Home Blog Page 82

More militarism is not the answer: World BEYOND War and PBI-Canada webinar on April 8 at 7 pm ET

By
Brent Patterson
-

Webinar speakers: Harsha Walia, Tyler Shipley, Clayton Thomas-Muller.

The militarization of borders, Indigenous territories, and foreign policy through weapons exports has led to human rights abuses and repression. More border militarism, colonial dispossession and weapons exports are not the answer.

Join this critical and timely discussion on Tuesday April 8 with South Asian activist and writer Harsha Walia, professor and author Tyler Shipley, and Cree author, filmmaker, and land-defender Clayton Thomas-Müller.

Click “Register” here to sign up and get the Zoom link for this online discussion.

This webinar takes place in the context of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Black Hawk helicopters now patrolling the 49th parallel, impunity for the RCMP Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) following militarized raids on Wet’suwet’en territory to push through the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline, and the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa on May 28-29 that promotes the export of weapons and surveillance technologies that threaten the lives of human rights defenders and communities.  

Hosted by World BEYOND War and Peace Brigades International-Canada.

World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. The founding statement of Peace Brigades International highlights: “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.”

Join us on Tuesday April 8 at 7 pm ET by clicking here.

#MakingSpaceForPeace

Additional reading: “We are not resigned to rearmament and war in Europe”: PBI-Spanish State and nearly 850 organizations (March 28, 2025).

PBI-Colombia accompanies the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó at installation of Justice Evaluation Commission

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: PBI-Colombia stands with Ombudsman Iris Marin Ortiz at the installation ceremony at the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó on April 1.

On April 1, the Ombudsman’s Office posted on Instagram:

“Peace is built from the territories!

The Ombudsman @irismarinortiz installed the ‘Justice Evaluation Commission’ in Apartadó, Antioquia, in the framework of the ‘Friendly Settlement Agreement’ with the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, victim of human rights violations since 1997.

The Commission has the mandate to evaluate the judicial processes related to the crimes against the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó and to present a public report with its findings and recommendations.

We ratify the commitment to life, dignity and justice for a #GoodFutureToday.”

The Office of the Ombudsman

The Ombudsman’s Office is a “Colombian State institution responsible for promoting human rights for a #Good Future Today.” As formally explained on their website: “It is the entity in charge of defending, promoting, protecting and disseminating the human rights, guarantees and freedoms of the inhabitants of the national territory and of Colombians residing abroad, against illegal, unjust, unreasonable, negligent or arbitrary acts, threats or actions of any authority or individuals.”

In August 2024, constitutional lawyer Iris Marín Ortiz was elected by the House of Representatives to be the Ombudsman of Colombia for the period 2024-2028.

Photo: PBI-Colombia with Ombudsman Iris Marin at the installation ceremony for the Commission. Photo by El Tiempo.

Justice Evaluation Commission to review 54 cases

W Radio explains: “After decades marked by murders, displacements and threats, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó sees one of its historic demands advance: the creation of a Justice Evaluation Commission that will be in charge of reviewing 54 cases documented between 1997 and 2007. These facts, according to the community, remain unpunished despite the protection measures granted by international organizations.”

“The installation ceremony took place on April 1 in the municipality of Apartadó, Antioquia, with the presence of the Ombudsman, Iris Marín Ortiz. ‘Starting today, we will walk that path together,’ said Marín, who recognized that this commission represents an ‘unprecedented’ act of trust on the part of the community.”

That article adds: “The peace community of San José de Apartadó was founded in 1997 by peasants who decided to declare themselves neutral in the face of the armed conflict. Since then, it has been the target of crimes committed by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and state agents. Although the Constitutional Court acknowledged in 2007 the absence of justice in his case, the orders issued then were not complied with and a similar commission, created in 2012, did not produce concrete results.”

Photo: PBI-Colombia at the ceremony.

The Commission and the IACHR ruling

Alerta Paisa further explains: “This Commission will be responsible for reviewing criminal investigations, processes, and judicial decisions in relation to serious human rights violations, constituting crimes, committed against members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó and persons linked to it.”

