Famous conscientious objectors

[Elmo]

Arndt Pekurinen (August 29 1905 - November 5 1941) was a Finnish pacifist.

He refused military service in 1926 and was therefore repeatedly imprisoned between 1929 and 1931. The motives of Pekurinen were not religious or political. He was the leader of Finnish pacifist movement. The Lapua movement harassed him continuosly. An international petition on his behalf was sent to the defense minister Juho Niukkanen in 1930. 60 members of the British Parliament, and notable persons such as Albert Einstein, Henri Barbusse and H. G. Wells had signed the petition. In April 14, 1931, "Lex Pekurinen", the first alternate service law of Finland, was passed. However, the law covered only peacetime.

At the beginning of the Winter War Pekurinen was convicted again, for three years. In the early attack phase of the Continuation War, in Autumn 1941, he was released and sent to the front. Pekurinen refused to wear uniform or carry arms, and was therefore executed in Suomussalmi. The order to execute Pekurinen was given by Captain Pentti Valkonen. The first two soldiers who were ordered to shoot him refused.

After the war, an investigation of his execution was started, but never finished. For more than 50 years his fate remained unknown, but in 1998 a book describing his life was written by Erno Paasilinna: Courage: the life and execution of Arndt Pekurinen.

His motto was inspired by Jonathan Swift:

"As people are not eaten, butchering them is of no use."

(Kun ihmisiä ei syödä, on niitä turha teurastaa.)

http://arndt-pekurinen.wikiverse.org/

[Elmo]

Clay becomes Ali

In between the two matches, he also became famous for other reasons: he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, although only a few journalists like Howard Cosell accepted it. In 1966, he refused to serve in the American army during the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector, famously saying that he "got nothing against no Viet Cong" and "No Vietnamese ever called me a ******." He was stripped of his championship belt and his license to box and sentenced to five years in prison. The sentence was overturned on appeal three years later.

Ali's actions in refusing military service and aligning himself with the Nation of Islam made him a lightning rod of controversy, turning the outspoken but popular former champion into one of that era's most recognizable and controversial figures. Appearing at rallies with Nation of Islam leaders Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X and declaring his allegiance to them at a time when mainstream America viewed them with suspicion—if not actual hostility—made Ali a target of outrage and suspicion as well. Ali seemed at times to even provoke such reactions, with viewpoints that wavered from support for civil rights to outright support of racial separatism.

In 1970, granted a license to box once more following his Supreme Court victory wherein he was granted his right to refuse military service, he began a comeback. But he suffered a setback when he lost his 1971 title fight, a bruising 15-round encounter with Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden. This fight, known simply as "The Fight," was perhaps one of the most famous and eagerly anticipated bouts of all time, since it featured two skilled, undefeated fighters, both of whom had reasonable claims to the heavyweight crown. The fight lived up to the hype, and Frazier punctuated his victory by flooring Ali with a hard left hook in the final round. Ali split two bouts with Ken Norton before beating Frazier on points in their 1974 rematch to earn another title shot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali

[Jani.R]

booo ****ing hoo.

[Elmo]

My name is David Zonsheine. I am a reserve officer, at the rank of captain, in an elite paratrooper unit. I am 30 years old. During my 12 years in the military – first as a conscript and subsequently as a reservist – I have served in the occupied territories numerous times. I always felt that there was a contradiction between my being a Jewish and Israeli officer on the one hand, and the assignments I carried out in the territories on the other hand. However, as a military man I complied with the orders I was given.

About a year and a half ago I served with my soldiers in Gaza for a month. For 30 days my soldiers and I carried out missions that had nothing to do with Israel’s security, and were intended solely to maintain the Israeli occupation of the territories while denying the Palestinians basic human rights; the safety of the IDF’s soldiers in general, and of my subordinates in particular, was unnecessarily compromised. This letter is too short to describe the sights I have seen and the acts I have participated in.

