CO UPDATE

Editorial

With this June issue of CO-Update e-newsletter we will start our new Spanish language Informe-OC, due out (hopefully) within the next week. If you are interested in helping with translations, then please contact us. Also, if you know of people who might be interested in receiving the Spanish version, then please let them or us know. We hope that Informe-OC will help to provide more information for the Spanish speaking world, especially for CO groups in Latin America.

We are still looking for volunteers for regular translation of CO-Update into German and French.

This issue has a variety of reports on quite different developments. In Europe, the trend to end conscription continues, with Macedonia being the most recent country to abolish conscription. Unnoticed by many, the end of conscription often includes the end of the right to conscientious objection, as this right was often only granted to conscripts, and not to those who joined the military as volunteers.

This is where European CO activists will have a lot to learn from the experience of CO and counter-recruitment work in the United States, which was the focus of International Conscientious Objectors' Day 2006 (see the report on Operation Refuse War).

WRI's conference Globalising Nonviolence will be the next opportunity also for CO activists to discuss strategies for the right to refuse to kill (see below).

Upcoming events

Globalising Nonviolence, 23-27 July 2006, Germany

• Are you interested in both nonviolence and globalisation?
• Are you campaigning against war?
• Are you involved in nonviolent direct action or curious to learn more?

The War Resisters' International conference Globalising Nonviolence will be a great opportunity to meet activists from all over the world, to get to know what makes them tick, and to see how you can help each make another world possible. Around the world, a movement of movements is converging. This movement seeks to counterpose the perspective and values of people's power to those of global financial institutions, transnational corporations or governments. This is a movement of globalisation from below.

WRI believes that this movement of movements has a major role to play in this globalisation from below. Hence the theme of our upcoming international conference - Globalising Nonviolence.

Conference discussions will:

• Analyse the contemporary situation of economic, cultural and political globalisation. How are capitalist globalisation and militarism related?
• Develop strategies for nonviolent resistance towards the unjust aspects of globalisation. How do we create nonviolent social change?
• Bring together people from the globalisation critical movement and WRI's network of pacifists and anti-militarists for mutual exchange of ideas on nonviolent opportunities for resistance.
• Strengthen networks and create new links between activists from all over the world.

More information at www.globalisingnonviolence.org

CO-Update

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War Resisters' International, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, Britain; tel +44-20-7278 4040; fax +44-20-7278 0444; email co-update-editor@wri-irg.org

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Colombia: Conscientious objectors mobilise

In the run-up to a nationwide conscientious objectors' conference from 18-20 July 2006, CO groups in Colombia are confronting the situation in their country more openly. On 31 May, Red Juvenil de Medellín launched a one-year campaign "for the visibility of conscientious objection in Colombia" in front of the IV brigade. Objectives of this campaign are:

• The creation of a national and international climate for the debate of the situation of conscientious objectors in Colombia, with the aim to find a political solution;
• To demonstrate to young people that there is an alternative to joining the military, other Armed Forces, militias, or the police, and to show an alternative of a country without military and other Armed Forces, without weapons, and were young people can live in dignity;
• Providing evidence that the Colombian state invests more into the armed conflict than into the welfare of its population, to the benefit of national and foreign businesses, and showing that the majority of those killed are young people, from poor and rural communities.

Andre Alexis Perez Roldan (picture above right) is one of those who publicly declared their conscientious objection (His declaration is available in Spanish on WRI's website). Other cases include Gustavo Monroy, whose case has been reported last month in CO-update.

While Colombia recognises freedom of conscience in its constitution, it does not in practice recognise the right to conscientious objection. Conscientious objectors are at risk of being forcibly recruited to the military, and also face pressure from the various other Armed Forces.

The various Colombian CO groups are cooperating in the Acción Colectiva por la Objeción de Conciencia en Colombia, which is organising an national and international conference in Bogota from 18-20 July 2006. This conference will be an important step in the promotion of the right to conscientious objection in Colombia.

Sources: Several emails from Red Juvenil de Medellín, emails from Acción Colectiva por la Objeción de Conciencia en Colombia.

Operation Refuse War in New York and Washington

From 11-16 May, Operation Refuse War too place in New York City and Washington DC - marking International Conscientious Objectors' Day 2006 with a focus on the situation of and support to US war resisters: GIs applying for conscientious objector status, going AWOL, or finding other ways to get discharged from the military. War Resisters' International joined with many US peace organisations to organise International Conscientious Objectors' Day in the USA - a series of international events under the title Operation Refuse War, culminating in an International Conference of Resisters to Global War in Washington DC from 13th-14th May 2006.

