FRANK NEVILLE

A Civilian Peace Service

Frank Neville, International Officer of the Humanist Society of Scotland, reports on the case for peace maintenance by conscientious objectors to military conscription being trained for non-violent conciliation work.

SIR Hermann Bondi has pointed out that Christianity has been influenced for the better by the existence of humanism.

A pertinent case -- it would seem likely - is the proposal for a Civilian Peace Service worked out between 1992 and 1994 by the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. Still present in everyone's mind will have been the remarkable 1989 peaceful revolution in the agnostic GDR, culminating in a declaration by that state's intellectuals that the new GDR should be based on humanism and anti-Fascism (no demand for German re-unification having been apparent in the GDR at that time).

The Church's civilian peace service proposal says that conscientious objectors to conscription for military service, which still applies to males in Germany, should be trained for non-violent conciliation work. After the conscription period they should be able to continue or rejoin as full-timers for fixed terms; and women should be able to join too. For a start deployment would be to deal with conflicts within Germany, but liability would extend to service throughout Europe.

The service would be financed by the State (not thought to be a difficulty since the consequences of any conflict could well cost the public purse more than its prevention); but the State might delegate the responsibility for training and operations to suitable non-governmental organisations. This utilisation of NGOs would have the advantages that (a) the conciliators would not be seen as direct employees of any state and (b) having established its competence using conciliators of German nationality an NGO would be able to negotiate with other governments wishing to support the scheme, whose citizens could then be taken on as conciliators.

Though (b) above is not actually part of the proposal as put forward by the Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, it seems to be the only means whereby non-German citizens could become conciliators within the scheme as so far devised.

The proposal was published in July 1994 with an invitation to other churches, to other faiths, and to humanitarians all to come forward in support. So far the response seems to have been inadequate. This is particularly disappointing as regards Christians since the ruling Party in Germany claims to be Christian.

At the end of March, there did take place a two-day conference at Frankfurt/Oder to discuss the Civilian Peace Service concept. It had been called by the German Section of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly. Approximately 50 people from around 15 attended. Whenever the promised official report turns up, it should be informative and useful.

But the issue is far too urgent for us meantime just to stand and stare. Let humanists speak about it with their Christian friends in the first place; but also with those of other faiths. Let the humanist bodies in each country write to the most influential churches.

On the assumption that no more than one out of every thousand young Germans is a person cut out for the conciliation role, were the German government to act on the Berlin-Brandenburg Church Scheme, these people could be spotted and, following their 'conscription' period of basic training, would constitute an intake of hundreds per year into the German section of what could become - surely other governments wouldn't wish to stand aside - an all-European non-violent peace maintenance service.

A point emphasised at the Frankfurt/Oder conference was the importance of early warning of tensions likely to lead to conflict. Conciliators obviously will be confronted with greater difficulty, but also with danger, if violence has already erupted. (Within the Berlin-Brandenburg Church's concept the conciliators will be their own judge as to the degree of risk to which they are willing to expose themselves.)

Pending the setting up of a Civilian Peace Service, the European Humanist Federation could perhaps consider preparing its own 'listening' network to contribute to an early warning system. Meantime such warnings could be reported to the OSCE (Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the Secretariat of the HCA (Helsinki Citizens Assembly), both at Prague.

In its exposition of its Civilian Peace Service the Berlin-Brandenburg Protestant Church also takes note of the interconnectedness of conflict prevention with Human Rights monitoring. Let humanists therefore develop links with:-

(a) Human Rights Watch, whose 1995 report says, in reference to 1994: 'Having bound and shelved the volume of high-sounding pronouncements made the year before the World Conference on Human Rights, the major powers led a wholesale retreat from their implementation';

(b) the United States High Commissioner on Human Rights, an office created at the suggestion of the aforementioned World Conference on Human Rights. The .first appointee to this office wrote to the NGO's affiliated to the UN (of which IHEU is one -- and the EHF is part of IHEU) for their advice or suggestions as to how he should approach his task.

On 13 October 1994 James Dilloway (IHEU's permanent representative to the UNO at Geneva) in his reply on behalf of IHEU, argued (this being a really savage abbreviation) that the world economy would actually benefit were it to be subordinated to the task of supporting a satisfactory level of Human Rights for all.

If organised humanists concern themselves in a practical way with non-violent peace preservation and human rights - and at the same time acknowledge good work done by religious people in these fields - our movement will merit gratitude and perhaps thereby become a stronger and larger comradeship.