That article also notes: “This Commission responds to the agreement reached in December 2024 [the ‘Friendly Settlement Agreement’] in the framework of case 12.325 before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a milestone in the fight against impunity and reparation for victims.”

El Colombiano further explains: “The precautionary measures of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued in 1997 and the provisional measures of the Inter-American Court since 2000, did not prevent its members from continuing to be victimized through massacres, forced displacements and threats, among other violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.”

It adds: “This mechanism was defined in December 2024 as part of the Friendly Settlement Agreement between the Peace Community and the Colombian State, with which both parties agreed to put an end to the international lawsuit for the systematic violations of human rights and breaches of International Humanitarian Law that have fallen on the aforementioned organization for more than two decades.”

Report within a year

The El Colombiano article also reports: “Within a year, at the end of their term, they [the commission] will present a public report with their findings, conclusions and recommendations.”

Accompaniment

Peace Community leader María Brígida González told the Commission: “In the midst of paramilitarism, with the complicity of the State and business sectors, we were preparing to live in the middle of the war without being part of it. In the midst of the massacres, on March 23, 1997, we made the decision to sign the public declaration [and establish] the Peace Community.”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since 1999.

Photo: Ombudsman Iris Marin with Father Javier Giraldo at the ceremony. Father Giraldo learned about PBI in the 1980s and thought it would be an appropriate protection model for human rights defenders in Colombia. He was the person who made the formal request for PBI to open a project in Colombia.

PBI-Honduras accompanies the CNTC rural workers union and 17 de junio community at trial date on land “usurpation”

By
Brent Patterson
-

PBI-Honduras has posted:

“Yesterday [March 27], we accompanied the June 17 base together with the CNTC [National Union of Rural Workers] El Progreso [a city in the department of Yoro] in the trial for usurpation that was going to take place. However, due to various reasons, the hearing could not be held and was pending rescheduling.

From PBI, we express our deep concern about the criminalization process involving the peasant base advocates. It is critical to ensure the protection of the rights of those in pursuit of social justice and the defense of the land.

On the other hand, we applaud and support the work of the CNTC El Progreso, whose tireless work to ensure access to land, promote agricultural reform and guarantee food sovereignty is essential for the well-being of peasant communities.”

A “campesino” (male) or “campesina” (female) translates as “peasant” or “country person”, coming from the Spanish word “campo” meaning “field” or “country”. The term campesino/campesina refers to a farmer or agricultural workers with a strong cultural connection to the land and community.

A “base campesina” can be understood as a “peasant base” or perhaps as a self-managed agricultural cooperative.

“Usurpation” can be understood as a criminal charge that enables evictions and that criminalizes the occupation/presence of campesinas on land in the context of land ownership inequalities and through the political prism of the prioritization of private property rights and the rights of large landowners and agribusiness.

“La base campesina 17 de junio”

On June 17, 2024, PBI-Honduras visited “la base campesina 17 de junio” and noted their concern “about the criminalization of the peasant population, whose work is fundamental to guarantee food security.”

On March 13, 2023, PBI-Honduras also visited the community “which is in the process of recovering land and developing community projects.” PBI-Honduras added: “For 2 years, the base has been in the process of reclaiming land and is developing community projects, which include the expansion and recovery of crops, collective gardens, fish farms and irrigation systems, among others.”

June 17, 2009

Rebelion has noted: “On 17 June 2009, at a meeting with a thousand peasants from Bajo Aguán [Honduran president Manuel] Zelaya promised to remediate the lands of landowners and hand over any surpluses that were outside the law, along with other idle land, to some 100,000 peasants claiming arable land. Eleven days after that promise, on Sunday 28 June [the president was ousted in a coup].”

Inequality surrounded by millions in profits

Reuters has reported: “Less than 5% of Honduras’ landowners, government figures show, control 60% of the fertile terrain, including many monocultures of palm and other export crops.” And anthropologist Andrés León has noted: “The Aguán is a region of rampant poverty and misery surrounded by a crop that makes millions in profits.”

Peasants criminalized, murdered

In October 2023, Criterio.hn reported:

“Defending the right of access to land for peasants is a deadly task in the fertile – and coveted by agro-industrialists – Valle del Aguán, located between the departments of Colón and Yoro, in northeastern Honduras.

