The ousting of Kyrgyzstan’s President back in April by violent anti-government protests was followed by more violence in June, as the Uzbek minority found itself a convenient scapegoat for the economic woes facing the country. In the aftermath, at least 2,000 Uzbeks were dead and some 375,000 displaced. Hundreds of Uzbek businesses and homes were also looted and burned to the ground. As a result, some fear a Rwanda-type situation is brewing. If so, does that mean it is up to the typically indifferent international community to intervene?

In a recent piece for Common Ground News Service, University of San Francisco professor S. Francesca Po and UC Berkeley professor/founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence Michael Nagler wrote about another option that draws on Gandhi’s dream of a Shanti Sena or “peace army.”

The idea behind the Shanti Sena was that trained non-violent volunteers would live in a place with conflict long enough to gain the confidence of the locals as a truly neutral third party. They would then provide services to promote peace in times of tension: abating dangerous rumours and misconceptions, accompanying vulnerable persons under threat, mediating when asked and – if need be – interposing themselves between conflicting parties if it was too late to defuse tensions.

This practice is more commonly known as “unarmed civilian peacekeeping” and it has had tremendous success, despite the fact that it’s largely ignored by mainstream media.

For instance, Peace Brigades International has been active in conflict regions since 1981, Christian Peacemaker Teams since 1990, and Nonviolent Peaceforce—co-founded by WNV contributor David Hartsough—since 2002.

Kyrgyzstan could benefit from this kind of a neutral, non-violent third party presence to teach and demonstrate to the local population that ethnic violence does not solve anything – but non-violence just might.

In Kyrgyzstan in particular, peace armies could act as a protective force, escorting and defending targeted minorities like the Uzbeks. Nonviolent Peaceforce has already sent an exploratory team to the southern Caucasus, where there have been multiple interstate and ethnic conflicts in the recent past. With an invitation from the new Kyrgyz government, and international support and funding, Nonviolent Peaceforce could get to work in southern Kyrgyzstan and help the country transition – peacefully – into a parliamentary democracy.

Every time non-violence has been used correctly it has been a brilliant success – and almost every time, barely anyone notices. Until the media catch on, it’s up to the public to get informed about unarmed civilian peacekeeping. For if we know of no alternative, we may continue to flounder in the old dilemma of violence or inaction.

• On Friday, a million workers belonging to Italy’s largest union went on strike across the nation to protest proposed austerity cuts by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

• Despite some acts of violence, 25,000 peacefully protested the policies of the G20 in Toronto over the weekend amidst a heavy police presence.

• Tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched in Taiwan’s capital Saturday to protest the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, a trade agreement with China opponents said will undermine the island’s self-rule and harm its economy.

• On Saturday, people gathered and held hands to form a symbolic line in the sand for 15 minutes as part of the “Hands Across the Sand” demonstrations organized in the US and abroad to pressure elected officials against any expansion of offshore drilling and to promote “clean” energy. In the U.S. nearly 700 rallies took place in all 50 states.

• Egyptian dissident Mohamed El Baradei led over 4,000 in a protest in Alexandria on Friday demanding an end to police brutality.

• In Michigan, thousands rallied on the state Capitol in Lansing on Thursday to urge lawmakers not to cut funding for public education.

• On Friday, 40 demonstrators greeted Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean at a Melbourne hotel when he arrived at a meeting to approve a deal to export up to 20 million tons of polluting La Trobe Valley brown coal to Vietnam.

BP is responsible for one of the worst environmental calamaties in the history of mankind, but now it’s not even letting some 4,000 volunteers, including 300 boat captains, in the Florida Keys help clean up the mess. According to Time magazine:

BP (and the Deepwater Horizon’s Unified Command, which BP runs with the Coast Guard and other agencies) has so far insisted on complete control of the cleanup operations. A BP spokesman told TIME that the only appropriate way for interested boat captains to become involved would be to register with the Unified Command’s Vessels of Opportunity program. Never mind that according to BP’s numbers, only a third of the 7,200 boats “under contract” through the program are in active service.

To make matters worse BP and the Coast Guard haven’t let any of the local volunteers begin to organize a preemtive response. Not until oil is within 72 miles, they say. But that is hardly enough time to protect the 180 miles of coastline along the Keys. So, rather than wait for their homes and land to be destroyed, people are starting to take matters into their own hands.

