Read the call for a non-violent, mass silent sit-in, Ottawa, Ontario, February 14, 2003
Open Letter to all Members of the Canadian Armed Forces:
"Thou Shalt Not Kill!" Refuse to Kill or Be Killed in An Unjust, Immoral, Illegal War Turn Your Swords into Ploughshares
Friends,
As soldiers, you have sworn to protect Canada and Canadians, even at the risk of your own lives. Few occupations require such dedicated commitment and potential sacrifice, and we cannot help but feel in our hearts a touch of the fear and anxiety which must be facing you and your families.
But Canada and Canadians are not under threat from the people of Iraq, against whom a massive escalation of war is likely to be launched soon.
Most of the world is amazed that the U.S. is hellbent on war, desperately seeking a pretext, any pretext, no matter what the cost, no matter if there is no substantial reason offered.
To this moment, there has been not one shred of evidence of an Iraqi link to Osama bin Laden, not one shred of evidence that Iraq is planning a war of aggression against its neighbours, not one shred of evidence that Iraq has the current capacity to launch weapons of mass destruction.
This is not to defend in any way the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but we need to ask ourselves why there is such a focus on Iraq when Canada, the U.S., and U.K. support dozens of similarly brutal regimes around the globe, all of which commit gross abuses of human rghts.
You likely have your own suspicions about this intentional war, which clearly seems more about gaining Western access to Iraq's huge oil reserves than unfounded allegations about weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, just look at the casual response to North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, one far more advanced than anything Iraq possesses.
But you are probably not allowed to voice these concerns, because your duty is to follow orders.
It is in this context that we want to speak with you as fellow Canadians genuinely concerned about your safety as well as the welfare of the people who have the most to lose in this planned war: the people of Iraq, already suffering from the massive bonbardment of 1991, from the deadly radioactive legacy of over 300 tonnes of depleted uranium dropped on that country, and the devastating sanctions which have claimed over a million lives.
Indeed, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War estimates immediate casualties of a war against Iraq could number in excess of half a million people. This does not include the massive refugee crisis, famine, and environmental disaster that is likely to befall the region as well
It is in such troubled times that we are all faced with difficult choices. As soldiers, some of you have told us that yours is not to question but simply to serve, to serve those who send you overseas to fight.
But we believe at this crucial time that as soldiers, you DO have a choice: a choice to act morally, legally, safely, to avert the even greater humanitarian disaster that awaits the Iraqi people.
Quite simply, we are encouraging you to lay down your weapons and refuse to fight.
Under international and Canadian law, this is not only your right, it is also your obligation.
And as law-abiding citizens, we have a responsibility and a commitment to support you in coming to and dealing with your decision not to fight.
If thousands of men and women like yourselves refused to fight, it would make current and future war plans difficult, if not impossible, to carry out.
We also write because you, like the veterans of the 1991 war against Iraq, will likely return home and receive little or no support or compensation whatsoever from the War Dept. in dealing with deadly Gulf War Syndrome (radioactive poisoning from exposure to depleted uranium) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (suffered by one-third of Gulf War vets)
The white men who send you to war (War Minister John McCallum, War Propaganda Minister Bill Graham, and John Chretien, among others) will not be sharing with you some key information.
You have a right to know the following:
A. Like all wars, the escalation of the ongoing war against the Iraqi people is illegal. It violates some of the most basic precepts of international laws and treaties to which Canada is a party, including:
- the Treaty Providing for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (aka Kellogg-Briand Pact)
- the Declaration of St. Petersburg (Declaration Renouncing the Use in Time of War of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes of Weight)
- Resolution on the Non-Use of Force in International Relations and Permanent Prohibition on the Use of Nuclear Weapons
- the Charter of the United Nations
- Hague Convention on Land Warfare
- Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare
- Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
- Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (The Geneva Convention)
- Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
- the Nuremberg Principles
- the Canadian War Crimes Act.
B. Few Canadians likely know better than you that like in all wars, soldiers risk returning, if they do return, horribly injured, traumatized, sick, with a wide range of debilitating illnesses. They are greeted with cold stone silence from the men who sent them to fight. If you do find yourself in this situation, we in the anti-war movement will be here to demand full compensation, medical treatment, therapy, whatever is necessary for you to recover.
C. Violence simply does not work. If it did, wars would have ended centuries ago. In the unlikely event that you do face serious armed resistance from the Iraqi forces, it is quite possible that some of the weapons or weapons components being aimed at you were made right here in Canada, which continues to profit from a $5 billion per year war industry.
D. Under the Nuremberg Principles, you have an obligation NOT to follow the orders of leaders who are preparing crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. We are all bound by what U.S. Chief Prosecutor Robert K. Jackson declared in 1948: [T]he very essence of the [Nuremberg] Charter is that individuals have intentional duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state." At the Tokyo War Crimes trial, it was further declared "[A]nyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something about it is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent commission of the crimes."
So we call on you: refuse orders to be sent to this or any other war. Stay at home with your friends and families, work with us to turn your armouries into housing for the homeless, work with us to transform the War Dept. into the Dept. of Human Needs, help us teach the world that you can't keep the peace with a gun, help veterans of past wars receive full compensation and proper treatment for their illnesses, join us to demand that we fill the world with food and shelter, not with guns and bombs, join us to reclaim our country as a place of need, not greed, a place where environmental respect and human dignity are placed before a system which profits from war and human misery.
Peace
Homes not Bombs