According to estimates by the Agrarian Platform and the Coordinator of Popular Organizations of the Aguán (COPA), since 2009 it has been the scene of more than 200 murders of peasants. The murders are preceded by the criminalization of their leaders as a form of generalized intimidation of those who decide to raise their voices against land grabbing whose destiny was agrarian reform in favor of peasant groups, but ended up in the hands of agro-industrialists and politicians.

The lawyer of the law firm Estudios para la Dignidad, Lestter Castro [warns] that, although criminalization has been the constant figure over time, this does not imply that more violent forms of repression are not applied against peasant groups such as persecution, surveillance, threats and murders carried out by murderous groups and state security forces, in alliance with agro-industrial companies.”

Accompaniment

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) since May 2018.

The CNTC is affiliated with the Unified Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH) which in turn is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), along with 150+ labour organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress.

Photo: PBI-Honduras with Franklin Almendares, General Secretary, National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC).

PBI-Colombia accompanies the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó on the 28th anniversary of its formation

By
Brent Patterson
-

PBI-Colombia has posted on Instagram:

“We congratulate the Peace Community for their anniversary, they have been 28 years of Resistance and Peace Building in the territory of Urabá. We were able to accompany them on March 23, on these special dates and always remembering Nalleli and Edinson whose case remains in complete impunity.”

The founding of the Peace Community

Yes! Magazine has reported: “On March 23, 1997, Brígida Gonzáles, 69, along with the others who decided to stay, founded the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. This ‘Peace Community’ declared itself neutral in the conflict, pledging not to get involved in any way and asked to be left in peace.”

For Peace Presence has explained: “In the middle of the 1990s, as violence escalated and peasant farmers suffered from extrajudicial deaths at the hands of armed actors as well as forced displacements, the people began to organize themselves in order to return to their land and to escape from the spiral of violence.”

It adds: “Conscientiously objecting to the war and demanding their rights as civilians not to be involved in a conflict, the community denounced the use of arms within their territories and committed to a variety of principles in the process (including cooperative communal work, prohibition of alcohol, the non-use of illicit drugs, the no-entry of armed actors, non-use of weapons and the refusal to provide information to armed actors).”

The Peace Community is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.

Nallely and Edinson

Last year, the El Colombiano newspaper reported: “Nallely and Edinson were murdered on Tuesday, March 19 at noon, the news reached Apartadó around 6 p.m. and the bodies were collected 24 hours later.”

Infobae also reported: “The region where this crime was perpetrated is mainly operated by the paramilitary Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), also known as Clan del Golfo, the country’s largest criminal gang.”

On March 20, 2024, Colombian president Gustavo Petro posted: “Four hundred members of the community of Paz de San José de Apartadó have been murdered [since its founding], two days ago, the whole government was there in Apartadó and we met with members of the community in the Popular Assembly. On our return they assassinated two more community members. Dark forces want to reissue paramilitarism in the northwest of the country.”

Accompaniment

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since 1999.

Corporations calling for energy projects to be declared in the “national interest” could put land defenders at risk

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: In April 2015, Public Safety Canada’s Government Operations Centre (GOC) reportedly saw Unist’ot’en opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline as a risk to Canada’s “national interest”. By January 2019, “Canadian police were prepared to shoot Indigenous land defenders blockading construction of  [the Coastal GasLink pipeline] in northern British Columbia, according to documents seen by the Guardian.”

The chief executive officers of eight Canadian energy companies, including the CEOs of Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. and Enbridge Inc., have sent this open letter on “how Canadian energy can help strengthen Canada’s economic sovereignty” to the leaders of the four major political parties in Canada.

The letter from these CEOs highlights: “By declaring a Canadian energy crisis and key projects in the ‘national interest’, the federal government will be able to use all its available emergency powers to ensure that the dramatic regulatory restructuring required to expand the oil and natural gas sector is rapidly achieved.”

This “national interest” framing could lead to the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders who seek to uphold their right to free, prior and informed consent and their sovereignty over unceded territories against extractive megaprojects.

