Canadian government blocks consideration of legality of Iraq war

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Sat, 12 Feb 2005 07:16:40 -0500

Canadian government blocks consideration of legality of Iraq war

 

 

 

 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/cana-f10.shtml

 

US deserter's refugee claim

Canadian government blocks consideration of legality of Iraq war

By Keith Jones

10 February 2005

 

Canada's federal government intervened in a refugee hearing for a US

Army deserter late last year to block discussion of the legality of

the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

 

A lawyer representing Solicitor-General Irwin Cotler argued that the

legality of the war is beyond the purview of Canada's Immigration and

Refugee Board (IRB). He claimed that the International Court of

Justice in The Hague is the only body with the authority and

competence to hear arguments concerning the war's legality.

 

Jeremy Hinzman, who fled to Canada after the Army twice rejected his

request for Conscientious Objector (CO) status and his battalion was

ordered to go to Iraq, is arguing that Canada is legally obligated to

give him refugee status, because he will be persecuted if he is

returned to the US for having refused to participate in an illegal war.

 

The IRB panel hearing Hinzman's case was quick to endorse the

government's position. It ruled that Hinzman's argument that the war

was illegal under international law—because it was unprovoked, " had

been condemned by the international community, " and because the Bush

administration lied about Saddam Hussein's regime having weapons of

mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda—was irrelevant to his refugee claim.

 

" Evidence with respect to the legality of the US embarking on military

action will not be admitted into evidence at the hearing of these

claims, " wrote Brian Goodman, chairman of the IRB panel.

 

Hinzman's lawyer, Jeffry House, responded by saying his client would

be willing to await a decision on the war's legality if the Canadian

government would bring the question before the International Court.

But the Canadian government has no intention of seeking such a ruling.

Its intervention in the Hinzman case was not aimed at ensuring that

the appropriate legal body renders judgment on the legality of the

war, but at suppressing consideration of the issue.

 

The Canadian government's intervention in the Hinzman case is

significant for three reasons.

 

Firstly, it undermines Hinzman's refugee claim and thereby increases

the likelihood he will be denied refugee status and handed over to US

authorities.

 

The federal government is legally limited in its powers to intervene

in the refugee determination process. There is no question, however,

that the Liberal government of Paul Martin and Canada's political and

corporate elite are determined that Canada not become a magnet for US

deserters and thereby further encourage dissension and anti-war

sentiment within the US military. In particular they don't want to see

a repeat of the Vietnam War experience, when tens of thousands of

draft dodgers and deserters were given refuge in Canada and the

Canadian government was compelled by popular antiwar sentiment to give

them the right stay in Canada.

 

Hinzman's refugee claim has elicited an avalanche of unfavorable press

commentary, with newspaper editorialists and columnists arguing that

he should be denied refugee status because he volunteered to join the

US Army and won't face " genuine " persecution if he is returned to the

US. (In fact, Hinzman could be jailed for up to five years. He also

fears extra-legal reprisals. Both he and his wife, who is of

Vietnamese origin, have received death threats and have been the

target of racial slurs.) Revealingly, the Globe and Mail and the

National Post chose the same headline for their anti-Hinzman

editorials: " A deserter, not a refugee. " The Bush administration could

not have put it better.

 

Secondly, the Canadian government's intervention to prevent Hinzman

from pointing to the illegal character of the war represents a further

assault on the right of asylum.

 

The Fourth Nuremberg principle holds that all persons are obliged, if

there is any possibility to do so, to defy government and military

orders that violate international law. The United Nations High

Commission on Refugees holds that a deserter can be deemed a refugee

if the " type of military action " from which he desists has been

condemned by the international community as against elementary

humanitarian principles.

 

Yet the Canadian government has intervened to prevent Hinzman from

arguing that fear of legal retribution for having refused to shoot and

kill others in an aggressive war is grounds for political asylum.

 

" It cannot be irrelevant to a soldier that a war is legal or illegal, "

says Hinzman's lawyer, Jeffry House. " That just can't be. It can't be

the case that a war is illegal and that it's just to imprison someone

who refuses to fight. If illegal means anything it means you can't be

prosecuted for refusing to participate. "

 

Last but not least, the Canadian government's intervention in the

Hinzman case points to the utterly hypocritical and calculated

character of the Canadian government's decision not to join the US-led

" coalition of the willing " in invading Iraq.

 

While the Liberals have basked in the strong popular support for their

decision not to deploy the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in Iraq, the

Liberal government has provided important political and logistical

support for the US invasion and occupation of that country.

 

The CAF was for months actively involved in the war planning of the US

and British military. Only when Canadian efforts to broker an

eleventh-hour deal between Washington and the major continental

European powers for an end of March 2003 " ultimate deadline " for

Saddam Hussein, did then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien decide that the

CAF would not participate in the invasion.

 

Nonetheless, as US Ambassador Paul Cellucci conceded, Canada did far

more in support of the conquest of Iraq than many members of the war

coalition. The Canadian navy led a multi-national " anti-terrorism "

task force in the Persian Gulf that worked hand-in-glove with the US

and British. Canada sent a large force to Afghanistan, thereby freeing

up US troops for action in Iraq, and several dozen CAF personnel

participated in the invasion as embedded " exchange " members of the US

and British forces. So highly did the Pentagon think of CAF

Brigadier-General Walter Natynczyk, he was made one of the principal

commanders of the occupation forces.

 

No sooner had the war begun than Chrétien publicly affirmed his

support for a US victory, while dismissing the question of the

legality of the US-British invasion as a matter that lawyers and

historians will quibble about for decades to come.

 

This position underscores the fact that Canada's support for a regime

of international law—like that of the other imperialist powers—is

entirely self-interested. Otherwise how can the question as to whether

a war launched by the world's most powerful state is illegal be only

of academic interest?

 

The truth is Ottawa knows full well that Bush's doctrine of

" pre-emptive " war breaks with the precepts of international

law—precepts that the US itself helped develop in the decades

following World War Two.

 

One of the chief reasons the federal government intervened in the

Hinzman case is that it recognizes the charge that the Bush

administration has waged a war of aggression as defined in the

Nuremberg trials of Germany's war leaders is unanswerable.

 

The federal intervention also underscores the Liberals' determination

to prove a loyal ally of Washington. In a world marked by growing

antagonisms between the great powers and frenetic economic

competition, Canadian big business deems it vital to securing its

predatory interests that Canada pursue a closer economic and geo-

 

" And do not forget the petty scoundrels in this regime; note their

names, so that none will go free! They should not find it possible,

having had their part in these abominable crimes, at the last minute

to rally to another flag and then act as if nothing had happened! " --

From the fourth leaflet of the White Rose Resistance in Germany, 1942.

Five students and a professor who wrote and distributed the leaflets

were executed in 1943.