Seven Oaks Magazine.

1) What reasons did the Immigration and Refugee board give for denying Jeremy Hinzman’s request for refugee status?

The short answer is that they said he did not prove he would be persecuted if he went back to the US, and that the US is a democratic country. And I give you the short answer because I haven’t had time to read the report yet. But that was the executive summary.

2) What persecution do you expect that Jeremy will face if they are forced to return to the United States?

Realistically, five years in jail and a dishonourable discharge. And a dishonourable discharge means that there’s a black mark against your employment record, you can’t apply for education funding, and other types of government funding will be denied to you. It also shows up on your employment record wherever you go, so it will be something that follows him for the rest of his life. In the extreme case, it’s still possible to be put to death for desertion from the army. It hasn’t happened since 1945, but the law is still there.

Jeffry House [Hinzman’s lawyer] will be taking this to the Supreme Court of Canada next. And they could likely stay in the country for another couple of years through that process – that’s not unusual.

There’s six more that have cases to be heard at this point, and more war resisters also seem to be trickling in more rapidly now.

5) We hear that there are over 5500 US soldiers that have gone AWOL. How much do you think this decision was designed to send them a chill, to have them not think about coming to Canada?

I figure that that is definitely part of the reason for the government’s move to deny the claim, but I wouldn’t think that that was their primary goal. I think their primary goal was to make friends with George W. Bush and his colleagues, whatever that means. So, yes, for George Bush that means discouraging people from thinking that they can go to Canada.

6) It seems that the newly formed Iraq Veterans Against the War has received a lot of support from Vietnam Veterans and Veterans for Peace. How much has the war resisters work here been supported by ‘draft dodgers’ from the Vietnam years?

It has been pretty big here in Vancouver, and I believe elsewhere as well. The guy who is working in the office, volunteering, for the war resisters in Toronto is – well, actually I’m not clear if he’s a draft dodger or a deserter – from the Vietnam Era. In Vancouver, we’ve got a good grouping of what we call our alumni committee, who are former military people and or people who were draft dodgers during Vietnam. We even have a Korean War conscientious objector helping us.

7) What can people here do now to show war resisters in the United States that they are indeed welcome in Canada?

I guess the first thing that people can do is go to the war resisters website (www.resisters.ca), getting the information to write to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Immigration.

And the other thing is to educate ourselves about what it means to be in the military in the United States. It’s not the same as in Canada, and it’s hard for people to understand and have empathy for people. The first thing that comes out of a lot of people’s mouths is, “well, they volunteered, they knew what they were getting into.” So educating about the nature of this war, why it’s illegal and immoral, is also important. And we need to be educated about what the military means to US culture, versus Canadian culture. It’s very different.