International Peace Bureau
From 1985-1992, Bruce served as President of the International Peace Bureau and was awarded the organisation’s prestigious Seán MacBride Peace Prize in 2019. An event organised by IPB to celebrate Bruce’s life and work can be viewed here.
Reiner Braun, Executive Director of IPB said: “It is seldom we call someone a ‘peace hero’ because, as peace activists we are generally against such terms. But Bruce was one of these historical peace figures with his deep, lifelong, emotional and argumentative engagement for peace. We are doing everything to continue the work in his spirit.”
Renowned peace activist and former IPB Vice-President Kate Dewes remembers: “Bruce visited New Zealand in about 1986 to meet with peace activists and join a peace walk in the lead up to the adoption of our nuclear free legislation. In July 1991 I met him again in London to gather support from CND and other groups for the World Court Project. This was a Kiwi-led initiative to ask the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the legal status of nuclear weapons. At this time Bruce was also President of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) which became one of the three co-sponsoring organisations of the Project. He promoted it with his indefatigable passion, dry wit and eloquence giving support to the UK branch chaired by former Navy Commander Robert Green. Bruce was delighted when a romance developed between Rob and me – loving the irony of a fellow peace campaigner marrying a former operator of nuclear weapons. I enjoyed many IPB Board meetings during the 8 years I served as a Vice-President alongside Bruce. He continued to support our work in ‘far away New Zealand’, always sending Christmas cards and warm words of encouragement. We treasure our last memory of him and Valerie in July 2017 proudly showing us around the ‘Fighting for Peace’ exhibition at the Imperial War Museum where he featured as an exhibit. He continues to inspire us with his lifelong commitment to advocacy for a world without war.”
The following gallery is a collection of photographs from Bruce’s time with IPB, his peace activism in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the presentation to Bruce of the Seán MacBride Peace Prize during a ceremony in London to coincide with CND’s AGM in 2019.
Bruce Kent and then CND Vice-Chair Rebecca Johnson , Portsmouth, 1988