A group called Adopt a Mangrove is assigning kayakers their own mangroves to clean if oil comes. Volunteers are monitoring shores throughout the islands for signs of oil. The Florida Keys Environmental Coalition formed to connect boat captains, scientists, environmental activists and various agencies. [Laura Fox, owner of Danger Charters in Key West] coordinated a cleanup of Man Key, a mangrove island west of Key West (oil is easier to clean off a beach that is in good condition). “It was all women, actually,” she says. “Thirteen women in kayaks, clenching knives in their teeth, cutting monofilament fishing line off the mangroves and clearing trash. We brought 35 bags of trash off the island.”

In addition, others set up a series of town halls, crashed closed-door meetings between city officials and BP representatives, as well as organized discount haz-mat and animal rescue training. This collective effort forced BP to promise it would fund $10,000 for more haz-mat training and hire a local towboat operator to keep an eye out for approaching oil.

Obviously these are small victories, but judging by the attitude inherent among Keys residents, they are ready to keep the pressure on BP.

“I just talked with BP yesterday,” says [Patrick Rice, dean of marine science and technology at Florida Keys Community College]. “I told them flat out, ‘If you come down here and start doing what you’ve done in Louisiana, you’re going to have a revolt. They’ll shut down U.S. 1. You won’t be able to bring any of your contractors in or out.’ “

The Free Gaza Movement’s Freedom Flotilla was attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters late last night. There are varying reports on the tragic aftermath. The New York Times is reporting (by way of the Israeli Trade Minister) between 14 and 16 killed, as well as 30 more injured. Free Gaza, however, just released a statement saying two were killed and 31 injured. Here is how they described the horrifying action:

Under darkness of night, Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep… Streaming video shows the Israeli soldiers shooting at civilians, and our last SPOT beacon said, “HELP, we are being contacted by the Israelis.”

We know nothing about the other five boats. Israel says they are taking over the boats.

It’s clearly too soon to predict anything, but a moment has most certainly been created. Israel has exposed its willingness to break international law and fire upon unarmed civilians in a much more dramatic and potentially costly fashion than perhaps ever before. It’s not just Palestinians this time, but a group far more difficult to sweep under the carpet:  international activists, the likes of which include a Nobel Laureate and an 85 year old Holocaust survivor. Already, the story is the lead on most mainstream media websites.

Meanwhile, Israel is trying to justify its use of deadly force, saying its soldiers saw weapons on board the ship. But according to Free Gaza, there is video evidence that shows otherwise. Israel knows that if the truth sticks, the Palestinian rights movement will receive a strong shot in the arm. Already, protests have begun in Turkey, where, according to Al Jazeera:

Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news of the operation broke. The protesters shouted “Damn Israel” as police blocked them.

Turkey is also reported to have summoned the Israeli ambassador to lodge a protest.

“(The interception on the convoy) is unacceptable … Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behaviour,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

As this moment unfolds, it is important that the memory of the nonviolent activists killed yesterday be honored with a commitment to nonviolence by all Palestinian rights activists. It is the only way any good will come from this tragedy.

Twenty-three-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie died seven years ago when she was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza as she stood before a Palestinian home facing demolition. Democracy Now! devoted yesterday’s show to an interview with her sister Sarah and two parents, Cindy and Craig, who are currently in Haifa for the start of a civil trial against the state of Israel over the unlawful death of their daughter. I was struck by Craig Corrie’s words when Amy Goodman asked if the family would get a chance to meet the man who drove the bulldozer.

We would like to meet that person. There are lots of victims, Amy, when you look at a war and what happens. And we lost Rachel, and that hurts every day, but that bulldozer driver lost a lot of his humanity when he crushed Rachel. We’re told by B’Tselem, for instance, that in 2004, I believe, the highest—the cause, proportionately, of deaths in the Israeli soldiers, the highest one is suicide. There’s a big toll to soldiers. And I guess I have to hold out my hand, in some way, that if that man could understand what he’s done, in terms of our loss, if he could mourn our loss of Rachel, I could mourn his loss of humanity.

There’s a lot of steps, as Sarah says, that would have to happen that way. But yeah, I’d like to meet him. And it’s not about trying to put him in jail. It doesn’t do me any good if his children don’t have a father, if he has children. But some way, like Desmond Tutu talks about, of mending the tear in society, and I think it’s more like a wound in your arm, and to expect that one half of a wound would heal and the other half stay unhealed is impossible. Both halves have to heal.

