Christians urge Canada to shelter U.S. war resisters
WINNIPEG, MB—Crossing the border into Canada was the first illegal thing Phil McDowell did in his life. After graduating from college with a degree in information technology McDowell joined the U.S. army just after the September 11 attacks. He wanted to help make the world a safer place.
But a tour of duty in Iraq changed everything. Even though his duties as a technician didn't involve fighting, McDowell recalls his supervisor ordering him to run civilian cars off the road when he passed them on the roads outside of Baghdad.
He also remembers seeing Iraqi civilians captured by his fellow soldiers and tied up for hours in the hot sun. When they asked to go to the bathroom their captors refused to untie them or take hoods off of their heads, he says.
At the same time, the news reports about the war were making McDowell increasingly uncomfortable.
"No weapons of mass destruction and no ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida," McDowell says. "And the mistreatment of the civilian population…. They had done nothing wrong. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
When he was discharged from the military in 2006, McDowell was determined not to go back to a "war that was immoral and illegal." But a month and a half later he was "stop-lossed"—ordered to return for another tour or duty in Iraq.
American law allows citizens to object to fighting as a matter of conscience, says McDowell, but only in theory. "You can apply for it and you get laughed at, or they conveniently lose the file—or you'll apply for it and they won't have a decision until you get back from your requirement," he told ChristianWeek. The military rejected McDowell's offers to do alternate service in the U.S.
In October, 2006 McDowell fled to Toronto where he joined a growing community of U.S. war resisters seeking shelter in Canada. But, like others, McDowell's refugee claim has been turned down by the Canadian government. Right now he's simply waiting for Canada to send him back across the border where he faces the prospect of several years in prison for deserting.
An estimated 50 U.S. soldiers who fled to Canada because they were morally opposed to U.S. involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan face similar consequences.
The voices urging Canada's government to provide asylum for American soldiers include Mennonites, Quakers, Anglicans and United Church members.
In September Christians participated in protests across Canada urging the Harper government not to deport U.S. war resister Jeremy Hinzman. Project Peacemakers, the Winnipeg offshoot of the ecumenical peace organization Project Ploughshares, flew McDowell to Winnipeg for a rally, September 13, where he told his story to the crowd of about 80 that gathered at Memorial Park.
Earlier in the summer Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) signed a letter asking the government to support a non-binding motion, passed in the House of Commons, that would let American war resisters stay in the country. Only the Conservative government opposed it.
More than 30 church leaders, theologians, professors and organizations also wrote a letter urging Stephen Harper and immigration minister Diane Finley to stay the deportation of U.S. war resister, Corey Glass. The letter cited the UN's definition of conscientious objection, which allows that people already serving in the military "may develop conscientious objections."
"We have a tradition, a history in our faith community of conscientious objection," says MCC's Esther Epp-Tiessen. "We know that Canada has honoured those convictions in the past…. We'd like to see the same treatment for others."
Although the American war resisters joined the military voluntarily, many were recruited for the Iraq war while they were still in high school, with offers of free education and other signing bonuses, says Epp-Tiessen. "They were horrified to find out they had been party to a war that's so immoral at so many levels."
"We were all shocked by…the refusal of government to support these people that were seeking to stay in the country," says Diane Cooper, board chair of Project Peacemakers. "We need to do something about this."
Cooper grew up with a just war theology in the United Church, but she believes it's time to look for non-military solutions to conflicts. "The challenge for peacemakers is to find ways to be assertive, proactive," she says, "and in a way to put our lives on the line in the same way military people are asked to."
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