In 1985 when I made my first trip to Nicaragua, I came with a Witness for Peace group (WFP). We were about 60 or so women who came to witness first-hand the war that was happening here in Nicaragua. It was extremely powerful. I learned1 and grew volumes.
On that trip my heart broke again and again. There is no way I can convey the horror and the pain that my government was causing, as well as the strength of the Nicaraguan people: those fighting and those not.
It is from that personal experience that I propose that another Witness-for-Peace-type organization be formed or the existing one expand its focus… to include the horrors being perpetrated by local police against people of color in the United States.
Witness for Peace was a great model. They had long-term U.S. volunteers2 who went into Nicaraguan war-torn communities, living with people and documenting human right abuses and stories. They hosted short-term volunteers in delegations who went into war zones to try to stop the violence by just being physically present.3
These volunteers, like me, listened to stories told to us by mothers who had lost their children, by community leaders who told of people being executed, and on and on.
I am putting forth WFP as a model to white people who want the police brutality and killings to stop. Organize people to go live in communities particularly at risk of the police. Listen to mothers, young people, and community leaders and start compiling documents of human rights violations. Bring short-term volunteer delegations into powder-keg moments to act as barriers between the police and the protesters. Have these volunteers talk to mothers and fathers, young men who have experienced atrocities, and community leaders, in order to lobby and bear witness to their stories. Don’t depend on the media to tell the truth.
Last night on PBS, I listened to three white men talk about what was going on across the U.S. I do not doubt that they were telling the truth as they saw it, but racism is not about them… and yes, I do see the ridiculous irony in me, a white woman, writing this blog, but I have always found that sitting face-to-face with those suffering has broken my heart, as opposed to watching people on television.
I also acknowledge the irony of me, sitting thousands of miles away with white hair and wrinkles, proposing this. I had an idea. Many of you who read our blogs have been here and know how seeing with your own eyes changed you. Many of you live in the U.S. and want the brutality to stop.
I beg you to organize to stop the war that is going on in our own country.
-Kathleen
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1 One of the many things I learned was to not completely trust the media, because none of the journalists would go into the war zones but rather talked to people in Managua and reported from the nicest hotel in the country. For example, I saw an event with my own eyes and then after going home, read a small blurb about the event in a trusted paper. The account was skewed and made the event ugly and awful, when what I saw was gentleness and compassion.
2 Like our Kathy …who was a WFP long-term volunteer
3 Those aggressors in the Contra War were funded and advised by the U.S. government as well as including some U.S. soldiers that crossed the border and international law…as well as mining a Nicaragua port. The leaders of the aggressors did not want to kill U.S. citizens, have that reported, and lose their support. They did kill one U.S. citizen. Ben Linder, (https://jhc-cdca.org/projects/casa-benjamin-linder/history-of-benjamin-linder/), and then there was a huge backlash in the States.
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