WAR RESISTERS' INTERNATIONAL

'War Resisters' International' or 'WRI' is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.

Contents

History

Organization

Publications

Affiliated groups

See also

References

Additional reading

External links

History

Founded in Bilthoven, Netherlands in 1921, WRI adopted the broken rifle as its symbol and a founding declaration that has remained unchanged:
Many of its founders had been involved in the resistance to the First World War: its first Secretary, Herbert Runham Brown, had spent two and a half years in a British prison as a conscientious objector. Witnessing the collapse of the policy of an "international general strike against war" (adopted by the Socialist International), they decided to launch an anti-militarist international. Two years later, in 1923, Tracey Mygatte, Frances Witherspoon, Jessie Wallace Hughan, and John Haynes Holmes founded the War Resisters League in the United States.
WRI members refuse to support war or preparations for war. Their conscientious objection to war takes various forms. Some refuse to engage in military service. Others refuse to pay taxes that support the military. Still others refuse to work for military contractors. WRI has been involved in movements that have transformed these individual acts of personal witness into collective acts of noncooperation, such as draft card burnings in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Each year on December 1, Prisoners for Peace Day, WRI produces an Honour Roll of those imprisoned for nonviolent action against war preparations. If the name gives an image of a network mainly of young men resisting military service, the reality is much more varied. WRI cuts across age groups, drawing on the experience of several generations of organizers of nonviolent action and from a variety of cultures. In addition, it has organized four international women's conferences and has an active Women's Working Group.
WRI members also are fundamentally committed to promoting nonviolent action as a form of social struggle. WRI has provided training in nonviolence, held international conferences on themes such as "Nonviolent Struggle and Social Defense" and "Feminism and Nonviolence," and organized nonviolent action campaigns.
Within the WRI network, from the Dutch anarchist Bart de Ligt and the U.S. Quaker Richard Gregg onwards, there have always been many people interested in nonviolent struggle as a means of social change. This, together with the organization's analysis that the injustice of colonialism was a cause of war, led to a keen interest in the Indian independence struggle and, later, close working relationships with sections of the Gandhian movement.
Peak periods of activity in WRI occurred in the 1930s, the 1960s (with the first wave of antinuclear campaigning, the U.S. civil rights movement, and the international anti-Vietnam War movement), and the 1980s. In the 1930s and 1940s, WRI helped to rescue people from persecution under Francisco Franco and under the Nazis and found them safe homes with WRI members in other countries. It paid particular attention to the plight of Spanish orphans, children separated from their parents, and widows (see, for example, José Brocca). Under Nazi occupation, Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian members of WRI played prominent roles in organizing nonviolent resistance to frustrate the occupiers' plans and to deny them the fruits of their aggression. (The secretary of the Dutch section was executed by firing squad in December 1944 for printing illegal papers and pamphlets.)
During the Cold War, WRI consistently sought out war resisters in the Soviet bloc: first individuals, and later groups. After the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, WRI organized protest demonstrations in four Warsaw Pact capitals. In the 1980s, it adopted the idea of personal peace treaties: peace activists from the Eastern and Western blocs declared their loyalty to the values they held in common and not to the machinery of state and military that divided them; they then vowed to support each other in their struggle against the militarism of their respective blocs. Other actions were less public, such as private visits where material or information was smuggled in or out of a country.
WRI has also supported the alternative press in countries in which conscription is in force, through advertising. In 1988, a WRI advert was cited as one of the reasons for the seizure of an edition of the Weekly Mail in South Africa, after the banning of the local End Conscription Campaign.
There also have been many testing times for WRI. During the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Vietnam War, and the 1990s' wars in the Balkans, peace movements have found themselves divided. Faced by what they see as a defensive war against a brutal aggressor, many individuals have questioned their commitment not to support any kind of war.
WRI has tried to develop nonviolent strategies for effective action in such situations, trying to pose another way, an alternative between submission and taking up arms, and to find means of breaking the cycle of war and violence. In 1971, when Pakistani troops were blockading what was then East Pakistan, WRI launched Operation Omega to Bangladesh, a nonviolent direct action project to take in relief supplies. More recently, the International Deserters Network associated with WRI has offered support for people resisting the Gulf War of 1991 and, on a much larger scale, the wars in the Balkans, where it was also engaged with several other peace organizations in an experiment in international nonviolent intervention, the Balkan Peace Team, working for human rights and in support of civil society initiatives in nonviolent conflict resolution.

