A Just Deserter

By Matt Mernagh, NOW. Posted December 21, 2004.

After three days of listening to graphic testimony at the refugee hearing of South Dakota war resister Jeremy Hinzman, one observer sitting near me shakily remarks, "If you're not a pacifist after sitting through this then nothing will make you into one." In this harshly lit hearing room on Victoria, a refugee board adjudicator is going to have to rule on a most shocking proposition: whether this former soldier of the U.S. 82nd Airborne ought to be granted asylum because he fears participating in war crimes in Iraq.

Those packing the room - mostly Quakers and other peace types - are busy trying to send subliminal messages to presiding member Brian Goodman through their anti-war buttons and peace quilts.

Round one has already been lost. A technical legal ruling forbids Hinzman's counsel, Jeffry House, from arguing the illegality of the war in Iraq and a soldier's duty not to participate in such a war. House considers the ruling a huge ground for appeal should Hinzman be denied refugee status.

But House has another card up his sleeve - an Ontario Court of Appeal precedent in the case of Fereidoon Zolfagharkhani, who deserted from the Iranian military upon learning that Iran intended to gas Kurds. Zolfagharkani was a paramedic, and it would have been his job to treat Kurdish people who didn't die from the attacks so they could withstand interrogation. He won the right to asylum in Canada, and House hopes a similar logic will work in Hinzman's case.

The point at issue is whether Hinzman, as a member of the 82nd, would have been forced to kill civilians or participate in violations of the Geneva Convention during his tour of duty. So House has entered exhibits of media reports from the Washington Post, Democracy NOW and Human Rights Watch with such titles as U.S. Military Attacks On Population Centers, U.S. Military Attacks On Health Clinics and U.S. Military Attacks On Civilians.

Info relating specifically to the exploits of the 82nd Airborne are easy enough to Google. I did the search myself and found a Human Rights Watch report documenting actions of the 82nd Airborne that resulted in the deaths of seven unarmed civilians.

As that report details, "soldiers from the 82nd Airborne's 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment raided the apartment of Fadhil Hamza Hussain al-Janabi in al-Mahmudiyya on the outskirts of Baghdad after receiving a tip from a local pool hall about 'bad guys' in the neighborhood... Al-Janabi's 19-year-old daughter Farah was killed, as was a neighbor."

Outside reports of the 82nd, Hinzman's case turns on how well he can articulate the growing worries he harbours about becoming a killing machine. During his wife's pregnancy back in South Dakota, Hinzman began to disdain his training, which included chanting, "Trained to kill! Kill we will!" Fatherhood, he says, cemented his belief that, unlike the other soldiers, he couldn't make the grass grow with bright red blood.

Two months after his baby's birth and several months before shipping out to Afghanistan, he filed a very complicated conscientious objector (CO) application. "I didn't feel I could kill. I could have done other jobs in the Army," Hinzman says.

What happened then isn't entirely clear. Somehow, the papers were lost and Hinzman resubmitted his CO application. At this point he was in Afghanistan doing kitchen duty. Then one day while scrubbing pots, he says, superiors pulled him from his duties, brought him in front of a tribunal and quickly denied him CO status.

Upon returning to the U.S., he came to realize his only option was to flee to Canada. He led a hard double life, he says - by day training to deploy to Iraq and by night planning an escape route north.

"We were going to Iraq to jack up terrorists. We were told this was a new kind of war, that these people weren't human and that they were not to be treated in a humane way. We were told by commanders in pep talks that these people are evil."

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Rights and Liberties! Sign up now »