War resisters

In early October, Colombian conscientious objector Juan Carlos Montoya Munera was forcefully recruited by the Colombian military in the city of Antioquia, and taken to the barracks of the Batallon Bombona Coronel Diaz, where he is being forced to perform military service.

During the same week the Colombian military forcefully recruited a number of youths in the cities of Medellin and Antioquia, also taking conscientious objectors. On 10 October Alejandro Piedrahita, a conscientious…

US private Bradley Manning has been in a maximum-security prison in Virginia, USA, since May 2010 after being accused of leaking classified information to the whistleblower site WikiLeaks. Manning faces up to 52 years in prison if convicted of leaking the classified information. His trial date had not been set at the time of going to press.

Manning spends every day in a 12’ x 6’ cell and he is only allowed out for one hour a day, which he spends exercising by walking around another…

CO status refused

Michael Lyons, a 24-year-old “leading medical assistant” in the navy, was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan in June, but, after reading WikiLeaks documents, decided to leave the service. Taking advice from military counselling group At Ease, Michael appealed to the “advisory committee on conscientious objectors”, which last met in 1996.
At its 17 December hearing, Michael argued that the Wiki-Leaks documents led him to conclude: “I couldn’t serve on moral…

Israeli jails

On 12 December, nonviolent protest organiser Adeeb Abu Rahma from Bil’in was released after 18 months’ imprisonment, but banned from participating in political activity for four years. On 27 December, prominent Israeli nonviolent activist Jonathan Pollak was sentenced to three months in prison for “illegal assembly” for participating in a January 2008 Critical Mass ride against the siege on Gaza. (No one else on the ride was arrested.) On 14 December, 18-year-old Ajuad…

US group Iraq Veterans Against War used the ninth anniversary of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to launch “Operation Recovery”, a campaign to stop the deployment of traumatised troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. www.ivaw.org
Peace activists in Canada narrowly failed to pass a bill that would have stopped the deportation of US soldiers seeking sanctuary (bill C-440 failed its second reading on 29 September by 7 votes). Websites have been launched to…

US army whistleblower Bradley Manning has now been charged with “communicating, transmitting and delivering national defence information to an unauthorised source”. Manning, an army intelligence analyst, was arrested in May over the leaking of the so-called “Collateral Murder” video, which shows a US helicopter gunning down civilians during a July 2007 raid in Iraq.

Manning now faces a possible 52-year jail sentence if convicted. Manning, 22, who sat his GCSEs in Wales after his…

A British soldier who spent four months in jail for refusing to return to Afghanistan has spoken of the “unbelievable support” that he received from fellow soldiers during his imprisonment at the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester.

Jailed in March and released on 12 July, Joe Glenton told left-wing website Counterfire that “there was a period they went through when they’d all chant ‘Free Joe Glenton’ on parade – half to probably annoy the staff, and half-joking maybe…

Anti-war soldier Joe Glenton (see p2) shared a cell in the Military Correctional Training Centre, Colchester, with another soldier serving nine months for going absent without official leave (after service in Iraq). Joe persuaded Ross Williams, 22, to go public on his release. Ross told Socialist Worker: “I joined the army because there is nothing here in Neath, no jobs and no future… the careers office… sold me the world. But it was a load of bollocks.” “Parents think it’s a good thing for…

International Conscientious Objectors’ Day is marked around the world each year on 15 May. This year, London held a ceremony in Tavistock Square, where those who faced death for maintaining the right to refuse to kill were remembered.

Cardiff organised an event with speakers from Movement for the Abolition of War, the Peace Tax Seven and CND. In the US, in the San Francisco Bay area, 14 May saw an afternoon of performance art and short films celebrating growing opposition to war…

These two films, separated by 33 years (Winter Soldier was originally released in 1972; Sir, No Sir! in 2005), show how resistance to the war in Vietnam was alive and active among thousands of military personnel from the mid-1960s to the end of the war in 1975.

Both films chart the journey of over 30 young people from total acceptance of the cause of freeing Vietnam from communism, to defiant resistance and refusal to fight. They are interesting historically but their importance for…

Joe Glenton, the British soldier who refused to return to fight in Afghanistan on moral grounds, and who has since become an anti-war activist, was jailed for nine months on 5 March, for going absent without leave. He is preparing to appeal.

Please send letters of support to: Joe Glenton, Military Corrective Training Centre, Berechurch Hall Camp, Colchester CO2 9NU.

I read, with uneasy and strongly personal interest, the discussions in September’s issue. For the whole of my conscious life – or so it seems – I have been confronted by this question: “What would you, a pacifist, have done in the Second World War?” For years, my feeble cop-out was to say: I wasn’t even two when it started so I’m concerned with now, not then.

However, the question is a valid and proper one and, if it is posed by someone whose father fought and died in the Second…

A British soldier accused of desertion for refusing to serve in Afghanistan is now being prosecuted for taking part in an anti-war protest, on charges that carry a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment. Lance corporal Joe Glenton, 27, of the Royal Logistic Corps, appeared in court on 10 November in Aldershot, Hampshire, facing charges of disobeying a lawful order, as well as his desertion charge. At the end of the hearing, Glenton was imprisoned pending his trial.

Joe Glenton spoke…

On 24 October, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton made headlines by being the first serving British soldier to take part in an anti-war demonstration. Glenton’s courageous stand against the unpopular war in Afghanistan is certainly welcome, but, as Dahr Jamail highlights in The Will to Resist, the UK trails far behind the US when it comes to resistance among the armed forces to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A US journalist who has reported from Iraq on the devastation wreaked upon…

This month, lance corporal Joe Glenton of the Royal Logistic Corps faces court martial for refusing to return to combat in Afghanistan. Glenton joined the army in 2004, and in 2007 went absent without leave after serving his first tour in Afghanistan. He is thought to be the first British soldier to openly resist government policy.

In a speech on 23 July organised by the Stop The War Coalition, lance corporal Glenton described his experience on the ground in the Middle East.