Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 8. maj 2004 / Time Line May 8, 2004
Version 3.005/08/2004
Iraqi deserters in Canada
by Kurt Singer
Deserting from the US Armed Forces produce automatically the death
sentences through lethal injection. 90.000 deserters found refuge
in Canada during the Vietnam war. The new breed of war resisters
and deserters are far fewer and no official numbers have been
released by the Pentagon. These refugees are hesitating to give
their names to protect themselves and their families. However there
are two courageous deserters who have opened a website and give
information to others.
Jeremy Hinzman had joined the army in the hope to earn money to go
to college and enlisted on January 17, 2001 and had married shortly
before.Hinzman was interested in Zen and Eastern culture.He and his
wife Nga Ngyuen started to visit Quaker meetings and were impressed
by their philosphy of non violence . Jeremy felt suddenly
uncomfortable in his army unit where he was training to kill an
enemy. He decided to apply for a conscentious objector status.Then
his unit was shipped to Afghanistan where he worked in the
kitchen.In April 2003 his commanding officer pulled him out of the
kitchen and informed Jeremy that his hearing was to take place.That
happened in Kandahar and Hinzman was not allowed to have a defense
attorney or witnesses. The hearing lasted 20 minutes and his
conscientious objector application was denied.Hinzman's unit
returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in April 2003 but in
December he received his orders to go to Iraq. It was then in
January 2004 that Hinzman and his wife and his 21 month old son
Liam went to Toronto. They told the Canadian border control that
they wanted to attend an ice hockey game. Canadian Quakers took
them in and they live now in an apartment of their own. Jeremy
became active in the peace movement.
Brandon Hughey is a teenager from Angelo, Texas. He, too, had
joined the armed forces in the hope to obtain a college education.
At 17 he had joined the National Guard and entered at 18 his boot
camp. Again Quaker meetings convinced Bradon that war was evil and
through the Internet he found a peace activist who helped him after
a 47 hour drive to cross the border into Canada where he had told
the border guards that he wanted to attend a basketball game. Again
the Quakers helped to establish Brandon in his new refugee life.
One of the Quaker members revealed that there were 317 applications
for refugee status pending before the Immigration authorities.
Not all may be anti war refugees but also marijuana smokers and
drug dealers.
Another group of deserters from the Iraq war are contractors hired
by the US Armed Forces. Several hundreds are employed, some even in
the prison areas. According to Bechtel, IRT and Haliburton
subsidiaries over one third of their employees quit their jobs and
returned to the USA, They felt endangered and insecure in their
positions in Iraq. Is this only the tip of the iceberg?
05/08/2004
USAs forsvarsminister Donald Rumsfeld påtager sig ansvaret
for tortursagen, skriver Information.
 |
 |