Forgiveness is obviously at the very core of nonviolence, but it is often a difficult task to carry out. The fact that someone like Craig Corrie is ready and willing to do this should motivate anyone who harbors anger toward another human to repair the divide. His gesture also shows that good has come from Rachel’s untimely death and perhaps even more is on the way, should he ever meet the driver.

Residents of At-Tuwani Village block the path of an Israeli military jeep.

Every time I return home after a vigil, I am asked, “How was it?” How does one answer? We were present? Ignored? Warmly greeted? Does it matter? The war goes on. Guantánamo remains open. Lies continue. We show up. We pray. We walk. So to attempt to describe my voyage with a Christian Peacemaking Team (CPT) delegation to Palestine/Israel in late November is more difficult to answer than the journey itself.

I am blessed to have been led to this step by Catholic Workers and very dear friends. My desire to join a delegation elsewhere was rerouted by the suggestion that I should go to Palestine. As I have related many times, when Anne Montgomery—an 80-year-old nun who travels the world taking part in nonviolent direct actions—says go to Palestine, you go. I went.

For 11 days, our delegation of seven—three women and four men, including a Briton, two Germans, a Canadian, and three Americans—jumped in and out of cabs, buses, hiked hills, climbed mountains, slept in hostels, caves, tents, met with lawyers, activists, shepherds, soldiers, teachers, settlers, and NGO human rights groups. We talked, vigiled, prayed. We learned. We tried to learn. For me, the more I heard, the more confused I became. I felt in the middle of a sudden death battle in which neither side would give in. But I also felt completely at home, welcomed.

In Hebron, I went through a checkpoint. I showed my passport, as instructed and walked on. Then I heard the Israeli soldier manning the post call. I was sure he was yelling at me, but I continued. He called again, in Hebrew. I turned and he asked, “What state?” I answered and he waved me on. But it made me aware that if one does not speak the language of the occupier, one can most certainly be put in harm’s way.

Read the rest of this article »

At The Immanent Frame today, I interview Mark Johnson, executive director of the pioneering Christian pacifist organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. (I wrote about the Fellowship in a recent book review for Commonweal.) We discuss the FOR’s current work, its legacy, and how it is adapting to the the challenges of religious (and non-religious) diversity in its ranks.

NS: How is the FOR’s religious identity evolving today?

MJ: We’re forced to ask ourselves what it means to do peacemaking in an interreligious—or even a secular—world. There’s quite a bit of anxiety among many people, who are asking, if the community consciously opens itself more broadly to humanists and avowed atheists, what confidence do we have that we will share basic values in common? But you can argue, I think, that atheism or agnosticism or humanism are as much religions as any denomination or sect in terms of having an identifiable set of values and, eventually, sets of rituals that shape how people think about and act in the world. A lot of what we struggle with is simply a matter of words. I love Charles Taylor’s arguments about the emergence of the secular age. We’re also reading Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld’s very nice new book, In Praise of Doubt. Doubt lies at the heart of the practice of pacifism. You can never know, ultimately, how you’re going to respond when confronted by violence. Absent a total conviction or confidence that you’ll act nonviolently, can you characterize yourself as a pacifist? Part of the conversation that we’re having, also, is about how doubt can create the space for being more accepting of more people.

Read more at The Immanent Frame.

The Nonviolent Peaceforce has just put out this great video introduction to their work of nonviolent civilian peacekeeping. It is in two parts, so make sure to watch the whole thing.

As Jean Lound Schaller explains in a recent op-ed for the Midland Daily News:

The Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), convened in India in 2002, is a global effort that offers us something to say yes to when we say no to war. The first unarmed, paid, professionally trained, civilian, international “army” offers a concrete, on-the-ground, two-year experience to help build a more peaceful world through peaceful means.

NP, with its international office in Brussels, and its executive office formerly in Minneapolis, has teams in Sri Lanka and the Philippines and is currently developing a project in South Sudan. It serves at the invitation of local civil society organizations. Due to its strict non-partisan stance, it is gaining the trust of governments, armed groups and individuals living in conflict zones. Civilian peacekeepers live among the people, thus building cultural sensitivity and gaining the trust of all stakeholders in a conflict. NP also supports families seeking the return of their children who have been abducted or forcibly recruited into an armed group. International protective presence and accompaniment offer hope and build people’s confidence to claim their human rights and to build peace in their communities.

To learn more about the organization, visit their website: www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org.