Participants came from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Israel, Macedonia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Turkey, and of course from the United States, to discuss the situation regarding conscientious objection and military service in their countries, and to develop joint strategies. The events were followed by a Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, organised by the Center on Conscience and War.

The activities ended on 16 May with a demonstration in front of the recruitment station in Washington DC, organised by local peace activists and Codepink.

A more detailed report will be made available on operationrefusewar.org.

Armenia: Jehovah's Witnesses bring cases to European Court of Human Rights

The situation of conscientious objectors in Armenia will be brought to the European Courts of Human Rights. On 31 May 2006, several Armenian Jehovah's Witnesses submitted an application to the ECHR, complaining that their right to freedom of conscience has been violated by the Armenian implementation of the right to conscientious objection.

Armenia implemented a law on conscientious objection only because this was part of its commitment to the Council of Europe when Armenia was accepted as a member. The law itself does not meet international standards, and the substitute service of conscientious objectors is under the control and supervision of the military, and therefore not "genuinely civilian".

In 2005, several Jehovah's Witnesses who were serving their substitute service left their service when they realised that it was in practice controlled by the military. 15 out of 19 were arrested and held in detention for several months. Eleven were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years to three years and six months imprisonment. Eventually, the convictions were overturned and all objectors were released from prison, but the courts refused to acquit the COs or to terminate the criminal proceedings.

Instead of modifying the law on conscientious objection to turn the substitute service into a genuinely civilian service, amendments that came into force in 2006 allow for the prosecution of conscientious objectors who leave their substitute service.

According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, 28 conscientious objectors who are Jehovah's Witnesses are presently imprisoned for refusing to perform military service or a substitute service controlled by the military.

Source: Jehovah's Witnesses, Office of Public Information: Press Release, 31 May 2006

Britain: New Armed Forces Bill going through parliament as desertion cases are on the rise

The BBC reported on 28 May that more than 1,000 British soldiers deserted from the Armed Forces since the beginning of the war in Iraq. According to the BBC, "figures for those still missing are 86 from 2001, 118 from 2002, 134 from 2003, 229 from 2004, 377 from 2005, and 189 for this year so far."

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington told, Parliament last Monday that the number of absconders had trebled since the invasion with more soldiers "questioning the morality and legality of the occupation".

On Sunday he insisted the numbers of British troops trying to absent themselves from service in Iraq were rising.

"My understanding is there are a lot more seeking to avoid service, through different mechanisms," he said according to the BBC report.

These figures are significant especially in the light of a new Armed Forces Bill going through parliament in Britain now which will introduce new harsh punishments for refusal to be part of an occupation and for desertion in its article 8. The maximum penalty for these offences will then be life imprisonment (see CO-Update No 20, May 2006). The bill went through the third reading in the House of Commons on 22 May. The second reading in the House of Lords is scheduled for 14 June 2006.

Military Families Against the War has an online petition to protest against this new punishments. More information is also available from At Ease, a voluntary organisation providing advice and support to members of the Armed Forces.

Sources: Armed Forces Bill, as brought from the Lords and ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 30th November 2005, BBC News, 28 May 2006

Macedonia: Conscription abolished

The Macedonian parliament voted in May to abolish conscription, and in fact no new recruits will be called up for military service. Macedonia's Defence Minister had already announced an end to conscription in April 2006, but the formal decision was made by parliament in May. Officials said the new professional army would have around 7,000 regular soldiers and 2,500 reserve troops, with a budget of around €100,000 (US$121,000), or 2.3 to 2.6 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.

According to activists from Peace Action, the Macedonian section of War Resisters' International, the decision is partly the result of the increase in the numbers of conscientious objectors. As reported in CO-Update March 2003, according to the Macedonian Ministry of Defence, in 2005, there were 1,530 applications for conscientious objection, of which 1,330 were accepted (87%). By the end of 2005, 420 conscientious objectors had finished their substitute service, and 430 were serving.

While conscription ends, the Macedonian military is increasingly taking part in international operations abroad. Macedonia is supposed to send 90 new troops to Afghanistan which will be under British command, and the country's military has a few troops in Iraq too.

Sources: ISN Security Watch, 11 April 2006, and information from Peace Action

Recent co-alerts

In the previous month, the WRI office issued the following co-alerts:

(a full archive of co-alerts is available at wri-irg.org/news/alerts)

• ISR14786-14794-14795-310506: ISRAEL: Update on imprisoned conscientious objectors, Wed 31 May
• US14793-250506: USA: Woman CO Katherine Jashinski imprisoned, Thu 25 May