At the end of that reserve service I decided to refuse to take part in the occupation, yet to continue serving in the IDF in any mission whose objective is to contribute to Israel’s safety as a Jewish, democratic state. As a commander, I felt that there is no other choice but to act, attempting to bring about change. Along with another officer from my unit, Yaniv Itzkovitz, I decided to publish a letter in the press. The letter, which appeared in the newspapers on January 25, 2002, has since been referred as “the 2002 officers’ letter”. It contained our full names, explained our motives and gave the Israeli public and the Jewish public abroad some insight into the reasons and circumstances that had led us to make our tough decision.

The decision to refuse is an act of conscience, but it is not intended merely to clear our own private conscience. We feel that the situation our country and military have found themselves in as a result of the never-ending occupation is a serious threat to Israel’s democratic regime, its Zionist principles and its very existence.

We, who served in Lebanon and in the occupied territories during the days of the Oslo and Camp David accords, who have seen the things the military was told to do in times of negotiations and burgeoning peace, who have heard the excuses, the promises and the threats made by politicians and generals – we will no longer be silent. We are obliged to tell the truth: that Israel does not have enough soldiers to sacrifice for vanity and greed, that Israel does not have the privilege to threaten its own democracy and corrupt the ideals of Zionism.

We started out a year and a half ago with a letter by officers voicing a protest. Today we are a large, influential movement, with an important role to play in Israeli discourse, both in the media and in other public forums. From 50 who signed the first letter, we have grown to over 550 today. But our activities are still not sufficient, our voice is not loud enough and our ability to influence decision making has not been fully manifested.

To widen our activities we need your support. To hold informative events, organize demonstrations, put ads in newspapers and be able to balance the strong, well funded settlers’ lobby, we need assistance: we need moral and financial support which will allow all this to go on. We would therefore be grateful if you could help us, and thus allow us to continue our struggle.

Sincerely, Captain (reserve) David Zonsheine, Chairman, Courage to Refuse

http://www.refusersolidarity.net/default.asp?content_new=one_story_dz

There appears to be some sort of a movement, there:

http://www.refusersolidarity.net/

[Elmo]

This guy is in Belgium nowadays. He got some media coverage a couple of years ago...not much but some.



Why am I a concientious objector?

It is commonly accepted that the present-day bourgeois-democratic states do have the right to maintain a monopoly of violence in the areas, which they govern and which are internationally recognised. They can do this to ensure common order and keep the states legitimacy.

It is also commonly accepted, that these democratic states have the right to maintain compulsory service system to keep up the hegemony of violence. On the other hand freedom of speech and thought are the basic rights of every human being.

In a country where army is formed using compulsory enrolments -such as Finland - this means practically that those who are unwilling to serve in the army can carry out the compulsory service peacefully in civil service.

In my opinion the possibility of completing the compulsory service as civil service -the possibility that is written in the Finnish law- doesn't, however, fulfil the demands of freedom of thought and other basic rights defined in the United Nations' Human Rights Declaration, a document also Finland -among many other countries- has signed.

In Finland civil service is not an equal alternative in comparison to military service. Maybe the most glaring evidence about this is the fact that duration of civil service is more than two times longer than the duration of military service: those who choose civil service serve 13 months when the majority of military servants serve only 6 months.

The number of people choosing civil service every year is considerably larger than the number of possible locations to serve civil service. Places that employ civil servants are not supervised adequately by the public authority which has lead to a situation in which significant number of employees are trampling the law-based economical rights of the civil servants.

In the compulsory enrolment occasions civil service is not introduced as an equal alternative for military service. Often the possibility for civil service is not even mentioned in those occasions although it should -according to the law-be equally presented. In Finnish military system those who have completed their compulsory service as civil servants are not, however, set free from military service in the case of war.

Under the circumstances listed above it is well justified to claim that in Finland the civil service is not an equal alternative for military service. The civil service is, in fact, a punishment for every civil servant for using the constitutional right of thought and freedom of conscience. The civil service system punishes an individual for refusing to learn to kill and handle guns and arms.

