CO UPDATE
The monthly email newsletter of War Resisters' International's The Right to Refuse to Kill programme || Index of past issues
Editorial
This is the first issue of WRI's new CO UPDATE email newsletter. The newsletter is produced by WRI's The Right to Refuse to Kill programme, in cooperation with the Myrtle Solomon Memorial Trust.
This new email newsletter will provide information on new developments regarding conscription, military service, and conscientious objection. In this way it complements and updates WRI's report Refusing to bear arms, published in 1998. In addition, we will also report on the activities of CO movements and groups - especially activities related to the right to conscientious objection.
As regular columns, we will give a summary of recent co-alerts, and a listing of upcoming CO related events - either organised by WRI or its affiliates, or by other organisations.
We think that this newsletter will fill a gap, and will help CO groups and supporters to keep up-to-date with developments all over the world. To be able to do so, we will also need your support - we need your information on CO and related issues. Send you information by email to co-update-editor@wri-irg.org.
Upcoming events
Friedrich-Siegmund-Schultze Award for WRI
On 28 September, War Resisters' International will receive the Friedrich- Siegmund- Schultze Award for nonviolent action from the Evangelische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kriegsdienstverweigerung (Protestant Working Group for Conscientious Objection). The award will be given to WRI in a public event in Speyer in the southwest of Germany. Joanne Sheehan, WRI's chairperson, and Andreas Speck, CO Campaigning Worker, will be representing WRI.
More information at www.eak-online.de.
Prisoners for Peace Day 2004
1 December is Prisoners for Peace Day. The focus for this years is conscientious objection in Finland. More information is available at the WRI website.
Job opening at WRI
War Resisters' International is looking for a Nonviolence Programme Worker (5 days per week)
A commitment to pacifism, experience with nonviolent campaigns, training, and fundraising are essential. The working language is English, a second language, preferably Spanish, is desirable.
The WRI office is based in London (Kings Cross)
Salary: £18,862 per year
Deadline for applications: 7 October 04, start date: January 05, negotiable
Application pack from: War Resisters' International, 5 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9DX, Britain (+44-20-7278 4040; fax 7278 0444) or below.
CO-Update
Monthly email newsletter of WRI's Right to Refuse to Kill Programme
War Resisters' International
5 Caledonian Road - London N1 9DX - Britain
tel +44-20-7278 4040 - fax +44-20-7278 0444
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War Resisters' International visit to South Korea
From 8-18 August 2004, WRI's CO Campaigning Worker visited South Korea, where he took part in a peace camp organised by Solidarity for Peace and Human Rights, one of the main groups behind Korea Solidarity for Conscientious Objection (KSCO).
The camp took place in an alternative school about one hour drive from Seoul, and some 30-40 persons participated, two thirds of them women. The participants came from different peace and CO groups, and the programme included nonviolence training, Esperanto, a women only meeting on problems of women activists, vegetarianism, and more.
The purpose of WRI's visit to Korea was to discuss cooperation after the recent Supreme Court decision against conscientious objectors (see below), and to begin preparation for the WRI Seminar 2005, which will be held in Korea in June next year. WRI and its Korean partner organisations are enthusiastic about the first WRI meeting in East Asia for decades - or ever? Get in touch with the WRI Office if you are interested in the seminar, or want to help organising it.
South Korea: Constitutional Court decides against right to conscientious objection
The South Korean Constitutional Court ruled against conscientious objectors on 26 August 2004. This ruling is in line with an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court from 15 July, in which the court stated that "individual freedom of conscience can't be more important than accepting calls of duty for the defense of their own country". The court said seeking freedom of conscience as a member of society can only be admitted when the person follows the rules that others follow. All Korean men have their duty to defend this nation, but conscientious objectors refuse to fulfill the obligation, it added.
With this two rulings, the legal avenue is now closed. While there is still the option to present a CO case as individual complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee, the Korean CO activists are now preparing for a long political struggle to achieve the right to conscientious objection. Every year about 800 conscientious objectors - the majority Jehovah's Witnesses - recieve prison sentences of 18 months for refusing to serve.
Sources: Korea Times, 26 August 2004, Korea Herald, 16 July 2004; Korea Times, 16 July 2004Chile: New WRI section MOC Rompiendo Filas takes nonviolent direct action
On 16 August 2004, activists of MOC Rompiendo Filas from Temuco, which was accepted as a new WRI section at the Council meeting in Ohrid at the end of June, took to the streets and protested in front of offices of the regional government. They staged a play in front of the building, calling for conscientious objection to military service, and protesting against military expenditure. In the dramatic street theatre play (pictured left), 'soldiers' beat up conscientious objectors, even 'killing' them. In the end, other insumisos (objectors) disarm the soldiers and remove their uniform jackets, to uncover calls for insumision (disobedience). The real soldiers only arrived at the end of the play, and nobody was detained.
Prior to the action MOC Rompiendo Filas organised a weekend of training, focusing on military service and nonviolence. During the training, the participants also designed the action, which is part of the 2004 campaign against conscription.
