International anti-war organisation
The
broken rifle
symbol.
War Resisters' International
(
WRI
), headquartered in
London
, is an international
anti-war
organisation with members and affiliates in over 40 countries.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
War Resisters' International
was founded in
Bilthoven
,
Netherlands
in 1921 under the name "Paco", which means "peace" in
Esperanto
. WRI adopted a founding declaration that has remained unchanged:
War is a
crime against humanity
. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.
It adopted the
broken rifle
as its symbol in 1931.
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
. Two years later, in 1923,
Tracy Dickinson Mygatt
,
Frances M. Witherspoon
,
Jessie Wallace Hughan
, and
John Haynes Holmes
founded the
War Resisters League
in the
United States
.
Notable members include Dutch anarchist
Bart de Ligt
, Quaker
Richard Gregg
and
Tolstoyan
Valentin Bulgakov
. WRI attracted some of the world's best pacifist thinkers and activists, amongst them George Lansbury, Mahatma Gandhi, Bertrand Russell, Bayard Rustin, Martin Niemoeller and Danilo Dolci. The group had a close working relationships with sections of the
Gandhian
movement. In January 1948,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
attended a preparatory meeting for the World Pacifist Meeting he called, at the behest of WRI, and which eventually took place in December 1949. It took the form of 50 international pacifists meeting with 25 of Gandhi's close associates in an "unhurried conference" in Santiniketan, West Bengal.
[2]
Refugees from the Spanish Civil War at the War Resisters' International children's refuge at Prats-de-Mollo in the French Pyrenees, some time between 1937 and 1939. The warden of the home, Professor
Jose Brocca
is standing third from left in the photograph.
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.
[3]
One of the leaders of the Norwegian branch of WRI (FmK),
Olaf Kullmann
, was arrested by the
German Occupiers
for his pacifist agitation; he was sent to the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
, where he died
in 1942.
[4]
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 organised protest demonstrations in four
Warsaw Pact
capitals.
[5]
Daniel Ellsberg
's attendance at a talk by
Randy Kehler
(as Kehler was preparing to submit to his sentence for draft resistance) at the WRI's 13th Triennial Meeting, held at
Haverford College
in August 1969, was a pivotal event in Ellsberg's decision to copy and release the
Pentagon Papers
. (It was Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers which led
President Nixon
to create a group of in-house spies, who undertook the ill-fated
Watergate
break-in, which led to Nixon's resignation).
[6]
In 1971, when
Pakistani
troops were blockading what was then
East Pakistan
, WRI launched
Operation Omega
to
Bangladesh
. 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 organisations in an experiment in international nonviolent intervention, the
Balkan Peace Team
.
In 1988, a WRI advert was cited
[
by whom?
]
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
.
[
citation needed
]
The WRI office in London has supported three programmes: work on conscientious objection, supporting nonviolent movements against war and countering youth militarisation.
Organisation
[
edit
]
War Resisters' International is a network of member groups. An international conference takes place at least once every four years.
The Chair has been elected at international conferences (Assembleys) or by postal vote in advance of the international conference. Since the office of chair was created in 1926, chairs have been:
The office of Chair has been abolished at the 2019 Assembly meeting in Bogota, Colombia, and the former responsibilities of the Chair are now shared between the members of the executive committee.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"About War Resisters' International"
.
War Resisters' International
. Retrieved
10 February
2024
.
- ^
Prasad, Devi:
War is a Crime against Humanity: The story of War Resisters' International
, pp. 272?276. London: War Resisters' International 2005
- ^
Brock, Peter and Socknat, Thomas Paul,
Challenge to Mars: Essays on Pacifism from 1918 to 1945
. p.173. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1999.
- ^
Brock and Socknat, p. 402-3.
- ^
Fink, Carole, Gassert, Philipp, and Junker, Detlef.
1968: The World Transformed
, p.449. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
- ^
The Most Dangerous Man in America
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Clark, Howard: "War Resisters' International", in
Encyclopaedia of Nonviolence
, Garland Publishing 1997. See note on discussion page.
- Prasad, Devi:
War is a Crime against Humanity: The story of War Resisters' International
, London: War Resisters' International 2005
- 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 Libertaren Forums Berlin' (English translation from German by Hilda Morris, GB ? theses for diploma at the Free University of Berlin). 2.Edition >>War Resisters' International (WRI) the political insight of the WRI with special reference to the period 1921 ? 1939<<, Berlin 2018
ISBN
978-3-9816536-4-9
- Roger S. Powers; et al., eds. (2012).
"War Resisters' International"
.
Protest, Power, and Change: An Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action
. Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-136-76482-0
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Peace advocates
| |
---|
Ideologies
| |
---|
Media and cultural
| |
---|
Slogans and tactics
| |
---|
Opposition to specific
wars or their aspects
| |
---|
Countries
| |
---|
|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Academics
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|