There are also other cases where Finnish compulsory service system treats different groups of people unequally according to the principals of The Human Rights Declaration: women do not have the obligation of any kind to serve at all. The inhabitants of Åland are as well freed from the compulsory service. Neither do the Jehova's Witnesses have to do any kind of service because of their religion. It can be strongly questioned what makes the non-military ideology of Jehova's Witnesses more acceptable and different in basics than the ideology of other conscientious objectors.

Under the facts that are said above it can be pointed out that the Finnish compulsory service system classifies different groups of people obliged and non-obliged for state service in very arbitrary basis which are certainly not in line with the principal of equality. If we consider the compulsory service system acceptable as such, the system should treat every citizen equally no matter what the person's religion, *** or habitation might be.

As far as my conviction goes I could describe myself as a pacifist. I do not believe in security based on arms and armies. Armies do not create peace but conflicts -and possibilities to solve conflicts by using extensive violence. As the result, the roles of the victims are played by ordinary civilian people like you and me.

The problems and political tensions in this planet are consequences of social and economical inequality. These kind of problems cannot be solved by using violence but by getting peoples minds directed to different values: solidarity, tolerance and mutual understanding between people. Armies present and defend selfish values of ruling capitalism systems and can never create peace on Earth -not even for a moment.

Jussi Hermaja

http://www.motherearth.org/hermaja/en/why.php

[Elmo]

US deserter seeks Canada asylum
By Lee Carter
BBC News, Toronto

A US army deserter has begun making his case for political refugee status so he can stay in Canada.

Jeremy Hinzman, 25, is the first of three US deserters to appear before a refugee and immigration board in the city of Toronto, seeking asylum.

The paratrooper served in Afghanistan but left the US for Canada after his unit was ordered into Iraq last year.

Mr Hinzman, who took his wife and son with him to Toronto, says he believes the US-led war in Iraq is illegal.

Prisoner abuse

He said: "If you're given an illegal or immoral order, it's your duty and obligation to refuse it. I felt the order to Iraq went under that."

Mr Hinzman's lawyer is presenting what he says is evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the hearing.

And a lobby group campaigning on Mr Hinzman's behalf argues that he was merely obeying international law by refusing to fight in Iraq because the United Nations never authorised the use of force there.

But immigration experts point out that Mr Hinzman voluntarily signed up to join the US army in January 2001, knowing that it might involve service overseas.

No American citizen has ever made a successful refugee claim in Canada, although it is thought the prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq may help his case.

If Mr Hinzman loses his bid to win asylum in Canada, he faces deportation to the US and up to five years in prison for desertion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4074151.stm



By Jeff Gray
In Toronto

"I'm coming for you," reads one threatening e-mail, laced with racism and obscenities. "Desserters [sic] should get shot in the back especially at war time," reads another.

Vicious messages, mostly from Americans, have flooded the inbox of 25-year-old Jeremy Hinzman, an American soldier who deserted to seek refugee status in Canada after refusing to participate in the war in Iraq, which he has called a "criminal enterprise".

Mr Hinzman, one of at least two US Army deserters to have fled north, now lives in a Toronto apartment with his wife and two-year-old son, awaiting a refugee hearing on Wednesday, when he will plead with Canadian authorities to allow him to stay.

The former paratrooper said he feels the e-mail vitriol, sent to an address posted on a web site set up by Canadian supporters, can only bolster his case to stay north of the border.

"As far as I'm concerned that solidifies our refugee claim," he told BBC News Online, adding that the United States "is a more freewheeling society, with all kinds of access to weapons".

But many experts believe that Mr Hinzman and his fellow deserter, 18-year-old Brandon Hughey, have little hope of being granted refugee status here, despite Canada's reputation as a generous nation for asylum seekers.

Looking for a home

Americans in trouble have been running to Canada for centuries.

First, in the wake of the American Revolution, thousands living in the new United States who wanted to stay loyal to the British Crown were forced to flee and start new lives to the north.

