| Committee for Conflict Transformation Support | CCTS
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Appreciation: Bob Niedhardt, 1942–2007 Bob Niedhardt joined the original Committee for Conflict Resolution Training in Europe (CCCRTE) in its formative period, and for a number of years from the late 1990s onwards was a member of CCTS, first as a representative of Quaker Peace & Service and then in his capacity as an independent practitioner. We reproduce below an appreciation by fellow Quaker and committee member, Alan Pleydell, originally published in The Friend. Bob died on 10th June from pancreatic and oesophageal cancer, identified late last year. He joined us at Quaker Peace and Service as Conciliation Secretary in April 1992, from the Catholic Institute for International Relations – bringing with him two decades’ experience of working in Chile, Peru, and Nicaragua. When he left in early 2000 he had headed the QPS International Relations Section as well as serving the Conciliation Advisory Group, helping Friends’ discernment on non-official political mediation and conciliation. He went on to lead an advice service for young gay and lesbian people and in his last years worked as a Spanish interpreter with Easyjet. One of the central themes in Bob’s life was practical solidarity with those suffering violence and extreme injustice. He became a priest in Chile in the 1970s, partly when friends persuaded him of its value in the dangerous work of assisting fugitives from the Pinochet regime. In the early 90s he worked in Nicaragua for CIIR during the time of the defeat of the Sandinista government by the US-backed Contras, insisting that wherever local people in the direst situations continued to find hope, those who wanted to help from the outside had no business being pessimistic. Bob and his wife Jenny Amery met when she was working as a doctor in a Peruvian shanty town in 1980. They eventually settled in Welwyn Garden City, becoming members of the Meeting and bringing up their three sons Matt, Andy and Ed. Part of his work at QPS was bringing together ex-combatants from different countries to share common ground and experiences in their efforts to reintegrate into civilian life – from Nicaragua, Northern Ireland and South Africa. He visited Sri Lanka aiming at finding a basis for negotiation between the Sinhalese Government and the Tamil Tigers – at one point undertaking a visit to their stronghold in the Jaffna peninsula. There remains some QPSW conciliation work in South Asia, though not on the scale of earlier Quaker mediation efforts in the 70s or 80s. Part of Bob’s passionately-held view of Quaker faith and integrity was his insistence that such work should take place completely unpublicised, and that once entered into, it required a long-term commitment not calculated on any obvious prospects of success, which he felt Friends should trust. He came out as gay to his family and some f/Friends at the end of the 90s. It was in the simplest fashion, for instance to me on a train journey – “I’ve got something to tell you – I'm gay”. Though that was a deeply testing time for them all, Jenny, Bob and their boys all faced the transitions in their relationships with bravery and love and they were completely there for one another in his last weeks at his Quaker bungalow in Welwyn Garden City. One Chilean former pupil now a middle-aged man told us in tears at the memorial meeting how Bob had taught him as a small child “the meanings of the words ‘Gringo’ and ‘Amigo’ – and that truly they are the same”. |
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