In January 2019, Justin Brake wrote in The Narwhal about a report (titled “Strategic Incapacitation of Indigenous Dissent: Crowd Theories, Risk Management, and Settler Colonial Policing”) by Jeffrey Monaghan of Carleton University and Miles Howe of Queen’s University that “paint[s] a picture of how government departments, police, intelligence agencies and private sector interests work together to compile intelligence on activists — including Indigenous land defenders — and rate them according to the risk they pose to ’critical infrastructure’ such as pipelines, and to Canada’s ‘national interest’.”

C-IRG raids on Wet’suwet’en territory

The article by Brake was published in the days following the first Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) raid on Wet’suwet’en territory on January 8, 2019, that resulted in the arrest of 14 people.

Brake writes: “As part of their research Monaghan and Crosby uncovered previously classified documents on the Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation … including a Government Operations Centre (GOC) report … [that] included revealing language, including reference to the pipeline as ‘critical infrastructure’ and ‘risk to the national interest resulting from a blockade or protest against the proposed TransCanada Coastal Gaslink liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline’ (which at the time they determined was ‘medium-low’).”

The proposed PRGT pipeline

The letter from the CEOs to the political party leaders highlights: “There is increasing public support to urgently grow our energy sector and build energy infrastructure, including new oil and natural gas pipelines and LNG terminals, to expand Canada’s energy exports.”

This could include the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline, a proposed 800-kilometre pipeline from northeastern British Columbia that would move between 2 billion and 3.6 billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day to a floating liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal on Nisga’a land on Pearse Island.

Gitanyow resistance

We are following the resistance of Indigenous land defenders to the PRGT pipeline, including the blockade on unceded Gitanyow lax’yip (territory) in northern British Columbia.

On a PBI-Canada webinar held on March 5, 2024, Tara Marsden, Wilp sustainability director for Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, commented: “Our learning is that consent only works when we say yes, if we say no, even if we say no with science behind us, and our knowledge and our laws behind us, then we will be met with force from the C-IRG, from militarized invasion and occupation and intimidation and harassment.”

We continue to follow this.

Further reading: When “national interest” and “national security” militarize the response to an environmental struggle (PBI-Canada, January 18, 2022).

Lockheed Martin Board of Directors rejects stockholder proposal from Sisters to align its political activities with Human Rights Policy

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Protests at the CANSEC arms at the EY Centre in Ottawa have drawn attention to Lockheed Martin, a sponsor of CANSEC 2025.

The Lockheed Martin “2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders” is a virtual gathering happening on May 9, less than three weeks before the U.S. based transnational exhibits at the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa, May 28-29.

The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica have made a “stockholder proposal” (on page 82) to Lockheed Martin that resolves that “shareholders request the Board of Directors to annually conduct an evaluation and issue a public report, at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information, describing the alignment of its political activities (including direct and indirect lobbying and political and electioneering expenditures) with it Human Rights Policy.”

The “whereas” section of the proposal notes: “The UN has criticized the ‘symbiotic relationship’ between governments and defense contractors, ‘which can cause States to approve arms exports despite genuine human rights risks that should prevent them’.”

It further highlights: “F-35s have been used repeatedly by Israeli forces to target Palestinian civilians in Gaza and are connected to apparent war crimes. Despite this, in June 2024, Israel sign a $3 billion deal with Lockheed to sell 25 F-35s to Israel.”

Lockheed Martin has responded (on pages 83-84 of this circular): “The Board of Directors Recommends a vote AGAINST Proposal 5 because Lockheed Martin’s lobbying practices already align with our Human Rights Policy, and our stockholders overwhelmingly rejected the same proposal last year with no indication of change in their views. Thus, Proposal 5 is redundant and unnecessary.”

The response from Lockheed Martin continues: “Proposal 5 also asserts that our work to sell F-35s to international customers causes us to be complicit in war crimes, suggesting we should not sell F-35s to certain allies of the U.S. Government despite the government’s review, approval and facilitation of our sales of the planes to those allies. Proposal 5’s assertions misstate the F-35 program’s role in strengthening global alliances and partnerships through connected deterrence capabilities, thus strengthening human rights and the ability to defend human rights. Ultimately, our work is closely aligned with our customers and is subject to rigorous government oversight to ensure that our business complies with legal requirements and furthers the interest of the U.S. Government and its allies to support human rights including by helping to deter conflict around the world.”