Source: email Alvaro Boguen, 17 August 2004 - also on http://chile.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/23707.phpVisit the website of MOC Rompiendo Filas at http://www.entodaspartes.org/rompiendofilas/
Britain: Mother of soldier killed in Iraq starts petition for withdrawal
The mother of a British soldier killed in an Iraqi ambush has launched a petition for the withdrawal of UK troops as she prepares to sue the Ministry of Defence over the death of her son.
Rose Gentle, 40, whose outspoken criticism of the conflict has fuelled criticisms that her grief has been hijacked by anti-war campaigners, denied yesterday that she was being manipulated. "Let's just make this clear," she said. "It was my decision to speak out. Nobody is using me. I was totally against the war before my Gordon even left for the Army."
Private Gentle, 19, was travelling in the back of a military vehicle in June when a roadside bomb exploded, killing him almost instantly.
His family believe that his death could have been prevented if his regiment had been provided with up-to-date equipment that would have stopped the radio-controlled device being detonated. Troops from the Royal Highland Fusiliers were issued with the equipment two days after Private Gentle's death. For the grieving mother, who has shed more than five stone in the past two months, the failure to protect her only son is tantamount to murder. "Just one piece of equipment could have prevented my Gordon's death," she said yesterday. "Comments about me just being a grieving mother with no right to express my views on the Iraq war make me sick."
She said she tried to talk her son out of enlisting. But coming from an area of Glasgow that is rife with poverty, he saw the Army as a way of swapping his £42 a week unemployment benefit for a chance to travel, learn a trade and get a driving licence.
He signed up at the end of last year and completed his basic training in April, just a few weeks before he was sent to Iraq. Two of his uncles had served in the same regiment and numerous other young men from the neighbourhood are serving in Iraq.
"Soldiers accept there is a risk but they should be given the proper training and proper equipment to do the jobs they are asked to do," said Mrs Gentle. "If they are not given that equipment and if the Government is not doing its best to protect them then it is murder."
Source: The Independent, 01 September 2004Israel: New Profile report on child recruitment released
New Profile launched a report on Child Recruitment in Israel on 29 July 2004. This comprehensive report, for the first time, surveys and analyses diverse forms of compulsory and voluntary, direct and indirect, child recruitment in Israel. Such recruitment often violates international law and always violates the Israeli society's commitment to protect its children from involvement in armed conflict.
The report describes various forms of child recruitment by State authorities, private organisations and armed militias in Israel. It examines the deeper causes of this phenomenon and locates it within a broad cultural and historical context. Among the phenomena discussed are:
- Children's participation in military training
- Military use of child labour
- Direct involvement of children in hostilities performed by armed militias
- Children required to wear military uniform or bear arms
- Forced use of Palestinian children by the Israeli military for its purposes, endangering the children's lives
- Symbolic recruitment and preparation for enlistment from the first years of life
A parallel report, prepared by Defence for Children International – Palestine Section, which surveys the recruitment of Palestinian children, is due to be launched in the coming days.
Read the full report in English (700KB in PDF format)Read the full report in Hebrew (700KB in PDF format)
Israel: Conscientious objectors in and out of prison
While women CO Laura Milo (picture left) went to prison on 23 August for her second prison term (see co-alert from 31 August 2004), Daniel Tsal was finally released from the army after 112 days in prison. In an open letter to all supporters he writes:
"I have just been released from the IDF after 112 days in military jail. After approaching the mental health officer I have been released on the grounds of incompatibility for military service.
Your support of my personal struggle and your general support of other conscientious objectors have provided me with a tremendous source of strength during these difficult days.
In these troubling times when conscientious objection has become a taboo and conscientious objectors are perceived by the authorities as mere criminals, your continuing support and encouragement has helped us remember the importance of disobedience and our duty to prefer principles of justice and morality over the blind conformity to military rules.
Thanks to you there are and will be many boys and girls who will take the responsibility of declaring their refusal to serve in the army, the policy of which bluntly opposes any principles of justice and morality.
The struggle continues and the IDF continues to wage a ruthless war against conscientious objection. Your ongoing support is as important and critical as ever.
Thanks for everything,
Daniel Tsal"
Italy ends compulsory military service on 1 January 2005
The Italian parliament voted at the end of July in favour of an end to compulsory military service. However, those who want to join the police, the carabinieri, the customs service and even the fire brigade will still have to do one year of military service as professional soldiers, at a salary of €980.
Defence Minister Antonio Martino said that the abolition of compulsory military service would be advantegous both to young people, who would be able to start their careers earlier, and to the military, which presently is unable to send conscripts on military operations abroad.
Presently military service lasts 8 months, and substitute civilian service for conscientious objectors lasts 10 months.
Source: AFP, 29 July 2004 - http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040729173436.vydsvw3f.htmlKyrgyzstan to shorten military service from 2006
Interfax reported that Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has signed amendments to the law on mandatory military service, which will reduce military service by six months from 1 January 2006 on. Presently, the term of military service is 1.5 years. However, this cannot be seen as a step towards disarmement: "The Defense Ministry told Interfax that ongoing military reforms envision building a professional army and increasing the number of contract servicemen".
Source: Interfax, 23 July 2004, http://www.interfax.com/com?id=5742332&item=KyrgRecent co-alerts
In the previous month, the WRI office issued the following co-alerts:
(a full archive of co-alerts is available at http://wri-irg.org/news/alerts)