Liam Mahony and Luis Enrique Eguren
Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights
(West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1997, 288pp.)

 "I envision an international ideal of service awakening in an emerging class of people who are best called evolutionaries.  I see them come together in the name of people and planet to create a new environment of support for the positive growth of humankind and the living earth mother.  Their mission is to protect the possible and nurture the potential.  They are pioneers, not palace guards."  Jim Channon on his vision of the 1st Earth Battalion.

There is a rich history of non-governmental efforts at sending "peace brigades" or "peace teams" as non-violent third-party crisis intervention into areas of conflict.  The Swiss pacifist Pierre Ceresole was among the first to develop the concept through Service Civil International.  Mahatma Gandhi proposed in 1922 a "peace army" in India which could intervene, especially between Hindus and Muslims in communal outbreaks of violence.  Such a peace army was created after his death by a close follower Vinoba Bhave who founded the Shanti Sena which from the 1950s to the 1980s helped to defuse tensions.  However the movement did not continue after the first generation of leaders - Vinoba Bhave and J.P. Narayan. (For a history of this Gandhian effort see Thomas Weber  Gandhi's Peace Army: The Shanti Sena and Unarmed Peacekeeping. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996, 293pp.)

The Gandhian approach as well as the increased use of United Nations peacekeepers and non-violent protest movements led to renewed efforts in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe to create peace brigades.  As one active participant in these efforts, Charles Walker wrote "A peace brigade can be defined as a contingent of civilians trained and equipped to carry out an interpositionary peace mission.  They function within a prescribed territory such as at a demarcation line, traffic check points, or an area abandoned by conventional authorities.  They are marked by their corporateness; they are more than the individuals in it with their capabilities.  They have a mandate or announced mission  which may include some combination of humanitarian service, peacekeeping and peacemaking."

Charles Walker was among the founders of Peace Brigades International (PBI) in Canada in September 1981 and continued for some years as an active administrator.  The first action of PBI was sending a "Ready Response Brigade" to the northeast Nicaraguan provincial capital of Jalapa, some two miles from the Honduran border.  The small city was under repeated attack by the "contras" as the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary forces were called.  The Nicaraguan government was concerned that there were some 4000 US troops in Honduras and another 20,000 on ships off Nicaragua's coast.  There was to be US/Honduran military maneuvers which the Nicaraguan government feared could serve as a cover for an invasion of Nicaragua.  PBI was able to send a 10-person team from the Santa Cruz, California area who knew one another and who had done some training together.

As Daniel Clark who was PBI Secretary at the time wrote "Prior to the brigade's arrival in Nicaragua, PBI officials had made personal contact with Nicaraguan "contras" in Honduras, with the Honduran Foreign Ministry to whom a similar brigade had been offered on the Honduran side of the border, with the US State Department, the U.N. Secretariat, and the Contadora Group Nations (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama) through their U.N. missions as well as by letters to their foreign ministers, informing them of the brigade's presence.  In Managua, brigade members met with U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quaintan to make certain their presence was known."

The Ready Response Brigade stayed for two weeks on the frontier.  As a farewell message of Nicaraguans stated "The proof of your triumph lies in the fact that no attacks were made while you were in the Jalapa area. This is not a coincidence.  The contras are intelligent and fully understand the consequences to your peace-keeping team."

As Daniel Clark noted realistically "Large numbers of internationals are fairly difficult to obtain, given the travel costs and the freedom from domestic duties necessary for anyone's participation in such an effort, to say nothing of the courage and commitment required."

It is also true that the U.S. government chose to support and arm the "contras" rather than risk a direct intervention, and so the "frontier watch" was not repeated.

Rather in 1983, a PBI peace team was sent to Guatemala.  This team developed what is now PBI's most distinctive feature and the theme of most of the book: international protective accompaniment of local human rights activists living under the threat of abduction or assassination.  Shortly after their arrival in Guatemala, the PBI team became aware that local human rights activists were being systematically assassinated.  The PBI team members moved into the apartments and offices of the activists and went with them on trips and visits.  The assassinations stopped when accompaniment was in operation.

PBI also carried out accompaniment efforts in El Salvador (1987-1994) and in Sri Lanka (1989-1997) until restrictions placed on PBI work by the government of Sri Lanka made work impossible, and PBI withdrew.  PBI has been working in Colombia since 1994.

As Mahony and Eguren write "Accompaniment has achieved some notable successes in human rights protection.  In addition to saving lives, this international presence has helped catalyze the formation of new human rights organizations, enabled their growth, added to their stability, and strengthened their international credibility.  Death squads and governments alike have been forced to take notice."

However, there have also been chronic weaknesses and crises.  I was the PBI representative at the United Nations in Geneva from 1982 to the mid-1990s, and thus especially in contact with the governmental representatives of the Central American states and later Sri Lanka.  I helped put into place an "Emergency Response Network" of 'personalities' who could contact governments when PBI team  members were arrested, expelled or their visas withdrawn.  I also would meet with returned volunteers and help with talks to organizations. 

Peace team efforts are plagued by a lack of resources, both financial and personnel.  Inadequate infrastructure especially of administrators, poor communications, and limited training opportunities are major impediments to manifesting large scale efforts.  I was approached by U.N. Secretariat members concerning teams to go on the Burma/Bangladesh frontier and again early in the former Yugoslavia conflicts before armed "peacemakers" were sent.  We could not raise the number of people needed in the time frame desired.  It is true that only the military have people waiting around to be called into action.

Peace teams, however, have gained from the experience of past efforts.  Better organization, more public awareness and more through volunteer and project preparation will strengthen the work.  Mahony and Eguren have written a moving and useful account.  New pages are being written both by PBI and two more recent efforts working in the same spirit.

René Wadlow

       Peace Brigades International  www.peacebrigades.org
       Christian Peace Teams   www.cpt.org
       Nonviolent Peace Force  www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org