Features

The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) started in 1990 and rose to international prominence in 1995 when it applied to attend the Zimbabwe International Book Fair which had as its theme that year “Human Rights and Justice”. The government banned the group's appearance and, at the opening of the fair, President Mugabe, uttered the first in a long line of vitriolic attacks on gays and lesbians which include the famous epithet, gays are “worse than dogs and pigs”. GALZ stood its ground and…

“So how was Pakistan?” Friends eager to know more about my recent work in the Islamic Republic have had to wait patiently as I search my vocabulary for the appropriate words. My silence surprises me as well. Usually words do not escape me but this rare moment finds me struggling to do my experience justice.

Shall I take this brief exchange to explain that not all Pakistani women wear burqas (as some Americans believe) that cover their entire face? Shall I seize this opportunity to…

“You can take as much time as you'd like, Michael. We've got the place reserved until 6pm,” whispered one of the organisers of Focus on South Asia, the peace conference recently held in Lahore, Pakistan for delegates from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.

He was referring to my opening speech as part of the welcoming ceremony on the first day of the peace conference. I had been asked earlier that day to speak to the participants and now it appeared…

San Diego County in California is home to not only one of the largest military installations in the world, but also the second-largest Iraqi population in the US. In autumn 2002, the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice began an outreach campaign to high school students to encourage them to question the US government's planned attack on Iraq.

Why the focus on high school students? The Vietnam War taught the Pentagon that conscription had limited effectiveness and could seriously…

It is a little known fact that Israel is the only country with mandatory conscription for women. This makes the draft resistance of Israeli women, which is undoubtedly a major component of the entire resistance movement, into a unique phenomenon.

As the total numbers of draft resisters rise, the numbers of young women requesting exemption from military service on grounds of conscience also continue to remain very high.

Female conscripts are traditionally…

The world is in grave danger. The global scenario has completely changed since 11 September, with just one terrorist attack on the United States. In the name of wiping out terrorism from the world the US are now engaged in counter-terrorism with the large-scale killing and torture of innocent people. Those who were earlier considered freedom fighters are now branded terrorists.

Today the United States has assumed the role of a messiah with its disciple-like Great Britain delivering “…

Our society is undergoing a period of serious transition. Transformations are occurring that are having a negative impact not only on socially vulnerable groups, but on the entire population.

Our society does not currently have enough knowledge, nor the mechanisms, that would allow it to solve its numerous problems through nonviolent means. The consequences are tragic: almost 33% of Georgia's population has been forced to leave their permanent residences, thousands have been…

This has turned into a bit of a funny issue really, but the original idea was to try to generate a snapshot of the “health” of the international peace movement in the “post 11 September 2001 security environment”.

To do this, we invited a wide range of activist and campaigning groups to provide fairly detailed answers to specific questions (see box).

We thought it would be useful to hear about the campaigning methods and tactics…

The Nonviolent Movement (Movimento Nonviolento or NM), founded in the sixties by Aldo Capitini, “father” of Italian nonviolence, works to remove individual and group violence from every aspect of social life at a local, national and international level, and to overcome the power structures which are fed by the spirit of violence. NM aims to create a worldwide community without classes, promoting the free development of everyone in harmony with others.

The NM fundamental guidelines…

Between 6,000 and 14,000 children are currently being used as soldiers by non-state armed groups, paramilitaries or militias.

Boys and girls play a variety of roles: combatants, spies, human shields, messengers, porters, kidnappers, guards, cooks, sexual companions or slaves, or placers of bombs. All child soldiers are virtual prisoners of their commanders; punishments for infractions are harsh, sometimes resulting in death. Girls are particularly at risk of sexual abuse. Since the…

With the classical meaning of a “diplomat is one who listens and reads twice”, I've been diplomatic with this book and diplomacy has paid. I underestimated the book when reading it first, I appreciate it better after going through it twice. Initially I was put off by some inaccuracies of fact and deficiencies of judgement when referring to Colombian history. Soon I came to value the usefulness of the overviews mainly for non Colombian readers and the ability of the book to fulfil its own…

Cooperation for development has long ceased to be the prerogative of states. Apart from the big NGOs and church organisations, there are more direct ways in which citizens of countries in the North - be it through unions, small NGOs, or sup-port committees - have been playing an active part in building solidarity between peoples.

In step with the growth of civic consciousness and commitment, local and regional administrations have become more involved. The sum of these social…

Some politicians are currently selling the idea that total war is “The Choice” to change the history of violence in Colombia once and for all. The Colombian women's movement, however, does not just bring attention to the situation of women, we also do not believe in war as an option, or that the ends justify the means. We do not believe in violence as the best path for our country, nor for the rest of the world. Many women and men in Colombia have opted for an ethical position of nonviolence…

The paramilitaries of the AUC arrived in Barrancabermerja, the capital of Magdalena Medio and the oil capital of Colombia, in 1998, and at the turn of the year 2000-2001 “our city underwent a pacification by blood and fire ... by which one armed actor was thrown out and another has taken control as overlord of the city”. The result has been displacement, assassinations and intimidation of social activists, and the imposition of a “Manual de Convivencia” (Handbook for Living Together) with…

Peace Brigades International (PBI) is a non-governmental organisation working with communities world-wide to address conflicts in nonviolent ways. We send teams of volunteers into areas of conflict to “make space for peace”.

PBI only enters countries where our international presence has been requested, and after a thorough study of the specific conflict. After that, we assess whether PBI's presence would be effective in dissuading violence, or in persuading parties to address their…

Greetings from the front lines in the battle for democracy in Colombia. I'm not referring to a war waged between the Colombian military, right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrilla groups, but rather the war waged on peaceful civilians who dare to raise their voices or organise politically.

Colombia is often referred to as “the oldest democracy in Latin America” because of its nearly uninterrupted series of elections during the last century. However, civil society and the…

There are many reasons not to drink Coca-Cola, but this most symbolic of drinks has yet to face a coordinated boycott campaign. However, it is now facing a combination of court cases and international public hearings accusing it of employing paramilitaries to kill and harass trade unionists in Colombia.

Seven Colombian trade union negotiators working for companies associated with Coca Cola have been killed, mostly in the mid-1990s, but there are currently around 50 who have been…

Witness for Peace

The basic method of Witness for Peace has been for US citizens to go to a zone of conflict and report back to their home community what they have seen - in particular, forms of aggression or human rights violations supported by the US government. This played a useful role in putting the brakes on direct US military intervention in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Witness for Peace is now organising several delegations a year to Colombia, visiting a range of peace and human rights…

The term “Peace Community” perhaps evokes an image of utopian pacifist experiments. In Colombia, however, the peace communities have been formed by displaced people and face continued pressure from every armed side. Renouncing the use of arms and collaboration with any armed force, they try to establish demilitarised spaces, neutral to the armed conflict.

Members of each peace community make five commitments:

There is a diverse and rapidly growing movement to end US military involvement in Colombia. The US has backed the Colombian military in that country's brutal civil war since the 1960s, and groups like the Colombia Support Network and the Colombia Human Rights Network have worked for years to draw attention to the suffering of the Colombian people and inspire solidarity with the courageous struggles of Colombia's nonviolent popular movements. That movement has grown dramatically in response…