Unarmed Civilian Protection – a Way to Promote Lasting Peace
This statue of Non-Violence at the United Nations building in New York, shows a revolver that will never shoot a bullet.
Non-Violence
As I flew into Nigeria as an EU expert to evaluate peace-building projects some years ago, I got talking to a man by the aircraft coffee machine. He was ex-British Army, working for the Armour Group, and told me he was a Protection Officer. I chuckled to myself.
« My daughter is a Protection Officer, » I told him : « She is working in Darfur, protecting women from the Janjaweed. »
« Oh, what does she carry? » he asked me.
« My daughter is protected by three things, » I replied: « She has a wonderful smile, but no weapon; she wears a jacket with the name of her organization International Rescue Committee printed across her back ; and – most important – she is protected by the fact that she works with local people who trust her. »
The army warrior could not understand the concept. For him, ‘protection’ means violence and building barriers. For my daughter Catherine Leïla, ‘protection’ is about helping people and defending girls ; breaking down barriers and bringing people along with her. Catherine protected refugees by talking with national army officers and police, negotiating with rebel army commanders, reducing the risk that women would become victims of aggression by men in uniforms. She organized women’s marches and persuaded armed rebel soldiers to march with the women, chanting and brandishing banners saying ‘We Protect Women’ …. That is how a non-violent Protection Officer works !
Protection of women and girls
Most of all, Leïla talked to the women themselves, helping them to organize group-protection. They created ‘Safe Spaces’ free from men or weapons and ‘Child-Friendly Spaces’ reserved for mothers to talk and children to play. Women were encouraged to organize themselves so that – for example – they would always walk in groups to collect water from the well, ensuring that no individual woman was left alone and vulnerable.
Catherine Leïla showed women how to ‘create agency’ and take command of their own lives, giving them tools to use and the confidence to use them. Not only that : she took on the Janjaweed commanders in Darfur and demanded their support for women’s protection. A Janjaweed commander who agrees to be persuaded by my daughter is unlikely to follow the urgings of an ex-British army soldier waving his handgun.
I was reminded of Catherine’s experiences protecting women refugees in war zones (in Sudan, Chad, CAR, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan) when I came across the following excellent article by Dr Annie Hewitt of the organization Waging Non-Violence that shows how unarmed civilian protection saves lives, empowers communities, and helps to secure lasting peace.
https://truthout.org/articles/why-unarmed-civilian-protection-is-the-best-path-to-sustainable-peace/
By Annie Hewitt Waging Nonviolence
Published July 22, 2018
The first image that often comes to mind when one thinks of peacekeeping, especially within the frame of the United Nations, is that of the blue helmets: armed soldiers gathered from member states who are then strategically deployed in conflict areas. There are over 90,000 armed UN peacekeepers working around the world today — from Haiti to Lebanon to Kosovo to Darfur. They are generally isolated from the communities they are meant to protect. They engage from the outside : soldiers often patrolling in vehicles, who retreating at the end of the day to compounds of rarefied security.
This system drastically reduces the ability of peacekeepers to get to know local people and develop mutual respect. Without this understanding and trust, it is difficult to create the kind of clear and open communication needed for sustained peace. A recent UN report exploring ways to improve the safety of UN peacekeepers, is focused on the protection of peacekeepers who come from outside countries.
Peace comes through civil dialogue, not through armed soldiers
As Annie Hewitt explains, another model for peacekeeping -called unarmed civilian protection, or UCP - works from the inside. “Unarmed civilian protection challenges the widespread assumption that ‘where there is violence we need soldiers,’ or that armed actors will only yield to violent threat,” said Rachel Julian, director of the Centre for Applied Social Research at Leeds-Beckett University, during a UN event in May 2018. Hosted by the permanent missions of Uruguay and Australia to the UN, the event offered inspiring success stories and provided persuasive evidence that unarmed civilian protection works.
Here I am in March 2005 outside the president’s office in Liberia: the UN provided President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf with protection by armed Indian policewomen.
Rachel Julian’s research suggests that we have much to gain by expanding our conception of what peacekeeping is and by broadening our ideas of the methods it involves. Sometimes we really do not always want more uniforms on the street, when we are trying to create peace.
Julian finds that armed peacekeeping is limited in part because armed peacekeepers are not seeking a peace grounded in the knowledge, practices and traditions of the people directly involved in the conflict. Armed peacekeeping imposes peace externally : outside temporary resolutions often implemented following a fixed model that is applied in all kinds of conflict.
More women peacekeepers would help, and longer tours (not changing personnel every 6 months), but even if they are women, the peacekeepers would still be in uniform. As Youssef Mahmoud from the International Peace Institute observed at the same event, UN peacekeeping can yield security, not safety.
A sustainable peace needs to be rooted in the particular community itself. Each conflict and each peace process is different and specific to the people involved.
Unarmed civilian protection draws on the peace infrastructure that exists within all communities by actively listening to everyone involved, by opening clear lines of communication, and by making a safe space for people to use, building on the knowledge and resources they already have.
The Malian experience of 1996 provides a great example of UCP. Instead of talk between armed warriors, Mali’s Peace of Timbuktu was negotiated by the leaders of civil society while the soldiers and administrators sat and listened. The wives and mothers of the armed fighters played an important role in the negotiations, and so did merchants and farmers and herders, all of whom were desperate to get the economy working once more.
You can read the story, and the Lessons Learned, in this UN book A Peace of Timbuktu (available free on the internet). I wrote the book with my friend Ibrahim Ag Youssouf (his photo is inside, together with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the Bamako UN Resident Coordinator Tore Rose who were with us at the Timbuktu Flame of Peace).
A PEACE OF TIMBUKTU – democratic governance, development and African peacemaking with a Preface by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, by RE Poulton & Ibrahim Ag Youssouf (UN 1998)