Victory for sailor who said ‘no’ to war

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2005 Editions - May 21, 2005


 

In a significant victory for Iraq war resisters, a Navy judge decided not to send sailor Pablo Paredes to jail for refusing to board a ship bound for Iraq.

Citing “a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land,” Paredes, 23, had rejected offers of lighter punishment in exchange for a guilty plea.

He told the judge, “I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I am guilty of believing war in all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this war because it is illegal.” (Click here for Paredes' statement)

Prosecutors had asked that Paredes receive nine months in jail and a bad conduct discharge. Instead, the judge, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant, gave him two months of restriction, three months of hard labor and a demotion from petty officer 3rd class to seaman recruit.

Paredes’ lawyer, Jeremy Warren, called the verdict “a huge victory” and “an incredible boon to the antiwar movement.”

Thirty Latino/Latina Vietnam-era war resisters, conscientious objectors, veterans and peace activists issued a statement May 16 hailing Paredes and others in the military for “speaking out against the immorality” of the Iraq war.

“They have shown great courage and remind us that a commitment to the truth and to their own humanity is more important than blind obedience,” the statement said.

Signer Rosalio Muñoz, a Vietnam draft resister who chaired the 1970 National Chicano Moratorium, told the World, “Public opinion and pressure reduced the sentence for Paredes, but we need more.”

The statement called for Paredes to be granted conscientious objector status and an honorable discharge. The Navy has denied his CO application, but he is appealing.

Other signers include legendary farm worker leader Dolores Huerta; Chicago education worker Sijisfredo Aviles, who served three years in jail for refusing induction in 1968; Hilda Jenson (Reyes), who was a teenage organizer for the Brown Berets and the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War; Chicano studies professor Jorge Mariscal who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam; and documentary filmmaker Jesus Treviño, a conscientious objector in 1968.

The stand taken by Paredes, the son of immigrants from Ecuador and Puerto Rico, has struck a chord in Puerto Rico. The Committee to Support Pablo Paredes held a rally in San Juan May 11 “in support of our Puerto Rican brother.” The coalition includes the Puerto Rican Bar Association’s Constitutional and Human Rights Commission; Puerto Rican Federation of Workers; Federation of Labor of Puerto Rico-AFL-CIO; and religious, peace, civil liberties and student groups.

“We are proud of the decision taken by this Puerto Rican youth,” a coalition statement said, urging other Puerto Ricans to support Paredes. Another event is planned for June 4 at La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion.

Law professor Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild executive vice president and U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of

Jurists, testified as a defense expert at Paredes’ sentencing hearing. She told the judge the U.S. war in Iraq violates the UN Charter, and that the torture and abuse by U.S. personnel in Iraqi prisons violate the Geneva Conventions and are considered war crimes under the U.S. War Crimes Statute. Therefore, she said, Paredes had a duty to disobey orders to participate.

In cross examination, the prosecution handed Cohn an opportunity to point out that the U.S. wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan also violated the UN Charter, as neither was conducted in self-defense or with approval of the UN Security Council.

The judge commented, “I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal.”

The judge’s comment is “extremely important,” said Lynn Gonzalez, a volunteer counselor with the San Diego Military Counseling Project. “It’s a precedent” that will have an impact on future resisters, she told the World.

What it means, she said, is that “basically, any recruit would have reasonable cause to believe the war in Iraq is illegal” and would have a duty to refuse to serve in it.

Last Dec. 6, Paredes publicly refused orders to board the USS Bonhomme Richard before it and two other ships left San Diego with 3,000 sailors and Marines headed for the Persian Gulf. He told reporters he did not want to be part of a war he considered illegal and immoral. “I’d rather do military prison time than six months of dirty work for a war that I and many others do not support,” said.

suewebb@pww.org