The Lockheed Martin Board of Directors response concludes: “We received a similar proposal from the same proponents in 2024, and 87% of our stockholders rejected that proposal at the 2024 Annual Meeting.”

Weapons sales and human rights defenders

Peace Brigades International-Canada focuses on the protection and security needs of human rights defenders.

We uphold and affirm the statement by Amnesty International that: “Legal concepts of ‘corporate complicity’ in and the ‘aiding and abetting’ of international crimes continue to evolve and could in the future apply to arms companies that continue supplying weapons in the knowledge that they may be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.”

On January 16, 2025, Ihab Marwan Kamal Faisal of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and his family were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. In February 2024, in two separate incidents, two of PCHR’s lawyers, Nour Abu Al-Nour and Dana Yaghi, were also killed along with their families by Israeli airstrikes.

In its Global Analysis 2023/24 released in May 2024, Dublin-based Front Line Defenders stated: “Those defending the right to health and the right to life as doctors, nurses, or ambulance workers, those exposing and documenting war crimes as journalists, and those providing humanitarian support as volunteers or employees of aid agencies were all specifically targeted by Israeli bombs or guns.”

In a joint statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Washington, DC-based Global Witness, that reports annually on killings of land and environmental defenders, has also supported the demand for halting the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition that may be used to commit violations of international humanitarian law.

We continue to follow this and take note of this “Shut Down CANSEC” mobilization.

British police raid Westminster Quaker Meeting House in London and arrest Youth Demand activists and journalist

By
Brent Patterson
-

Google Maps Image of Westminster Quaker Meeting House.

CNN reports: “British police raided a Quaker meeting house in London on Thursday [March 27] and arrested six women attending a meeting on climate change and the war in Gaza, according to a statement from Quakers UK.”

That CNN news report adds: “Quakers, a nickname for members of the Religious Society of Friends, follow a religious tradition that originally grew from Protestant Christianity in the 17th century. Quakers have a long history of supporting protest movements and non-violence is one of their core beliefs.”

Quakers in Britain

The day following the raid, Friday March 28, Quakers in Britain stated: “Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.”

Their statement further noted: “Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.”

Youth Demand

Press TV reports: “On Thursday, 30 Met police officers stormed into the Youth Demand Welcome Talk at the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster and arrested six young women, including one attending their first ever welcome talk and a journalist.”

A Youth Demand spokesperson said the [“Welcome Talk”] meeting was “an opportunity to share plans for non-violent civil resistance actions” due to take place in April, and that one of those arrested was a journalist.

One of those arrested was student Ella Grace-Taylor who said: “By arming Israel and refusing to call what is happening a genocide, they are perpetrating mass slaughter. Hundreds of children were killed in Palestine in the last week. We won’t stop saying it.”

Video statement on the arrests by Youth Demand.

The Youth Demand website is here, their Instagram account is here.

The Quakers

The Quaker statement following the arrests highlights: “Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet. Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.”

In that statement, Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “This forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.”

The Westminster Quaker Meeting House website notes: “Quaker Meetings for Worship have been held in Westminster weekly since 1655. Former Meeting Houses were in Pall Mall, the Strand and near to Westminster Abbey. The current Meeting House was damaged by wartime bombs, and re-built in the 1950s.”

PBI and Quakers

Peace Brigades International (PBI) was co-founded by Murray Thomson of the Ottawa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Three other co-founders were Friends: Charlie Walker of Philadelphia, Dan Clark from San Francisco, and Lee Stern of the New York area. That founding meeting took place on Grindstone Island where the Canadian Friends Service Committee had previously operated a Peace Education Centre.

JoLeigh Commandant, a Toronto Quaker, became the first staff person for PBI’s Central American program. Alaine Hawkins, a Toronto Quaker, was the coordinator of the Central America Project in from 1986 to 1991. In 1996, Toronto Quaker Alan Dixon was the coordinator of the PBI North American Project. Previously, in 1990 he was part of PBI’s Emergency Response Network and in 1992 he took a training to be a field volunteer and was part of the PBI team in El Salvador for six months. Karen Ridd, an attender at the Winnipeg Monthly Meeting, was a PBI field volunteer in El Salvador in 1989, and is now a staff person with the Canadian Friends Service Committee.

