The co-founder of Nonviolent Peaceforce presents a creative option to President Obama.
Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping
by Mel Duncan
Dear President-Elect Obama:
As a fellow organizer, I congratulate you on your electoral victory. The results not only bring you to the White House but also affirm many of the changes for which so many of us have struggled for decades. Yet, elections provide openings. As you remind us, we need to organize for the change we want to see.
Unarmed civilian peacekeeping represents a practical and transformational change for how we deal with violent conflict. AND, it is a cheaper option than other approaches to peace keeping.
Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), an international non-governmental organization, is one of a half dozen civil society groups that are actively demonstrating how nonviolent peacekeeping and protection works in some very violent areas including Sri Lanka, the Mindanao region of the Philippines, Guatemala, Colombia, and Palestine.
Often the response of nations and the international community to violent conflicts or crimes against humanity is to either ignore the issue (Darfur until recently) or to send military peacekeepers (Democratic Republic of the Congo). A growing number of people throughout the world accept that the international community has a responsibility to protect innocent civilians. Yet, peacekeeping isn’t always most effective when at the end of a gun. Violent mindsets beget violent responses. Based upon occupation, dominance, threats or actual use of violence, military peacekeeping can often provoke violent responses. It is also an expensive methodology. The UN Peacekeeping Operation presently deploys over 90,000 peacekeepers, the vast majority of whom are contracted military units from member states, to 16 locations at an annual cost exceeding $9 billion.
Civilian unarmed peacekeeping provides an alternative that is not only effective but also cheaper. For example, NP recruits, screens, trains, and deploys a civilian peacekeeper for $40,000 for one year. Within this amount each peacekeeper receives a salary. Generally a peacekeeper commits him or herself to a field site for a period of two years. Based upon relationship, presence and trust building, NP enhances the work of local peacemakers and human rights defenders while helping them stay alive in the process.
We are invited in to areas of violent conflict by local civil society organizations. We are nonpartisan and nonsectarian, focused solely on civilian peacekeeping. We foster dialogue among parties in conflict and provide proactive presence for civilians caught in the middle especially those vulnerable because of their work.
Unarmed civilian peacekeepers apply field tested tactics including accompaniment to individuals, international presence in vulnerable locations, providing safe spaces for contending parties to come together and monitoring. This is all done within an overall strategic framework.
Let me give you some examples:
• In Sri Lanka, an NP team accompanied a group of mothers and a local human rights activist seeking the release of children abducted as child soldiers. NP team members provided a supportive international presence while negotiations between the mothers and the insurgency leadership continued. By nightfall of the second day, 26 children were released with their bus fares home.
• Not long ago, the brother of a Sri Lankan journalist was shot to death by a bullet meant for the journalist. NP’s Colombo team rescued the journalist and accompanied him to temporary sanctuary, where he can assess his long-term security options. The Colombo team provides 30-40 protective accompaniments every month as threatened individuals and families seek access to justice and security.
• As an NP team accompanied a group of internally displaced people to help them escape shelling in Mindanao, they learned that a grandmother who is paralyzed had been accidentally left behind during the violent firefight. Family members who had tried to return for her were blocked by the intense fighting, and they asked NP to help.
After negotiating with both armed groups to ensure safe passage, the NP team returned to the battle zone. They were able to successfully evacuate the grandmother and reunite her with her family.
No one else can make someone’s peace for them. Yet, unarmed civilian peacekeeping can help create and protect the space for local peacebuilders and human rights defenders to do their work and stay alive. The Geneva based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue has documented how civilian unarmed peacekeeping works. In a three year study they found that, “Effective international presence increases civilians’ range of action in diverse ways.”
NP is committed to assisting you in creating effective and efficient ways to respond to violent conflicts and to appropriately act on our responsibility to protect fellow civilians. We make ourselves available to meet with you and your staff. Thank you for your consideration.
Mel Duncan is co-founder and Executive Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce.
