| "Refusing to
Kill - An evening with Refuseniks from Around the World"
On Friday 12 March, a packed room of over 80 people in London heard an unprecedented array of speakers determined, in the words of one, "to expose the horror of war while being uplifted in describing what they have done, and what we can do, against it". The historic meeting was part of a week of Global Women's Strike events (GWS), international actions by grassroots women in over 60 countries. Payday, a multiracial network of men working with the Strike, brought together ex-soldiers and others who refuse the killing work their governments expect from them - from Eritrea, Israel, Jamaica, United States and the UK - and their audience originated from even more countries. Women and men
Giorgio Giandomenici from Payday highlighted Payday's work supporting Stephen Funk, a gay US Marine of Filipino/Native American origin who was jailed for refusing to fight in Iraq. "Our campaign helped to reduce his sentence and today soldiers of the occupying forces in Iraq are in a position to consider five months in jail as a better alternative to war and death." He explained that "it is in men's interest to support the Strike's demand to invest in caring, not killing, that military budgets return to women, the primary carers. When grassroots women get the money, the whole community, including men, will benefit." Young Refuseniks Young people have given the impetus to the Refuseniks movement. Stephen Funk, 19, described in a videoed US Payday interview how the military trains people to remove their natural aversion to killing. "We had contests where we had to shout 'kill! kill!', and we were not allowed to say 'I'". Stephen served five months in prison not only for refusing to serve, but also for encouraging others to do the same. Joey, ex-soldier in the British army who served as a nurse, was discharged following an injury during training. When the Iraq war was looming, she was prompted to rejoin, but refused. "The war in Iraq is armed robbery", she said. "If I am forced to go, I will throw my rifle on the ground, I will refuse to carry my weapon." Another young woman, Eilat Maoz from the Shministim movement of high school students, described how the open letter they sent to Sharon refusing the Israeli army got massive publicity. Encouraged by this initiative, a group of soldiers shortly after declared publicly their refusal to serve in the occupied territories. Eilat, who got involved in politics at age 13, said "I never believed that the Palestinians were my enemies." Elsa T from Eritrea, where military service is compulsory for women and men, told of her fight to refuse. "Every day people are crying. In the countryside people don't eat. We need schools and hospitals, not war." She spent over two years in jail for her refusal, where she was repeatedly beaten and raped, before escaping to the UK to claim asylum. Refusing devastation
Overcoming obstacles Yishay Mor, another Israeli Refusenik, described the obstacles he overcame to find the courage to refuse: breaking the norm, facing friends' and family's disapproval, loss of salary whilst in jail, feeling disloyal to army mates, and agonising about whether he was doing the right thing. His five-year-old son tipped the balance: "I realised that I had no problem telling him that I was going to prison for refusal. I will have a hard time explaining some of the things I did in the occupied territories."
Nina Lopez from the Strike described how the army in revolutionary Venezuela is used to build a caring economy. "With Plan Bolivar, the army, which acted with the population to save the revolution from the coup in 2002, is used as manpower - the army does not decide what houses, schools, roads need the army to help build. Community people do." She concluded: "We don't want any armies, but we can't tell a country where the revolution is under threat from US intervention that they shouldn't have an army. It would be to say: 'let the US walk all over you.'" International network The discussion highlighted other instances of refusal. A man from the Chagos Islands (the main island is Diego Garcia) spoke of his people's campaign against the mass expulsion by the UK to make room for a US military base used to bomb Iraq. An Afro-American daughter of a military family described how her brother, ex-army, is determined to prevent his children joining the military. This Payday London meeting followed another in Philadelphia on 6 March. The diverse backgrounds and experiences which were represented was an indication of the size of a rising movement. Its unity is based on our refusal to be used as killing machines and our determination to demand a society which invests in caring, not killing. Selma James concluded that: "We need to build a network of Refuseniks, and we should work for an international Conference." Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic's message of support to the meeting |
