It is 1982 in Guatemala. The Guatemalan Civil War has been grinding on for years, with death and violence consuming the country. A group of Guatemalan activists are campaigning against human rights abuses, and are receiving threats of death, torture and disappearance. They gather at a member’s house to plan an upcoming protest. What protects them? An unarmed foreign volunteer sitting on the porch with a book — and a support network of embassies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and officials.

Founded in 1981, Peace Brigades International (PBI) is a non-governmental organization that sends volunteers to conflict zones to provide unarmed accompaniment to human rights defenders. This organization has worked in Guatemala, Colombia, Nepal, Indonesia and Mexico. Volunteers accompany activists who are threatened, and may sit outside a meeting room door for hours, or stand by and watch at a protest. Their presence is the activist’s protection.

“One of the most challenging aspects of the job is the fact that you’re often working in a pretty stressful environment, where there’s a lot of uncertainty and you’re not always doing a whole lot,” said Joe Sperry, a UW alumnus who went to Guatemala with PBI in 1996. A lot of the work deals with information, he said, such as writing reports and attending meetings.

“Some of the training comes down to being in the frame of mind that this isn’t necessarily going to be super romantic or exciting,” he said. “I think some people have the wrong impression that they get there and they’re disappointed and disillusioned, but ultimately it’s not about the volunteers, it’s about people we’re trying to help, so that’s just what stuck with me.”

Often when nothing happens, Sperry said, the accompaniment is actually serving its purpose.

“There have been cases where we’ve been accompanying people on a 24-hour basis and taking shifts,” he said. “There have been cases where there’s a gap in the shift for a couple of hours and the activist was abducted, but it wasn’t done while the foreigners were around.”

Ultimately that is still a failure, he said, because the accompaniments and communication on behalf of the person were not enough to protect them from abduction, suffering and likely death.

“That’s that line,” he said. “You’re not always sure where it lies.”

Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh, the executive director of PBI-USA, said there was an instance in Guatemala when a female activist left in the middle of the night because one of her grandchildren was ill. She left without PBI’s protection and was followed. Her car was later found in a ravine. The woman was dead. Her child’s nails had been extracted.

“She didn’t contact PBI,” Hughes-Fraitekh said. “I don’t know why.”

Hughes-Fraitekh said that as far as she knows, not one activist has been killed while accompanied by PBI volunteers.

“It was a fascinating experience,” Sperry said. “You learn a lot about the way the world works outside of the bubbles that most of us have grown up in.”

Sperry had sharp blue eyes and a demeanor that was not yet world-weary, just painfully aware of the inequality and cruelty present in it. He studied abroad in Colombia and went to Guatemala with PBI when he was 26.

With his blonde hair and blue eyes, Sperry stuck out.

“You’re always assuming the phone’s tapped,” he said. “It wouldn’t be hard for someone to follow me around,”

Surprisingly, no PBI volunteer has ever been killed in the more than 26 years since the organization began working in these dangerous areas, Hughes-Fraitekh wrote in an e-mail.

“A very few PBI volunteers have ever been attacked over the years, including two volunteers — one U.S. and one Canadian — who were wounded in the 1980s in Guatemala,” she wrote. “They actually returned to their home countries, and the U.S. volunteer was asked to testify about human rights issues before the U.S. Congress, leading to legislative provisions that U.S. military aid to Guatemala — at the time quite high — be linked to human rights improvement in the country — a very positive outcome to a frightening and painful situation.”

Accompaniment is only effective, Sperry said, if it raises the cost of using violence high enough so that using violence is more costly than backing off. That cost is usually international scrutiny.

“Nothing like killing an American foreigner to get the press’ attention,” he said.

PBI volunteers report harassment to webs of NGOs, embassies and political players that can place pressure on others to change the treatment of human rights. The group is non-partisan and acts as an observer and a source of information from the ground level of a conflict.

“Especially in places like Indonesia, Nepal, Guatemala, there isn’t necessarily a lot of constant international attention to what is happening,” Sperry said. “We’re sort of like an extension of the press.”

At one point in the late 1980s or early 1990s, Sperry said, PBI had become very effective at protecting organizations that were causing the government — or, as he said, the “shadow government” of death squads and terror — a lot of grief. PBI volunteers were having a meeting at their house when a grenade was thrown through the front window. No one was hurt, but the group immediately went to embassies and officials.

“They went ‘This is who we are and this is what we’re all about,’ and that really reinforced the importance of having diplomatic support and awareness of what they (PBI) do,” Sperry said. “They’re unarmed, they’re not interfering politically.”

PBI volunteers often introduce themselves to people within a country’s government and military structure. For instance, when traveling, PBI volunteers will call before reaching military checkpoints to say hello and introduce themselves to a new commander, Sperry said.

“It’s not necessarily to convince people of the value of non-violence, to convince the military agents of that, but at least to say ‘Look, here we are, you’re basically going to get a lot of headaches if you mess with us,’” Sperry said. “That’s the unspoken message.”

Perhaps one of those accompanied said it best. In a testimonial on PBI’s Web site, Nineth Montenegro, a Guatemlalan human rights activist, said, “Peace Brigades must know that it has carried out wonderful work by protecting us ... I have learned that peace is not achieved through violence, violence only brings more violence.”

Reach features editor Erinn Unger at features@dailyuw.com.