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Archive 1986 - 2017

Reconciliation, NGOs and Civilian Peace Service

 Letter to TFF

Reconciliation, NGOs and Civilian Peace Service

24 Aug 1999

Dear TFF,

I have read with interest your call for world wide Reconciliation Institutes. Your proposal brings to mind a number of precedents. You undoubtedly know that is was “The Fellowship of Reconciliation” who established after World War I the first Civilian Service which brought together (mostly young) people from former enemy countries for the purpose of both reconciliation and reconstruction. The FOR policy seems sound in that it links reconciliation with reconstruction. The FOR’s Civilian Service of 1919 seems to me a forerunners of today’s Civilian Peace Service project.

Are you planning to work with the FOR and NGOs such as the Mothers in Black? I have virtually no idea about the present state of those Kosovo/ Albanian and Serbian NGOs who resisted the armed conflict.

Are you planning to write a post-mortem of your attempt to help resolve the Serb – Albanian Kosovo dispute non-violently ? I have been impressed by your correct analysis of the situation and your proposals for the non-violent resolution of the conflict. I am looking forward to your assessment of the role which peace research played in the Kosovo Albanian Serb dispute and what role and under what conditions peace research might play in future in conflicts of similar or different nature.

In the meantime I shall keep you informed about developments in the creation of a Civilian Peace Service. We (PBI) have just decided to start a project in East Timor. The PBI country groups reached the decision after intensive discussions of the reports by our East Timor Project Exploration Committee.

I am obviously delighted that the German government decided to link non-violent conflict management to development work. On the strength of the German decision I am taking another crack at our Canadian government. However, in the process of pushing NGO and Government cooperation in professionalizing non-violent conflict management I have become also mindful of a large and growing number of critics, including Noam Chomsky, of NGO operations in the field of reconciliation and reconstruction.

The critics say, and I agree, that too many NGOs who engage in reconciliation and reconstruction alone have become unwittingly part of the warfare culture, more precise, the cycle of “intergroup homicide”, (Marvin Harris “Cannibals and Kings” Vintage Books. N.Y.1977). Influenced by government money and public approval there is a noticeable trend toward (feel good) NGO projects. Meaning projects which begin at the end of an armed conflict and are designed to patch up the material and psychological wounds of the survivors. Being thus pre-occupied the NGOs tend not to take issue with the people, policies and processes which prepare for the next bout of violence.

In this context. NATO’s successful bombardment of the Serbia’s infra structure marks a milestone in military history. NATO achieved what the pioneers of air warfare foresaw when in July of 1917 a German air ship dropped the first bombs on London. In a report, assessing the potential of future aireal bombardments British General Smuts wrote:

“As far as can at present be foreseen, there is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future, independent war use. And the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may become the principle operations of war, to which the older forms of military operations may become secondary and subordinate.” (John Campsie, Objection to Murder, McClelland and Stewart Limited Toronto/Montreal, 1967).

Lord Trenchard, who commanded in 1918 the RAF’s bomber force in France was convinced that the ” wars of the future would be won by concentrating all military effort on shattering air bombardments of civilian populations. All other operations would be mere diversions. Fighter air craft were no more than concessions to the weakness of civilians, who would demand protection…This demand must be resisted as far as possible”.

NATO, by forcing Serbia’s surrender purely by aerial bombardment of Serbia’s infrastructure without the use of ground troops or losses of its own, realized what the first proponents of aerial bombing dreamed of 80 years ago. NATO’s success thus signals another significant advance in the process of shifting the burden of warfare away from the armed forces onto the shoulders of unarmed civilians.

With best wishes,

Hans

R.R.4
Brooke Valley Road 687
Perth, Ontario
Canada
Tel: 613 264 8833
Fax: 613 264 8605
Hans Sinn <hansinn@superaje.com>

Civilian Peace Service <http://www.superaje.com/~marsin/cps.htm>

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