Organization

War Resisters' International is a network of member groups. A list of member groups can be found below or (with addresses and weblinks) on the WRI website [1]. An international conference takes place at least once every four years (for historical reasons, conferences since 1994 have been referred to as "triennials" despite departing from that frequency).
The chair is elected by postal vote in advance of the international conference. Since the office of chair was created in 1926, chairs have been:

★ Fenner Brockway (1926-1934)

★ Lord Ponsonby (1934-1937)

★ George Lansbury (1937-1940)

★ Herbert Runham Brown (1946-1949)

★ Harold Bing (1949-1966)

★ Michael Randle (1966-1973)

★ Devi Prasad (1973-1975)

★ Myrtle Solomon (1975-1986)

★ David McReynolds (1986-1988)

★ Narayan Desai (1989-1991)

★ Jørgen Johansen (1991-1998)

★ Joanne Sheehan (1998-2006)

★ Howard Clark (2006- )

Publications

★ WRI's main publication is the quarterly bulletin ''The Broken Rifle'' (in hard copy [non-standard tabloid or A4 paper size], PDF, and HTML editions, in English, French, German, and Spanish, and occasionally in other languages such as Russian and Korean).

★ The Women's Working Group of WRI produces an occasional A5 magazine, ''WRI Women''.

★ Two e-bulletins -- CO-Update and War Profiteers' News -- appear regularly in English with subsequent translation into other languages.

