[NYTr] "US War Resisters in Canada" Campaign Needs Support

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by mart - Sep 6, 2007

People's Voice 15:14 - Sep 1-15, 2007
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca
http://tinyurl.com/yuwbnd

War resisters' campaign needs help

By Daryl Shandro, Sudbury

Since George Bush's announcement  that troop numbers in Iraq would
increase, the trickle of American war  resisters seeking sanctuary in
Canada  has become a steady stream. Starting  in about April, calls
from the few large  receiving centres (Vancouver and  Toronto) became
more frequent and  urgent.

he Toronto chapter of War Resisters  Campaign, while supporting the
national  office, many resisters and their families,  facilitating and
leading political lobbying  and preparing for a Supreme Court
application and hearing, have decided  they can house and support no
more  resisters at this time. By May, an urgent  plea for smaller
centres to ready their  communities to receive new refugee  claimants
was made, and by early July  War Resister Support Campaign  chapters in
Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton  and London accepted their first  Resisters
and within weeks were full-up.

If we are to take our roles seriously as  anti-war activists, we cannot
make any  of these Resisters choose between  homelessness and public
apathy in  Canada, or zealous prosecution or  involuntary service in
the commission  of war crimes in Iraq, possibly resulting  in their own
death. We must accept and  support these people.

Like many other regional centres, our  organization in Sudbury has, for
more  than two years, organized speaking  engagements, tours, film
nights, and petitioned and lobbied our politicians.  Since we will very
likely soon have our  first resident resister, we are  experiencing a
great deal of collective  anxiety. How will we pay for this? What  if
the resister becomes desperately  lonely or is a veteran with
post-traumatic  stress disorder? Can we find sufficient  and ongoing
housing, a lawyer, and  mental and physical health services?

In Sudbury our response was to have a  recently arrived resister, Steve
Yoczik,  come from Toronto to speak to  interested locals and our group
about  his decision to come to Canada, and to  answer to our many
logistical concerns.  Lee Zaslofsky (national coordinator of  the War
Resister's Support Campaign)  came as well.

Steve Yoczik is a candid, smart, funny  guy. Listening to him brought
back  childhood memories for me of a fictional M.A.S.H. character,
Corporal  Klinger. While in training he discovered  that he had been
recruited for an already  moribund military job and was destined  for
general infantry deployment in Iraq  (and further that the military
was  continuing to deceitfully recruit and  train for this occupation
with intentions  of deploying every trainee in the same  fashion).
Steve waged a concerted bid to  be kicked out of the army. Over a
period  of months, he deliberately failed between  50 and 100 physical
tests. When it became  obvious that the officers would not file  three
consecutive failing reports so as to  have his status reviewed, Steve
started to  fail to appear for the tests and was flippant,  if not
outright insubordinate, if these  absences brought any reproach. Steve
figures he was gone for a while before  anyone realized that he was
AWOL. He  found out about the War Resisters Support  Campaign in Canada
through a friend - a  model soldier and US patriot who disagreed  so
strongly with the war in Iraq that he fled  to Canada rather than
participate in it. With  only one passed physical between him and
Iraq, Steve had to make the same choice.

The War Resisters Support Campaign is  easier to find than it was two
or three years  ago. As well, the recruitment requirements  in the US
have led to a host of unacceptable  practices becoming the order of the
day.  Many of the latest Resisters to arrive are  those who have been
involuntarily "called  back" to serve in Iraq after prolonged periods
in civilian life, the so-called "back door draft".  Documented
dishonesty around recruitment  efforts in schools, and about the
consequences  of rethinking deferred enlistment agreements,  have
spawned campaigns to keep the military  out of many U.S. high schools.
The American  public is disenchanted with the "war on terror",  and
supporting War Resisters has become a  known and valuable anti-war
political  movement. And with the U.S. economy poised  for a downturn,
many more young Americans  are at risk of being hoodwinked through the
"poverty draft" and deceitful recruitment  practices.

Here in Canada, many of the first resisters  to come across the border
are now at a  point in the Immigration and Refugee  hearing processes
where they are at risk of  being deported before Jeremy Hinzman and
Brandon Hughey can take their case to court,  raising the crucial
question: can "mere" foot  soldiers can use the illegal status of the
war  to underpin their refugee claims?

Meanwhile the Campaign continues to  lobby for the political solution:
these War  Resisters must be given sanctuary under a  separate
immigration category, much like  the US war resisters of the Vietnam
era  received under the Trudeau government.

In Sudbury we are now fielding a serious  inquiry every week from War
Resisters.  These are people "checking into" Toronto  and then moving
to their host city within  hours or days. They are calling from
Germany (military hospital) and bases  all over the continental U.S.,
and they  are coming. In Toronto the serious  inquiries are about three
a week;  arrivals,both anticipated and  unanticipated, are becoming
more  and more frequent.

For more information about the War  Resisters Support Campaign or to
offer assistance of any sort, please go  to http://www.resisters.ca

--------------------------

(The news article above is from the September  1-15, 2007 issue of
People's Voice, Canada's  leading communist newspaper. Articles can be
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