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FALL, 1999: Volume 4 Issue 3 The Civil Peace Service in Germany: June, 1999 by Helga Tempel, Chairwoman of the Forum ZFD The Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst (Civil Peace Service Association) has been�a non-profit organization since 1996. It is an association of various German�Peace organizations, church groups, and other NGOs aimed at creating and�strengthening nonviolent conflict transformation and setting up a Civil[ian]�Peace Service (CPS) as an instrument of civil policy. For the last 5 years�the ZFD has been trying to get public support including funding for a Civil�Peace Service run by well-trained volunteers. ZFD runs a small office in Cologne with one full-time and one half-time�employee. The eight members of our board are working as hard as they can,�some with the support of their employers (e.g., Pax Christi and the�Protestant Church) and some, like me, as volunteers without any payment at�all. The Religious Society of Friends, Germany YM, is very much in favor of�these endeavors. As a Quaker I am working for the CPS as a representative of�the Quaker Peace Committee with spiritual and financial support�covering my�expenses�of our Yearly Meeting. Together with a colleague from Pax Christi,�I serve as the chair of our association. My husband, Konrad Tempel, is�responsible for the training program and has worked out a one- year�s�training program which has been the basis for the present courses for peace�volunteers. Since 1997 the ZFD has received public support for offering 4-month training�courses (including language training) for German participants as well as for�men and women coming from the conflict region itself. So far, 37 volunteers�who have gone through this training have been sent abroad. The men and women�are paid basic stipends by a number of different organizations cooperating�with the ZPD and with local partners mostly in the former Yugoslavia. A new�course, the fourth one, will start in the end of July 99. Some places where ZFD/CPS volunteers (we call them �peace professionals�)�are working: Croatia�work with traumatized children and other refugees;�Osijek, Croatia, Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human�Rights�reconciliation, cooperation, communication; Jaice, Bosnia, youth�center; Tuzla, Bosnia�work with returning refugees, multiethnic�understanding; Bosnia, Organization for Security and Cooperation in�Europe�monitoring compliance with peace accords; Sarajevo, Bosnia�peace training,�intercultural and interethnic understanding; Pristina, Kosovo, Human Rights�Watch. (This is a very, very rough summary of the work being done. The�reality is much more complicated and the work can�t concentrate on only one�field.) Our intensive lobbying, together with a rather wide-spread discussion by�church agencies and political parties, led to a the declaration of the new��red-green� (Left-Green coalition) government saying that they are going to�build up a Civil Peace Service including an in-depth training for �peace�professionals� (Friedensfachkr�fte). The budget for 1999 contains 5 million�DM [~US$2.5 million] for this purpose. The Ministry for Economic�Cooperation and Development was asked to be responsible for working out the�concept and practical setting of CPS. Under these circumstances it has not been easy to ensure the independence of�the ZFD and make clear that we want to have a real Non-Governmental�Organization working on a purely civilian level. The ZFD has only just begun to run our own programs in conflict areas,�(previously, we have given all our support to our member organizations by�training the volunteers they sent out within their own projects) but we are�hopeful to be able to do so more intensively in the fall. The ZFD took the�initiative to build up an European Network for Civilian Peace Services�(ENCPS) which until now gathered Civilian Peace Services from Austria,�Germany, France, Hungary, Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, plus the�Helsinki Citizens� Assembly. The ENCPS took part in the Hague Appeal for�Peace and offered a workshop �Creative in Conflict� there. The idea of creating new instruments for non-violent conflict transformation�and the necessity of setting up professional training for the volunteers is�spreading rather quickly round Germany and other European countries. In 1998�a German Platform for Peaceful Conflict Management was founded as a�counterpart to the European Platform on Conflict Prevention and�Transformation. Currently in Europe there are many conferences, seminars,�research meetings, and other events which stress the necessity of�alternatives to military interventions. Some progressive newspapers and�monthlies publish supporting articles, but radio and TV react very�reluctantly. In many institutions different sorts of trainings from some two�or three days to some weeks are offered. The 4-month course which is�organized by the ZFD is the longest one. On the other hand, the military�thinking is deep rooted and widespread�as the war in the Balkans has�shown�and the funding for our work is less than a peanut compared with the�resources for the military. But it is a beginning �to turn the screw the�other way round.� TOP
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