Peace Brigades International Visit

On April 9 & 10 Yeshua Moser from Peace Brigades International visited
Brisbane as part of an Australia wide speaking tour.  Yeshua's visit was to
talk about PBI's work and to sow the seeds for its growth in Australia.  Far
more than just 'sowing the seeds', Yeshua is better described as having
'stoked the fire' in so far as a strong desire to establish PBI quickly
surfaced in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.  The foundations have already been
set in place for PBI to grow in Australia, and to have activists join their
international counterparts in the important work of PBI.

PBI was established at an international meeting in Canada in September, 1981,
to partly fulfil what Mahatma Gandhi often spoke of as an army of Satyagrahis
ready to intervene in crisis areas throughout the world.  Consequently, PBI
stresses the following principles in its Founding Statement: "Peace brigades,
fashioned to respond to specific needs and appeals, will undertake nonpartisan
missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a
discipline of nonviolence, and humanitarian service ... These units may be
assigned to areas of high tension to avert violent outbreaks.  If hostile
clashes occur, a brigade may establish and monitor a cease-fire, offer
mediatory services, or carry on works of reconstruction and reconciliation."

In pursuit of the principles contained in its founding statement, PBI became
involved in the struggle for basic human rights and peacekeeping in Central
America.  In 1989, in response to a request from the Sri Lanka Bar, PBI
established a presence in Sri Lanka to protect lawyers and other groups
engaged in human rights work.  PBI aims to provide in these projects a
nonviolent escort of individuals who have received death threats and may be
targets of assassination as a result of their human rights work.

PBI is a creative attempt to leap over the sluggish and bureaucratic responses
of governments in crisis situations.  By maintaining an 'international
presence', the experience of PBI members is that indigenous governments are
more likely to consider a peaceful solution to a crisis, and potential targets
of assassination have stopped receiving death threats.  PBI also provides a
means by which world attention can focus on crises and promote nonviolent
resolutions.

PBI is in need of both volunteers and funds to carry on its present work, and
if further projects are to be pursued.  If you want to help PBI become
established in Australia and have some skill that can assist its growth, then
please contact PBI at the following address: Peace Brigades International, PO
Box 292, West End Q 4101.
Michael Salla