Better than the death penalty

Genny Bove

I couldn't quite believe it.Here I was at the army recruitment fair, having adiscussion with one of the organisers about the punitivemeasures in the Armed Forces Bill currently going throughparliament, measures which could mean conscientiousobjectors in the forces being sent to prison for life, and hewas trying to sell it to me on the grounds that it' s "betterthan the death penalty".
What sort of an ar gument isthat? It's like defending the maiming of children in Iraq onthe grounds that it' s better than being killed. I came home anddid some research. Maybe I was wrong to have been so surprised.The death penalty has only been officially abolished in the forcesfor three years.
Although it's longer sincedesertion was a capital offence, five others were on the statutebooks until 2003. This is when the UK abolished the deathpenalty under all circumstances, five years after the HumanRights Act came into force.

Deterring refuseniks

Since the Iraq war started, the number of soldiers goingAWOL (absent without leave) has remained steady at 3,000 peryear give or take a couple of hundred, but the number whostay AWOL has tripled.
    The measures in the ArmedForces Bill are intended to act as a deterrent to future refuseniks,broadening the definition of desertion to include those who goAWOL and who, whatever their reasons, intend to refuse to takepart in a military occupation of a foreign country or territory.The Armed Forces Bill is in conflict with the spirit and letterof the Nurember g Charter, an international law under which every individual is deemed to bepersonally responsible for his or her actions. T o obey illegal andimmoral orders is to break this international law. In future, ifyou're a British soldier , you may be faced with a choice betweenlife imprisonment and prosecu tion for war crimes. The Armed Forces Bill has sailed through the Commonswith barely a murmur of dissent. Fewer than 20 MPs voted for theamendment which would have removed this measure from theAct; our local W rexham area MSP Ian Lucas and MartynJones weren't among them - no surprises there. Targeting youthWith so little media coverage of the Bill, one of our aims at therecent "Dragon's March" army recruitment fair in Chirk, NorthWales, was to inform as many young people as possible of thesenew rules, and of some of the other small print terms and con -ditions in army contracts which recruits often don' t find outabout until it's too late.
    The army pays for the coacheswhich deliver children from local schools to the recruitment extrav-aganza. We decided to stop these coaches on the approach road,offer the teachers on board informative leaflets about armyrules and the Armed Forces Bill and urge them to share this infor-mation with their pupils.
    This worked well on Day Oneof the two-day event. Most of the coaches stopped and we wereable to hand over our leaflets while the children looked out ofthe windows at our display of banners and placards, takingpictures on their mobile phones. If nothing else, they were madeaware of another point of view about the desirability of a careerin the forces. Utilising a phrase much favoured by W rexhamyoung people, we advertised, under a print of a coffin-shapedUnion Jack: ARMY JOBS: DEAD GOOD! Other placardsshowed a soldier dragging a body bag and another in a typi -cal macho recruitment pose -- pointing a gun.

Dying to join

On the second day, having eventually secured our placards and banners in the stiff breeze, wedecided to leaflet the coaches leaving the fair . I stood in theroad with my peace flag, waving for the first coach to stop so wecould offer teachers our leaflets. The coach accelerated. I stoodmy ground, waving the flag and smiling. The coach continued tocome towards me. The driver glared. She obviously had nointention of stopping. W ith about a metre to go, I chose lifeand jumped out of the way.
We decided that it would besafer to stay on the pavement. The police pulled up to tell usthat there was "concern" over our DYING TO JOIN ORJOINING TO DIE? banner. We asked what sort of concern:"Some people have been upset by your banner . That' s whywe've come to talk to you. That's why we're concerned."We explained in detail why we were upset about the army tar -geting their recruitment efforts towards children. All children (up to the age of 18) are supposed to be protectedby the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but whensigning up with the army, young recruits are denied several ofthese fundamental rights, including the right to say whatthey think, the right to be pro tected from working in places orconditions likely to damage their health, and the right not tobe punished in a way that humiliates or hurts them. TheUK is the only country in Western Europe that allows under18s (who should be protected by the Convention) to take part inactive service on the battlefield.
We asked whether the policeofficers would perhaps like to go and tell the army about howupset we were about their event and maybe suggest to them thatthey should close the recruit ment fair so that we wouldn' t beupset any more. They laughed. "Fat chance." W e agreed; thearmy is big, powerful and estab lishment. They went off to con -fer with their ser geant, and our banner was allowed to stay.

Family entertainment?

On the evening of the second day, the recruitment fair wasopen to members of the public. Three of us returned and we managed toplant all our placards safelyin the ver ge. I put our bignew banner: WAR IS NOTF A M I L Y E N T E R -T A I N MENT onthe bridge.
    Although it was facing away fromthe main road, driverscoming from the W rexhamdirection had just driven pastthe army truck advert and musthave realised it was some form ofprotest. There were lots of beeps and waves. The flow of cars to the event was slow --the fair really wasn' tthat popular.
    Once the passing traffic hadvirtually petered out, we decided to visit the event again. The pre -vious day we had been escorted from the site by some recruitingofficers who had taken exception to the information leaflet wewere distributing. Claiming to be puzzled about our reasons forprotesting, they told us that the army was all about buildingschools and hospitals in far off lands, but it looked to me likemost of the stands were about weapons and fighting. "If that's what your job is, why do you need all these tanksand guns?" I asked. "Y ou know nothing about politics!" was theresponse.
    However, as we didn' t haveleaflets with us this time, we must have been perceived as lessof a threat, so we wandered round the displays unchallenged. Thisgave us a chance to engage in conversation with punters andrecruiting officers. Wherever possible, we made sure potentialrecruits were aware of the new Armed Forces Bill and the rulespreventing them from leaving the army if they changed theirminds about signing up.
    It was when we were takingthe officer to task over his recruiters' ignorance of the Armed ForcesBill that he came out with the gem about the death penalty. The army kills and liesFor me, the most valuable part of the two days was the time wespent engaging in conversation with squaddies, would-berecruits, yes and even that officer . If there had been more of us, wecould have been many times more effective, just by being there andasking questions, sharing infor mation which the army neglectsto give its new recruits, exposing some of the lies, showing thatthere are other points of view.
    Members of Wrexham Peace &Justice Forum wrote to all High Schools in W rexham before theevent, urging them not to partic ipate. Several members also wroteletters to local newspapers. W e intend to follow this up with fur -ther letters to school heads, gov ernors and the press. We hope that in time it will become politically unacceptablefor the army to show its face in schools, and that schools willstop colluding in the recruit ment of children to this killingbusiness.

Genny Bove is a member of WPJF.
Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum , PO Box 661, Wrexham LL11 1QU (0845 330 4505; wrexhamsaw@yahoo.com; http://www.wpjf.org.uk).