JAN. 26 ACTIONS AIM TO
PRESSURE
PARLIAMENT ON WAR RESISTERS
(The
following article is from
the January 1-15,
2008
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in
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By
Robert Lanning
Recent weeks have
brought bad and good
news for the campaign to welcome war resisters into Canada. In
mid-November, the Supreme Court rejected leave to appeal lower court
decisions denying refugee status to two anti-Iraq war resisters, Jeremy
Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Then on Dec. 6, a committee of the House of
Commons called on the federal government to let US war resisters stay
in Canada.
It has been
40 years since the Canadian Parliament was pressed to provide
legislative support for war resisters from the U.S. In the late '60s,
community groups, religious organizations, university students and
others organized to end discriminatory practices against military
deserters seeking refuge in Canada. Young men "dodging the draft" had
less difficulty as they often brought with them university education
and in some cases professional credentials. Desertion was another
matter and largely concerned a different class of people. It was often
a stigma carried by working class youth who were drafted into or
volunteered for military service in a war that was an act of aggression
serving the needs of the powerful with the blood of those coerced to
proxy for those interests.
Like the war
against the Vietnamese, the war in Iraq has become a quagmire, where a
key element of military strategy is humiliating, brutalizing and
murdering civilians. In protest, a growing number of men and women have
openly deserted their military ranks. But another crucial factor making
resisters out of many has been recruiters' promises of training that
never materialized, tours of duty in Iraq that have turned into
extended deployments, and re-deployments shortly after returning home.
Like the
Vietnam era, the burden of filling the war ranks has fallen on young
men from poor economic backgrounds, often visible minorities and those
from rural areas. Unlike then, recruitment of women is up, but so is
their resistance.
United for
Peace and Justice http://www.unitedforpeace.org,
Code Pink http://www.codepink4peace.org
and Iraq Veterans Against the War http://www.ivaw.org are among
many organizations in the U.S. providing
information to counter recruitment drives and to give resisters a sense
of collective struggle.
In Canada,
many of the same organizations that supported Vietnam draft dodgers and
deserters have come to the aid of these new resisters. The War
Resisters' Support Campaign http://www.resisters.ca has
provided material
and legal support for resisters, especially for their efforts to obtain
refugee status. This is the campaign recently quashed by the Supreme
Court.
On December
6, Parliament's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration met
to discuss the issue of war resisters. Presentations were made by
support groups such as the Mennonite Central Committee and the Canadian
Friends Service Committee (both very much in the forefront during the
1960s and '70s), along with resister Phillip McDowell.
The result
was the recommendation of the Committee that Parliament pass the
following motion:
"The
Committee recommends that the government immediately implement a
program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family
members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military
service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do
not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and
remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any
removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against
such individuals."
Introduced by
Jim Karygiannis (Liberal, Scarborough-Agincourt), the motion passed by
7 to 4, as Liberal, Bloc Quebecois and NDP MPs on the committee
outvoted the Conservative members.
The task now
is to convince members of all opposition members, and Conservatives
with a conscience, to vote for this resolution when it comes before the
House.
To further
this effort, the War Resisters' Support Campaign is organizing a
Pan-Canadian Day of Action on Saturday, Jan. 26, to pressure Parliament
to pass this resolution and to cease deportation proceedings against
resisters. The Campaign's website provides details on this effort.
Many who
refused to fight against the Vietnamese have made significant
contributions to Canadian society since that time. The new resisters
deserve the kind of support outside and inside Parliament that will
allow them to do the same - an effort that will be one more
demonstration of popular support to put an end to this war.
Found at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint09/JAN__26_ACTIONS_AIM_TO_PRESSURE_PARLIAMENT_ON_WAR_RESISTERS.html