The ICIP team and Governing Board express our most sincere condolences for the loss of our friend Arcadi Oliveres, mentor and undisputed leader for the entire pacifist movement in Catalonia.
Arcadi was with us from the establishment of ICIP in 2009. And even before then, since he was one of the promoters of the creation of the Institute. As a member of the first Governing Board, he was closely involved with ICIP, especially during the first years of our existence, to define the road map for the promotion of a culture of peace, in Catalonia and around the world.
Coherent, radical in ideas and approachable in manner, Arcadi was always a person of peace. He never said no and always defended all the causes he knew led to a greater humanitarianism, to greater social justice: the fight against the arms trade or against the foreign debt of impoverished countries, the conscientious objection to compulsory military service, war tax resistance, the fight against inequalities, injustices and war in general.
A career in peace and justice that ICIP honored in 2017 with the ICIP Peace in Progress Award “for his commitment and tireless dedication to the promotion of peace, social justice, human rights and disarmament, from a universal perspective.”
Arcadi leaves behind an immense legacy, as immense will be his absence.
As the activist and journalist David Fernàndez said in the essay he wrote on the occasion of the ICIP Award, “We are all Arcadi (or at least that’s what we all aspire to).”
Rest in peace, Arcadi.
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