The raid on the Westminster Quaker Meeting House in London is a developing story and we continue to follow this.

Photo: “Youth Demand activists protest against the Gaza genocide outside Keir Starmer’s house in London, April 2024.”

Further reading: Peace Brigades International remembers the life and activism of (American Quaker peace activist) David Hartsough (March 27, 2025).

“We are not resigned to rearmament and war in Europe”: PBI-Spanish State and nearly 850 organizations

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: The statement was announced on Wednesday March 26 on the steps of the Spanish Parliament in Madrid as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced his intention to accelerate the country’s military spending.

Peace Brigade International-Spanish State, along with nearly 850 organizations and 16,000 individuals, has signed this letter that opposes the European Commission plan to “ReArm Europe” by spending €800 billion over the next four years.

Signatories of the letter also include Greenpeace Spain, Mundubat, ATTAC Spain, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Spain, and the Observatory of Peace and Human Rights-University of Tolima.

The letter pointedly asks: “Would it not be necessary to invest in greater political and diplomatic efforts that, in the face of threats of aggression, seek paths of dialogue that have not yet been explored?”

It then asserts: “The rearmament of Europe will not bring peace, it will not contribute to détente, but it will bring us even closer to war. Militaristic contexts are also often accompanied by setbacks in rights, freedoms and social policies, causing fear and social alarm, an ideal scenario for normalising mechanisms of repression and authoritarianism, as we are already beginning to see.”

It also provides this critique: “This Europe which is silent or, worse, supports Israel in its genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and even persecutes those who denounce it, needs to clearly redefine what are those common values whose defense is put forward as a justification for rearmament.”

The letter concludes: “We do not resign ourselves to war, because we do not want the peace of the cemeteries, because history shows us that the only realistic way to achieve peace is not military, but political.”

The full letter signed by our colleagues at PBI-Spanish State can be read at Manifiesto: ‘No nos resignamos al rearme y a la guerra en Europa’.

Military spending set to increase across Europe and in Canada

Along with Spain, plans to dramatically increase military spending are now being seen in multiple countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Norway.

On January 24 of this year, CBC News reported: “Defence Minister Bill Blair says it’s ‘absolutely achievable’ for Canada to meet NATO’s military investment benchmark of two per cent of gross domestic product within two years.” The Fraser Institute further explains: “To reach 2.0 per cent of GDP in 2027/28, the government would need to spend $68.8 billion on defence during that fiscal year. Assuming the initial jump remains the same, this implies the government would need to increase annual defence spending by $16.5 billion from 2025/26 to 2027/28—$15.3 billion more than currently planned.”

On February 25, BBC reported: “[British prime minister] Keir Starmer has set out plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2027. The prime minister said he would cut the foreign aid budget to fund the military boost – a move welcomed by the US administration but labelled a ‘betrayal’ by development charities.”

In response, PBI-UK stated: “We are stunned and disappointed by the UK Government’s decision to slash aid in order to fund defence spending. Following in the wake of the USAID freeze, this decision will leave even more civil society organisations and human rights defenders exposed at a time of escalating global crises.”

A report posted this week on the website of Wilton Park, “an Executive Agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office”, additionally warns: “As ongoing conflicts remain unresolved and major military powers continue to prepare for the possibility of a wider war, there is simultaneously more at stake for human rights and an increasingly difficult environment in which to defend them. Women HRDs [human rights defenders] face particularly severe risks in this context.”

Webinar, April 8

PBI-Canada is partnering with World Beyond War this coming Tuesday April 8 at 7 pm ET for a webinar that will highlight that the militarization of Indigenous territories, borders and foreign policy has already put the lives of land defenders, migrants and communities around the world at risk. A panel of authors and activists will share critical perspectives on why more militarism is not the answer. Registration link coming soon!

Shut Down CANSEC, May 28

PBI-Canada will also be observing the Shut Down CANSEC mobilization being planned on Wednesday May 28 starting at 7 am ET.

