Time for a Department of Peace
Judy Addicott Kimmel and Kimberly Weichel

TODAY IS International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations in 1981 to "commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples" and it calls on all nations for a day of global cease-fire and non-violence.

As we celebrate this day in our own lives and in our world, it's time that we explore effective ways of reducing conflict and violence on a more permanent basis as a means for building a foundation for peace.

In 2004, the World Health Organization came out with research stating that the cost of interpersonal violence in the United States was $300 billion annually - a staggering number.

With violence and conflict erupting on every continent and in families, communities, schools, and businesses across our nation, it's high time we take precautionary measures and not just reactive ones.

Adding more prisons, weapons and police doesn't solve the escalation of violence. What will?

Bills have been introduced in both the House (HR 3760) and Senate (SB 1765) that would establish a Department of Peace and Nonviolence, creating a U.S. Secretary of Peace at the president's table. This department would "advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict."

The Secretary of Peace would serve as a delegate to the National Security Council. This legislation also would "provide training of all United States personnel who administer post-conflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies."

In other words, the Department of Peace and Nonviolence, with a highly trained and dedicated staff, would be a working counterpoint to the Defense Department and provide much-needed complementary approaches to ending violence nationally and internationally.

The department would be involved in not only international contexts but also in issues of violence within this country that endanger far too many of our citizens: the proliferation of automatic weapons and the violence in our schools, our homes and our streets.

This legislation would mandate conflict resolution courses in our schools, developing field-tested educational programs promoting conflict resolution and peer mediation among school-aged children.

The department will provide violence prevention programs addressing domestic violence, gang violence and drug- and alcohol-related violence. It will work to rehabilitate our prison population, and support our military. It will foster programs that will reduce federal, state and local costs by a 10-to-1 ratio, with one dollar spent in prevention of violence equating to $10 of post-violence costs to society.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, states it well when she says: "We must do everything possible to prevent wars from happening in the first place. In fact, war is the result of failed diplomacy. It is an outdated, calamitous way of resolving international crises, and it doesn't make us safer. That's why I strongly support the creation of a Department of Peace, and have introduced H.R. 158, the SMART Security initiative in Congress, so that non-violent means of protecting our national security would become the norm, not the exception."

The majority of Bay Area congressional representatives concur on this issue.

It's time we take the establishment of peace seriously, understanding the root causes of conflict, having a cadre of trained personnel and requiring courses in our schools. It's time we put emphasis on solving conflicts without force, on exploring all our options and on valuing new approaches to conflict reduction. The Department of Peace and Nonviolence, aligned with the principles and work of the U.N., is an idea whose time has come.

Retired newsman Walter Cronkite, a strong proponent of a Department of Peace, asks, "Wouldn't it have been an advantage in the run-up to the Iraq war to have had a Cabinet officer whose department was responsible for training U.S. personnel in human rights, conflict resolution, reconstruction and the detailed planning necessary to restoring a durable peace?"

Isn't it time we join him in supporting this legislation?

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Judy Addicott Kimmel is director of Development for the Peace Alliance, the group campaigning to create a U.S. Department of Peace. Kimberly Weichel is president of the U.N. Association of Marin and San Francisco, and co-director of the Institute for Peacebuilding. She is outreach coordinator for the Northern California Department of Peace Campaign.