“Years hence, when every country has a Ministry of Peace, people will look back and ask: ‘What took us so long?’ After all, we have a ministry for almost everything else: health, education and so on. How odd that, of all things, we have no ministries of peace. Peace is the key to accomplishing the rest.

 Peace is the global imperative. The huge challenges we face will not be resolved through aggression. Aggression got us into this global crisis in the first place. Now, even the survival of the biosphere is under threat. We are not going pull back from this catastrophe by using the very same mindset and methods that bought us to this brink. Nor is this a crisis we can resolve through good wishes alone. We need a coordinated global plan which will bring together the brightest minds, the best plans and the most gifted leadership. The backbone of that plan will be the Ministries of Peace.”

The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche,

Spiritual Leader, Shambhala International

The Costa Rica Congress has passed the Bill creating the Ministry of Justice and Peace and becomes the third country to have such a Minister. The others are Nepal and the small Pacific island nation of the Solomon Islands. The Nepalese Minister  of Peace and Reconstruction will speak at the Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace, September 17-21, 2009 and it is anticipated that the new Costa Rica Minister of Peace will also speak. Canada will be represented at the Summit by a large delegation of 9 persons.

Congratulations are due to Rita Marie Johnson, Founding Director, and her team at the Rasur Foundation, the principal NGO voice for the Minister of Peace, who worked for 3 years on this project. She has particularly noted that holding the Global Alliance Summit in CR accelerated and added impetus to the passing of this Bill. The  Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace has shown its ability to assist in moving forward our objective to create ministers of peace in all nations. 

In Japan, where the 3rd Summit was held in September 2007, that Summit assisted in the further strengthening of the threatened Article 9 in the Japanese Constitution, the article that prevents Japan from acting as a belligerent against any other nation and renounces war as a vehicle of resolving conflict. To date, despite considerable pressure from the US and the wishes of the conservative parties in Japan, Article 9 remains intact as a model clause for every nation’s constitution.

Department of Peace Initiative Launched

Thursday, 06 August 2009

By Carolyn Girard

Published in the Catholic Register

 A private members’ bill to establish a Canadian Department of Peace will soon be before Parliament, perhaps as early as the fall.

British Columbia MP Bill Siksay jumped on board the six-year-old campaign advocating for a Department of Peace just a few years ago, and recently volunteered to write the legislation for the private members’ bill he hopes to table in September. (more…)