Affiliated groups

Key: S = section A = Associated organisation AP = Associated publication

country	customary name	English name	affiliated as
ANGOLA	Iniciativa Angolana Antimilitarista para os Direitos Humanos	Angolan Antimilitaristic Initiative for Human Rights	S
AUSTRALIA	War Resisters' League		S
AUSTRIA	Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Wehrdienstverweigerung und Gewaltfreiheit		A
AUSTRIA	Begegnungszentrum für Aktive Gewaltlosigkeit		A
BELGIUM	Action Jeunesse pour la Paix	Youth Action for Peace	A
BELGIUM	Vredesactie	Peace Action	S
BELGIUM	Mouvement International de la Réconciliation/ Internationale des Résistant(e)s à la Guerre		S
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA	Kampanja za prigovor savjesti u BiH	Campaign for Conscientious Objection in BiH	A
BRITAIN	Anglican Pacifist Fellowship		A
BRITAIN	Brotherhood Church		A
BRITAIN	Conscience - The Peace Tax Campaign		A
BRITAIN	Greenpeace (London)		A
BRITAIN	Housmans Bookshop		A
BRITAIN	Peace News		AP
BRITAIN	Aldermaston Women's Peace Campaign		A
BRITAIN	Fellowship of Reconciliation UK		S
BRITAIN	Peace Pledge Union		S
CANADA	Centre de ressources sur la non-violence		A
CANADA	ACT for the Earth		S
CHAD	Tchad Non-Violence		A
CHILE	Grupo de Objeción de Conciencia Ni Casco Ni Uniforme		S
CHILE	Grupo de Objeción de Conciencia Rompiendo Filas		S
COLOMBIA	Red Juvenil		A
CROATIA	Antiratna Kampanja Hrvatske		A
DENMARK	Aldrig Mere Krig		S
ECUADOR	Servicio Paz y Justicia del Ecuador		A
FINLAND	Committee of 100 in Finland		A
FINLAND	Sitoutumaton Vasemmisto	Independent Left	A
FINLAND	Aseistakieltäytyjäliitto	Union of Conscientious Objectors	S
FRANCE	Collectif des Objectrices et Objecteurs Tarnais		A
FRANCE	Mouvement de l'Objection de Conscience		A
FRANCE	Mouvement International de la Réconciliation		A
FRANCE	Mouvement pour une alternative non-violente		A
FRANCE	Union Pacifiste de France		S
GEORGIA	People to People		A
GEORGIA	War Resisters' International - Georgian Section		S
GERMANY	Anti-Kriegs-Museum		A
GERMANY	Archiv Aktiv für gewaltfreie Bewegungen		A
GERMANY	Graswurzelrevolution		AP
GERMANY	Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft - Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner		S
GERMANY	Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft - Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen		S
GERMANY	Institut für Friedensarbeit und Gewaltfreie Konfliktaustragung	Institute for Peace Work and Nonviolent Conflict Transformation	S
GERMANY	Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner/innen - IDK		S
GREECE	Συνδεσμοσ Αντιρρησιων Συνειδησησ	Association of Greek COs	S
HUNGARY	Alba Kör - Eröszakmentes Mozgalom a Békéért	Alba Circle: Nonviolent Movement for Peace in Hungary	S
INDIA	Gandhian Society Villages Association		A
INDIA	Swadhina		S
INDIA	War Resisters of India/West		S
IRELAND	INNATE - an Irish Network for Nonviolent Action Training and Education		A
ISRAEL	פרופיל חדש	New Profile		A
ITALY	Associazione SignorNò!		A
ITALY	Lega degli Obiettori di Coscienza		A
ITALY	Movimento Nonviolento		S
JAPAN	Nipponzan Myohoji		A
JAPAN	WRI Japan		S
KOREA (SOUTH)	전쟁 저항자 인터내셔널 코리아	WRI-Korea	A
MACEDONIA	Мировна Акција/Mirovna Akcija	Peace Action	A
NEPAL	Human Rights Without Frontiers, Nepal		A
NETHERLANDS	PAIS		S
NIGERIA	Alternatives to Violence Project Nigeria		A
NORWAY	Folkereisning Mot Krig		S
PAPUA NEW GUINEA	Leitana Nehan Women's Development Agency		A
PARAGUAY	Movimiento de Objeción de Conciencia		A
PORTUGAL	Associação Livre dos Objectores e Objectoras de Consciência		A
ROMANIA	Sibienii Pacifisti		A
SERBIA	Pokret za Mir Pančevo		A
SERBIA	Žene u Crnom protiv Rata	Women in Black Against War	A
SPAIN	Taller de Paz	Peace Factory	A
SPAIN	Assemblea Antimilitarista de Catalunya		S
SPAIN	Kontzientzi Eragozpen Mugimendua		S
SPAIN	Alternativa Antimilitarista.MOC		S
SRI LANKA	Nonviolent Direct Action Group		S
SUDAN	Sudanese Organization for Nonviolence and Development		A
SWEDEN	Kristna Fredsrörelsen		S
SWEDEN	Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsföreningen	Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society	S
SWITZERLAND	Centre pour l'action non-violente	Centre for Nonviolent Action (formerly Centre Martin Luther King)	A
SWITZERLAND	Gruppe für eine Schweiz ohne Armee		A
TURKEY	İstanbul Anti-militarist İnisiyatif	Istanbul Antimilitarist Initiative	A
UGANDA	Jamii Ya Kupatanisha	Fellowship of Reconciliation in Uganda	A
UNITED STATES	Fellowship of Reconciliation USA		A
UNITED STATES	Resource Center for Nonviolence		A
UNITED STATES	War Resisters League		S
ZIMBABWE	Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe		A
international organisations	International Nonviolent Initiatives		A

See also

★ Nonviolence

★ Pacifism

★ Antimilitarism

References

Clark, Howard: "War Resisters' International", in ''Encyclopaedia of Nonviolence'', Garland Publishing 1997
Prasad, Devi: ''War is a Crime against Humanity: The story of War Resisters' International'', London: War Resisters' International 2005

Additional reading

★ Bennett, Scott. ''Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963''. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8156-3028-X

★ Beyer, Wolfram. ''60 years of the War Resisters' International (WRI) - with special reference to the period 1921 - 1939''. Berlin, 1985, published by 'Schriftenreihe des Libertären Forums Berlin' (English translation from German by Hilda Morris, GB - theses for diploma at the Free University of Berlin).

External links

★ War Resisters' International

★ WRI archives