PCN and NOMADESC have noted, “Isla de la Paz is mostly composed of people who were forcibly displaced from rural areas by the political violence of the late 1990’s and early 2000s, primarily from the Naya, Raposo and Yurumangui river communities, after the occurrence of barbaric acts such as the massacre of the Naya.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has explained, “In the dark annals of violence in Colombia, the Naya massacre occupies a special place. During Holy Week [April 10-13, 2001], a group of 400 paramilitaries entered this remote jungle area. …Scores of people were murdered in the most gruesome ways.”

Buenaventura also has a recent history of resistance and repression.

New York-based NACLA has commented, “In May 2017, Buenaventura residents held a 22-day civic strike to protest ongoing investment in its port instead of investing in local residents. In an impressive show of organizational capacity, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities and organizations united to shut down the city, blocking the port and flooding the streets. Residents demanded resources to invest in building a local hospital, more economic opportunities, and potable water.”

In June 2017, Telesur reported, “Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos responded to the protest by sending in armed anti-riot units in an attempt to control protesters. …Human rights organizations raised alarms over the treatment of protesters in Buenaventura at the hands of ESMAD, Colombia’s riot police.”

Canadian organizations have worked in solidarity with the leaders of that strike.

In October and November 2018, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and other unions and organizations organized a cross-country speaking tour in Canada with three of the Buenaventura civic strike leaders.

PSAC highlights, “The strike—which the visiting leaders are careful to note was suspended, not ended—won an agreement containing important concessions from the government to improve public services, including community housing, health services, roads, the justice system, and a new framework agreement to protect the rights of port workers.”

But it also adds, “Yet, since May 2017, threats against strike leaders have continued as plans go forward to expand and modernize the port, while the government fails to implement its agreement with the strikers.”

And while Carlos Tobar will hopefully recover from his attack, another human rights defender was shot to death in Isla de la Paz in January 2018.

Both PCN and NOMADESC have denounced the murder of human rights activist Temistocles Machado (who was known as Don Temis).

The groups explained, “With an incredible level of commitment, Don Temis defended his community and resisted the expansion of port installations in Isla de la Paz, as well as infrastructure mega-projects and the pressure of armed groups to control the territory.” He was also involved in “litigation to prevent the systematic dispossession of the community’s territorial space and guarantee the restitution of the territorial rights of the community.”

In a September 2018 article in The Guardian, Father Alberto Franco of the Inter-Church Commission on Justice and Peace, another organization accompanied by the PBI-Colombia Project, commented that the construction of a freshwater port in Buenaventura region was a factor in the displacement of indigenous people from the lower stretches of the Calima and San Juan rivers.

That article highlights, “Buenaventura, where many displaced rural people end up, is one of the most dangerous cities in South America for local people, especially from the indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, who face racial discrimination.”

PSAC reminds us that despite the signing of the peace accord in 2017, “violence, land grabs and dislocation” have not stopped in Colombia and that “regrettably some of these violent incidents are also associated with Canadian companies that have been emboldened by the 2008 Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Indigenous land defender Justino Xollim at court hearing

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 9, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project accompanied Justino Xollim to an intermediate stage court hearing.

PBI-Guatemala has posted on Facebook, “He was unjustly accused of illegal logging at Finca la Primavera in San Cristobál Verapaz, where he lives.”

It adds, “On this occasion, the case was provisionally closed.”

Earlier this year, Prensa Comunitaria reported that Xollim, a representative of Poqomchi communities in his territory, has worked for a decade to have the government grant them general title to their lands. While Xollim was going to the Public Ministry on February 15 to denounce the felling of trees by a wood company on this territory, he was arrested by members of the Tourism Security Division.

PBI-Guatemala adds, “His community is part of the UVOC which has endured several processes against it because of its demand for access to land.”

UVOC refers to the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organizations.

UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of access to land in the context of historical dispossession and ongoing inequality in Guatemala. UVOC represents Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, Achi and Mestizas peoples.

About 40 per cent of the population of Guatemala is indigenous.

Indigenous and peasant farmers were dispossessed of their land in the 18th century through Spanish colonization which drove them to the less fertile highlands.

Land distribution in Guatemala continues to be deeply unequal with the largest 2.5 per cent of farms currently occupying more than 65 per cent of the land while 90 per cent of the farms are on only one-sixth of the agricultural land in the country.

There are now at least 1,000 land conflicts happening in Guatemala, many of which are related to concessions given to foreign companies for mining, sugar cane and palm oil farms, and hydroelectric dams, all of which deepen dispossession, exclusion and poverty among the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied UVOC since 2005.

Remembering the founding of Peace Brigades International in 1981

By
Brent Patterson
-

Daniel N. Clark tells the story of the founding of Peace Brigades International on Grindstone Island which is situated about 100 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, Canada on unceded Algonquin, Anishinabek territory.

Ironically, the lodge on Big Rideau Lake where that meeting took place had been built as a summer home for Admiral Sir Charles Edmund Kingsmill, who had played a prominent role in founding the Royal Canadian Navy. It was his daughter, Diana, who made the home available after his passing to the Quakers as a retreat for peace studies.

In this overview, Clark notes that the eleven people gathered at that lodge in 1981 included Hans Sinn (“a Canadian nonviolence trainer and social defence advocate”), Gene Keyes (“a Canadian scholar and writer”), Murray Thomson (“of Project Ploughshares in Canada”) and Henry Wiseman (“a Canadian serving as director of Peacekeeping Programs at the International Peace Academy in New York”).

He then writes, “The consultation began on the evening of Monday, August 31 with introductions of the participants.  The first session, chaired by Hans Sinn, began with a reading from Gandhi by Ray Magee [of Peaceworkers from California].”

“The deployment discussion [on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 1] included my suggestion for a peace brigade in Central America, particularly in Guatemala where the government had been wiping out remote villages and Mexico was rebuffing refugees.”

“Next came the naming process [it’s not clear if that was on Wednesday, September 2 or Thursday, September 3]. During a coffee break, ‘Peace Brigades International’ was first voiced by Narayan [Desai from India], seized on by Charlie [Walker from the United States], and on reconvening accepted by everyone.”

Clark highlights, “On the final day at Grindstone, we adopted the Founding Declaration of Peace Brigades International, which read, ‘We have decided to establish an organization which will form and support international peace brigades.’”

This website notes that “2 copies of the founding statement, September 4, 1981” are kept in Box 52 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Of the four PBI founders who were based in Canada, Thomson died in Ottawa on May 2 of this year at 96 years of age; Wiseman passed away in Guelph, Ontario in January 2017 at 93 years of age; Sinn continues to be a Perth, Ontario-based peace activist at 90 years of age; and Keyes, who is now 77 years of age, lives in Berwick, Nova Scotia.

Notably, Clark also recalls in his overview, “In Canada, Hans Sinn had sent out a mailing [in 1982] funded by Murray Thomson’s Operation Ploughshares to over 1000 people, including Canadian organizations and peace churches, asking for volunteers and money. To assist in the effort, Hans had also been working on the formation of PBI-Canada, which was to become PBI’s first country group.”

An Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations document notes that “Peace Brigades International, Canada” was incorporated on January 31, 1984.

A gathering to celebrate the life of Murray Thomson, which will undoubtedly include a remembrance of his role in founding Peace Brigades International, is scheduled to take place on Wednesday October 23, from 1 pm to 4 pm, at the First Unitarian Church in Ottawa.

For more on the ongoing work of Peace Brigades International, its annual reviews from 1990 to present can be found here.

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