Side by Side: Protecting and encouraging threatened activists with unarmed international accompaniment

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:14 -0500

Side by Side

by Liam Mahony

Download full notebook below. [*note]

Since the mid-1980s, human rights groups and other activist organizations being targeted with repressive abuses have been calling on international NGOs to provide them with direct accompaniment by international field workers. These field workers – usually volunteers – spend twenty-four hours a day with threatened activists, at the premises of threatened organizations, in threatened communities or witnessing public events organized by threatened groups. The international presence serves as a deterrent against the use of violence. In order to ensure this deterrence, these international accompaniment organizations are part of transnational networks poised and ready to mobilize political pressure against perpetrators should their volunteers witness any attacks or should their clients be further threatened.

"I can say with certainty that the fact that we are alive today is mainly because of Peace Brigades’ work." – Luis Perez Casas, Lawyer’s Collective Jose Alvear Restrepo, Bogotá, Colombia

International protective accompaniment is the physical accompaniment by international personnel of activists, organizations or communities threatened with politically motivated attacks. Peace Brigades International has been developing this tactic since the mid-1980s, sending hundreds of volunteers into different conflict situations around the world. PBI currently sustains a presence of about 80 people working in several conflicts, responding to requests for accompaniment from all kinds of threatened civil society organizations.

Accompaniment can take many forms. Some threatened activists receive 24-hour-aday accompaniment. For others the presence is more sporadic. Sometimes team members spend all day on the premises of an office of a threatened organization.Sometimes they live in threatened rural villages in conflict zones. This accompaniment service has three simultaneous and mutually-reinforcing impacts. The international presence protects threatened activists by raising the stakes of any attacks against them. It encourages civil society activism by allowing threatened organizations more space and confidence to operate and by building links of solidarity with the international community. And it strengthens the international movement for peace and human rights by giving accompaniment volunteers a powerful first-hand experience that becomes a sustained source of inspiration to themselves and others upon their return to their home country. This tactical notebook will analyze how protective accompaniment works, based on the substantial experience of PBI in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Sri Lanka and El Salvador. Since the 1990s, numerous other organizations have also provided protective international accompaniment in other settings, modifying the approach according to their particular identity and mission. In the final section of the notebook I will also offer a brief comparative discussion of several of these experiences.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Action Theatre

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:59 -0500

by Motahar Akand, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK)

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The goal of Action Theatre is to develop the capacities of young people and cultural activists at the grassroots level to be a force for change, helping to create a society based on human rights, gender equity and social justice. The tactical outcome is the creation of local theatre groups who would initiate discussion, debate, analysis and actions on critical human rights issues in their community. Participants in the tactic also enhance their leadership skills and human rights awareness.

Six individual elements–six roles–work in conjunction with one another to provide a complete Action Theatre experience:

Initiator: Creates an action theatre group.
Core team: ASK staff members who initiate Action Theatre in other communities.
Primary team: Community members who form the human rights theatre group, or Manobadhikar Natya Parishad (MNP), and implement action theatre
Upazilla level Manobadhikar Natya Parishad (UzMNP): Federation of local MNP groups.
Partner NGO or PNGO: The local group with which ASK works to coordinate the program.
Community Organizer (CO): Local community member working under the supervision of the PNGO to build the primary team and provide support to them.
Audience: Participants in performance who are tasked with defining the action to be taken.

In this tactical notebook, we outline the Action Theatre framework that has been developed and replicated in twelve working areas across Bangladesh. We will share the key elements and steps necessary for the successful application of this tactic, as well as some of the challenges and unexpected outcomes we have seen. Local theatre groups are now gaining ground as a mobilizing force in Bangladesh. This tactical notebook will help provide you with the information you need to determine whether Action Theatre is appropriate for your country and human rights issue.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from http://www.adobe.com

activism, empowerment

Side by Side: Protecting and encouraging threatened activists with unarmed international accompaniment

Side by Side

Action Theatre