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Support
Jeremy Hinzman - US soldier seeking asylum in Canada
Paul
Martin, Prime Minister pm@pm.gc.ca Jeremy
Hinzman, a soldier in the US Army, fled to Canada with his wife and child
a year ago rather than serve in the US-led war in Iraq, after being
rejected as conscientious objector. Mr.
Hinzman is now seeking refugee status because he faces
certain persecution from the US military – including long imprisonment
– if he were to return. We
urge you to stand with tens of thousands of people in Canada and
internationally in support of Mr. Hinzman and his family.
His actions are justified under international law as established in
the Nuremberg Tribunals, which holds that it is the duty of a soldier, and
indeed of all of us, to refuse to carry out illegal orders.
Canada must not facilitate the persecution of military refusers
such as Mr. Hinzman by returning them to the United States. Mr.
Hinzman rightly expects that he would be forced to participate in war
crimes in Iraq. When serving in Afghanistan he realized that the people
his fellow soldiers detained were being held indefinitely in inhuman
conditions, and that torture was accepted all the way down the chain of
command from the President. The
recent court-martial of three British soldiers who assaulted prisoners and
the charge against seven others for murdering an Iraqi civilian indicate
just how widespread is the abuse of human rights by the military.
The US government is now openly discussing employing death squads
in Iraq, similar to those it employed covertly in the 1980s to murder tens
of thousands in Central America. Mr.
Hinzman is not the only US soldier refusing the war.
Jeffry House, Mr. Hinzman’s lawyer, is contacted every day by at
least two soldiers anxious to refuse to be part of the US killing machine.
The
US Army Reserve chief has said that 16,400 reserve soldiers are
'non-participants.'
According to the Pentagon, 5,500 soldiers had deserted as of
December 2004. Currently, 22
soldiers from a single army unit are refusing to re-deploy to Iraq
because, in the words of their sergeant, “I did not join the army to
kill women, children, and old men.”
George Solomou, the first British soldier to call for mass refusal,
has echoed the feeling of thousands of reservists in the UK. Millions
of people around the world, including in the US, opposed the war and
occupation which have cost at least 100,000 lives. As a result, many
governments have pulled out of the US-led coalition, including Spain,
Honduras, Nicaragua, The Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, and the
Dominican Republic in the past year alone. Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and
Latvia have announced that they will pull out completely or in part. During
his hearing Mr. Hinzman felt that his plea would be “handled openly and
fairly by the Refugee Board and by Canada.”
With good reason: neither the people nor the government of Canada
have supported the US war in Iraq. The
Prime Minister said: “In terms of
immigration, we are a country of immigrants and we will take immigrants
from around the world. I’m not going to discriminate.” (Ottawa Citizen, 16 Dec 2004 ) We
welcome such statements, not only in relation to Mr. Hinzman and the other
US military refusers, but to all those seeking asylum in Canada. In
granting asylum and recognizing Mr. Hinzman’s right to refuse to take
part in war crimes, the Canadian government would agree with the great
majority of its citizens and people everywhere, who are demanding a world
where investment in caring, not killing, is the priority. Sincerely,
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