The protest will challenge the CANSEC arms show that brings together some of the world’s largest weapons companies and more than 50 international delegations including from countries where state security forces repress, threaten and kill human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and community members.

#MakingSpaceForPeace

PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meetings with Presidential advisor and SINTRAUNICOL, threatened trade unionists

By
Brent Patterson
-

On March 27, RTVC News posted: “The Presidential Advisor for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, Lourdes Castro, met with threatened social leaders in Cali and throughout the department.”

“Meets with threatened trade unionists”

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documented: “Between 2023 and 2024, 11 trade unionists were assassinated, resulting in Colombia retaining its reputation as the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists.”

Providing specific context about this visit, the National Union of University Workers and Employees of Colombia (SINTRAUNICOL) posted on Instagram:

“Visit of the Presidential Advisor for Human Rights to SINTRAUNICOL

In the framework of the accompaniment to trade union organizations and human rights defenders in the Valle, the Presidential Advisor for Human Rights, Lourdes Castro, visited the headquarters of SINTRAUNICOL.

During the meeting, the Board of Directors of SINTRAUNICOL highlighted its commitment to the defense of the Universidad del Valle, public education and the protection of the university community at risk.

The Counselor emphasized the importance of recognizing union work as legitimate, urging the authorities to guarantee the protection of union leaders and to stop stigmatization. In addition, the need for justice in cases such as that of Jhonny Silva [a student at Universidad del Valle killed by members of the ESMAD police riot squad during a student demonstration in 2005] was addressed, recalling that historical memory is key in the struggle for human rights.

SINTRAUNICOL remains firm in the defense of life, truth and justice.”

Photo: Presidential advisor Lourdes Castro, SINTRAUNICOL president Edison Méndez, and NOMADESC president Berenice Celeita.

The Peace Brigades International accompanied Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc) also posted on Facebook:

“The visit for protection of the Presidential Counselor for Human Rights begins, in the accompaniment of trade union organizations and human rights defenders of the Valle.

Sintraunicol receives at its headquarters the counselor Lourdes Castro, the Board of Directors highlights the work they do from the union for the defense of the Universidad del Valle and public education. In the union’s work, they mandate the search for the truth, as well as the protection and safeguarding of the lives of workers, students and the university community that today is at risk.

The counselor emphasizes its commitment to the protection of human rights in a comprehensive manner, from the protection of life, to the present struggle for the social rights of the Colombian people in conditions of dignity. She calls on the authorities that the work of union leaders is legitimate and it is the responsibility of the national, departmental and local governments, the Attorney General’s Office and the State as a whole to recognize their work and put an end to the stigmatization of the defense of human rights. Adding the timely investigation of the facts that threaten their life and exercise.

Our director, Berenice Celeita, highlights the accumulation of impunity for different crimes committed against students, such as the case of Jhonny Silva. It is the victims who are the driving force in the exercise of defending the historical memory of human rights. It is a case that represents what happens in all public universities, a genocidal practice against university communities.”

Later Nomadesc posted:

“We ended the day with a visit to the workers of EMCALI Union of Labor Unions [USE]. Defending the public company is our ideology, our raison d’être, is the union’s statement to Councilwoman Lourdes Castro. 

The USE union expresses its commitment to the defense of labor rights, and requests protection for its organizational exercise, its right to representation and association, which today are also at risk.”

We continue to follow this.

Further reading: PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meetings with state authorities in Bogota given threats faced by trade union leaders (March 14, 2025).

Peace Brigades International remembers the life and activism of David Hartsough

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: David Hartsough.

On March 22, the family of David Hartsough announced his passing at the age of 84 after four years of fighting cancer.

The book Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist notes: “David Hartsough knows how to get in the way! He has used his body to block Navy ships headed for Vietnam and trains loaded with munitions on their way to El Salvador and Nicaragua. He has marched with mothers confronting a violent regime in Guatemala and stood with refugees threatened by death squads in the Philippines.”

Photo: “The first demonstration David Hartsough ever organized was at the Nike missile site near his home in Pennsylvania. Although he was only 14 at the time, the FBI placed him under surveillance for organizing the nonviolent protest.”

