Annual report 2009

Excerpts from the annual report for 2009, giving some glimpses from this year’s work.

Nonviolence training

“I have learned a lot about nonviolence and more, and I will have use of this in the future. The course has led many of us and others around to want to get involved.” Quote from a participant in SweFOR’s weekend training in nonviolence at Lidingö community college.

During the year, SweFOR received many requests to hold both long and short training sessions on the topic of nonviolence. Because the requests have been so numerous, we have been able to channel assignments to different trainers in our training network. We have received positive feedback from participants in training courses and many have continued to keep in contact with us.
 
One of this year’s major activities was an international nonviolence training that took place in collaboration with Sida Civil Society Center in Härnösand. Participants came from Sudan, Colombia, Israel, Palestine and Sweden. Many participants have indicated that they have since used the new knowledge and tools they learned in their own courses and in their daily interactions.

International peace service program

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation has, during the year, continued to accompany human rights defenders and vulnerable civilian populations to enhance their safety. During the year, a total of twelve peace observers have been sent to Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. Eleven peace observers have, during last year, completed their year of service with the SweFOR having performed greatly appreciated informational and advocacy efforts.

2009 contained both progress and setbacks for human rights defenders in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and West Sahara. The need for international peace observers is still large. In Mexico, several people working for SweFOR’s partner organization Frayba, have been persecuted and attacked on numerous occasions. In Colombia, the official threats of new paramilitary groups against international and Colombian human rights defenders and organizations have increased.

In Guatemala, a former military correspondent in the village of Choatalúm was convicted of having been involved in so-called "forced disappearances" during the civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. This is the first verdict of its kind in Guatemala and human rights organizations in the country called the verdict historical and have renewed faith that impunity can be broken. Relatives and witnesses in the lawsuit have received protection from peace observers from SweFOR, among others.

Western Sahara was a hit by a new setback in the struggle for independence, human rights and democracy, when seven Sahrawi human rights defenders were arrested by Moroccan police for having visited the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria.

These events show that the assiduous work performed by human rights defenders around the world is essential to transform a society for the better, but also show that the need for protection and support from the international community is vital in the fight for human rights.

Peace, justice and reconciliation in the Middle East

For a long time, the Fellowship of Reconciliation has held a discussion on how we can work more with nonviolence training in Palestine and Israel. In 2008, we began to prepare a proposal regarding cooperation with the Quakers in Ramallah to support education, under their leadership, and possibly provide more cooperative training in the style of the training courses we have held in Sudan. This has, however, been put on hold, due to the funding decrease in the beginning of the year.

Instead, we focused our Middle East work on exchange of knowledge, capacity building and information dissemination in Sweden. Despite financial cutbacks in funding for the information dissemination work in the Middle East, we have been able to maintain a Middle East work thanks to a broadened cooperation with other actors in Sweden. Some of the issues we have highlighted specifically are the settlement and trade issues, for example an article in the national newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. In August, members of the Israeli peace movement visited us, and participated in several interviews for newspapers, radio programs and the news show “Rapport”.

The Swedish Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, SEAPPI, has sent out four teams of companions. SweFOR has also been in the steering committee for the program during 2009.

Human security and disarmament

Prevention of Armed Conflict

Within the Network Forum for Peace and Development – FFU, we organized in February, an internal workshop where different sides of prevention issues were discussed. Several FFU members, together with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), also organized an international seminar on civilian crisis management in the spring of 2009. The FFU also sought to begin preparing a document with "good examples of prevention" that the Civil Society and governments in Europe have contributed to. An application for project funding for this work has been submitted to the FBA.

In order to broaden and deepen cooperation with other international organizations working to prevent armed conflict, the FFU and FBA have on a number of occasion had guests from the EPLO (European Peace Building Liaison Office) to talk about their work and to explain how and where the work for peace is performed within the EU Council and the European Commission. The EPLO gathers several major European peace organizations to influence European security policy towards  peace-building and prevention of armed conflicts.

Swedish arms trade
 
SweFOR has previously largely coordinated its work with partners through the Swedish working group on arms exports, SAV. It includes SweFOR, Amnesty International, Diakonia, Red Cross and the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. In the beginning of the year, when the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products, ISP, presented their statistics, the SAV organized a meeting with the ISP where the SweFOR questioned their interpretation of the guidelines for Swedish exports. We have also met with the Export Control Council, EKR, to hear how they view their mandate. It was clear that they feel that the guidelines are open to interpretation.

During the year, we completed a large number of informational and advocacy activities pertaining to the Swedish arms trade. Among other things, we (along with other organizations) have published a comic book on arms exports to reach new audiences with the message.

Small arms

During the year, SweFOR has had a coordinating responsibility for the Swedish Action Network on Small Arms, Sansa. Together with the Parliamentary Association, a round table discussion was organized on the privatization of security in which private security company Securitas was invited to talk about their views on existing legislation in the countries in which they are operating. We have also, together with the Parliamentary Association, met government representatives to discuss arms legislation. We have supported the leadership meetings in the Parliamentary Association by supplying basic data on armed violence, arms-export and the Arms Trade Treaty, ATT.

SweFOR has, as part of a global steering committee of NGOs, been strongly driven to work towards a global ATT. SweFOR has participated in UN conferences on the theme this year in March, July and during the UN first committee meetings in October, when a new resolution was adopted to establish a negotiation process for an ATT.

Information and communication

SweFOR's efforts to provide information and communication is a central part of
our work and much of the peace work described in this annual report is about information and communication.

In 2009, the informational work has been directed towards strengthening the coordination and effectiveness of our many communication activities. It comes from a desire to become clearer as an organization, to recruit more members and increase fundraising. Thanks to the appointment of a fundraiser, we have been able to put more effort into the fundraising letters, sales and other fundraising activities.

An important part of coordination is to better integrate the large information and advocacy work done by our peace observers, for example by engaging homecoming peace observers in the ongoing campaigns.

Translation from Swedish: Kristina Segergren