After the British empire abolished slavery in 1833, British Canada was the destination for the celebrated Underground Railroad that spirited escaped American slaves to freedom.

And in the 1960s, as many as 60,000 young American men dodged the draft by crossing the 49th parallel, hoping to avoid killing or getting killed in the jungles of Vietnam.

Things have changed since then, when Canadian university campuses and the coffee shops of Toronto's Yorkville hippie enclave were crawling with young Americans who had burned their draft cards.

Most of those draft dodgers simply applied for landed immigrant status once in Canada, which opposed its southern neighbour's military adventures in Vietnam.

But immigration rules have been tightened since the Vietnam era, making would-be migrants apply from their home countries. This has pushed Mr Hinzman and Mr Hughey into Canada's refugee system.

In the past, Canada has refused to return asylum seekers who would face the death penalty back to the United States. Technically, the death penalty remains on the books for deserters, although the last such execution took place during World War II.

Observers say the two soldiers would only face five-year prison sentences if sent home.

Master Sergeant Pam Smith, a spokeswoman for Mr Hinzman's 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, said the soldier's name had been placed in database for law enforcement and border guards in case they come across him.

But the Army does not actively seek out deserters, she said.

Sgt Smith said if Mr Hinzman was caught or turned himself in, it would be up to his unit to decide whether he should be disciplined, discharged or court-martialled.

In late May, a court martial sentenced another US soldier, Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, to a year in prison for deserting his unit in Iraq.

US officials said the sentence would send other would-be deserters a stern message. Sgt Mejia had called the Iraq war an "oil-driven" conflict.

Mixed feelings

Left-wing activists and writers in Canada have welcomed the two deserters and urged the government to accept their refugee claims.

Mr Hinzman, who decided he opposed the Iraq war while serving in Afghanistan, has spoken to peace groups and even addressed a large anti-war rally in Toronto in March.

But some, including the editorial page of the conservative National Post newspaper, have argued that the pair should have known what they were getting into when they signed up for the US Army, and should be sent home to face justice.

Mr Hinzman says he has no illusions about the country where he has asked for refuge: "Canada is diverse, and half of the people would probably like to send us back on the next bus if they could."

Canadian officials have said little about the two soldiers, leaving their cases to the arm's-length refugee process.

But south of the border, right-wing commentators such as Bill O'Reilly of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News TV network have seized on the case, even calling for a boycott of Canadian goods if the pair are not extradited quickly.

Their choice?

Besides the numbers, the main difference between those who fled the United States in the Vietnam era and these two soldiers is, of course, the draft.

The US Army is now a volunteer force, although critics point out that many soldiers come from poor rural backgrounds and see the service as the only way to get a job or a college education.

The lawyer acting for the two deserters reportedly gets calls every day from US soldiers looking for a way out of serving in Iraq.

And some US politicians have recently floated the notion of bringing back the draft, a move Mr Hinzman warns would send a wave of deserters across the border to join him.

"I think if that happens they might as well build housing developments here" for draft dodgers, he said.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3867481.stm

[Elmo]

interview with Michael Simmons, a Vietnam War resister (http://www.objector.org/articles/simmons.html)

interview with Aimee Allison, a Gulf War resister (http://www.objector.org/articles/allison.html)

[ogukuo72]

http://www.homeofheroes.com/profiles/profiles_doss.html

A different (and far braver) kind of conscientious objector.

[plodey]

Albert Einstein

'I believe America may totally succumb to the fearful militarisation which engulfed Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. There is real danger that political power and the power to influence the minds of people will pass increasingly into the hands of the military, which is used to approaching all political problems from the point of view of military expediency. Because of America's supremacy, the military point of view is forced upon the world.'

'In all countries power lies in the hands of ambitious power-hungry men. This is true whether the political system is dictatorial or democratic. Power relies not only on coercion, but on subtle persuasion and deception through the educational system and the media of public information. One can only hope there are enough people the world over who possess the integrity to resist these evil influences. What is important is that individuals have the honesty and courage to stand up for their convictions.'