Photo: A sit-in challenges segregation at People’s Drug Store in Arlington, Virginia, in June 1960.

A review of Hartsough’s book “Waging Peace” highlights: “We see how his service with Peace Brigades International in El Salvador and Guatemala prepared him for a risky experiment to defend refugees from death squads in the Philippines. In turn this action laid the foundations for Nonviolent Peaceforce, a modern day embodiment of Gandhi’s vision of the Shanti Sena, a standing nonviolent army.”

In 2002, Hartsough cofounded Nonviolent Peaceforce.

In July 2001, Ottawa peace activist Carl Stieren wrote: “This new proposal [for Nonviolent Peaceforce] is based on the techniques and experience of the unarmed bodyguards Peace Brigades International in Guatemala and Colombia, and the witness of groups such as Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank.”

Stieren adds that the proposal was backed by PBI co-founders Hans Sinn and Murray Thomson, as well as by Lyn Adam of PBI-Canada and Tim Wallis who had been the London-based Executive Director of PBI.

Hartsough on PBI in Guatemala

Video: Hartsough reflects on PBI in Guatemala.

After the founding of Nonviolent Peaceforce, Hartsough reflected on his experience of PBI in Guatemala:

“In Guatemala in the early 80s it was genocidal violence against especially the Indigenous population but against everybody who wasn’t 100 percent behind the government… Civil society had ceased to exist, either people were killed or had been disappeared, imprisoned or fled the country.

In that situation, in early 1985, a group called the Mutual Support Group, the GAM, came together. They had all lost family members; they had been disappeared. They came, mostly Indigenous peoples, came to Guatemala City with pictures of their loved ones … walked down one of the main streets … and were chanting ‘where are they?’.

The president of Guatemala got on national television and said these people were all subversives … a licence to the military to open fire. I was with Peace Brigades International, just walking along the street with a little camera, a notepad and some change so we could try to make a phone call. And I had never been so afraid in my life…

Photo of protest from around that time (from the book “Unarmed Bodyguards”).

[After] late-February/ early-March of 85 … leaders [from the GAM] came to Peace Brigades International [and asked] ‘can you accompany us?’. And Peace Brigades International only had three or four people there at the time gulped and said, ‘we will try’.

And so, for two or three years they accompanied them day and night…

Gradually their courage gave courage to others in that society… And people who had fled the country, including Rigoberta Menchu, decided ‘well, you know if I’m accompanied maybe it’s safe enough to come back…’

Those women say we wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for Peace Brigades International. And the other organization people say we wouldn’t have had the courage to be active again if hadn’t been for these women.

So, that’s a small example of where a really small number of courageous, nonviolent internationals, going not to direct what’s going on or to come up with the answers, but to be there as nonviolent bodyguards, to help make it safer for the local courageous people to do their work…”

Hartsough at PBI conference on a “ready response brigade” and “local units”

PBI co-founder Daniel N. Clark has written that Hartsough was also at a PBI conference two years earlier in July 1983 that led to our first work in Nicaragua:

“PBI’s Ready Response Brigade was envisioned as a crisis response unit composed of contingents from various regions able on short notice to place their members in Central America for brief periods… Local units would also be available for peacekeeping in local or regional conflicts in their home areas.

On July 30, we had held a conference … with the specific goal of establishing local units in the San Francisco area. …The conference was attended by about 70 people, and resulted in the formation of local PBI groups in San Francisco, Salinas, and Santa Cruz…

Conference participants included David Hartsough of AFSC [the American Friends Service Committee]… At the close of the conference, Jack [Schultz] was authorized to organize a Santa Cruz contingent of the Ready Response Brigade… Because preparation of the Santa Cruz Brigade was already underway when we received [a request from the Nicaraguan government for an international presence], and appeared to have excellent local support resources, we decided to invite them to respond to the Nicaraguan appeal by organizing a ten-person brigade to be present in Jalapa the last two weeks of September [1983].”

Other reflections

For more reflections on the life and vision of Hartsough, please see Nonviolent Peaceforce and World Beyond War.

To learn more about his book, Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist, please click here.

Photo: Hartsough blocking a weapons truck at Concord Naval Weapons Station, 1988.

1...818283...475Page 82 of 475