Conscientious Objector Support Group

Last updated August 27, 2024

The Conscientious Objector Support Group (COSG), a support group to conscientious objectors (COs) in South Africa, was formed in 1978. The organisation grew in the context of South African resistance to war, at the time of Apartheid. COs at the time included those who openly refused to report to the Military, once conscripted, those who were sometimes referred to as draft dodgers, and in due course those who were doing statutory community service.

Community service under the 1983 amendment to the Defence Act

A 1983 amendment to the South African Defence Act provided for substitute service outside the armed forces for COs complying with certain requirements. The amendment was drafted at a time when the State was under increasing pressure to address the situation of COs. One of these pressures was the increased number of COs in prison or military barracks. For example, in 1982 there were 263 COs serving sentences in military detention barracks. The 1983 amendment provided for the first time for a form of alternative service, although for a punitively long period of three times the military service.

Conscripted military service at that time consisted of two years full-time service, followed by 'camps'. The latter were annual call-ups for short-term periods of about a month, though not everyone was called every year. For those who had not done any military service, the Act provided for a six-year period of community service. For those who had done the initial military service and objected only to the camp component, the requirement was three years duty.

This amendment recognised COs only if they were Religious Objectors (RO's), even if they did not belong to the so-called 'peace churches'.^[1] COs had to appear before a Board for Religious Objectors sitting in Bloemfontein, which ruled on whether they complied with the requirements of the Act. Those who were accepted by the Board as RO's were placed in community service under the administration by the then Department of Manpower. Typical places for service were hospitals and the civil service generally. The decision was made by the authorities, though the RO was permitted to express his preferences. (Military service only applied to white males.)

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Conscription is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force.

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Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).

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Since 1914, Greece has had mandatory military service (conscription) of 12 months in the Army, Navy and the Air Force for men between the age of 19 to 45. Citizens discharged from active service are normally placed in the Reserve and are subject to periodic recall of 1–10 days at irregular intervals.

Compulsory military training (CMT), a form of conscription, was practised for males in New Zealand between 1909 and 1972. Military training in New Zealand has been voluntary before then and ever since.

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The Civilian Public Service (CPS) was a program of the United States government that provided conscientious objectors with an alternative to military service during World War II. From 1941 to 1947, nearly 12,000 draftees, willing to serve their country in some capacity but unwilling to perform any type of military service, accepted assignments in "work of national importance" in 152 CPS camps throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. Draftees from the historic peace churches and other faiths worked in areas such as soil conservation, forestry, fire fighting, agriculture, under the supervision of such agencies as the U.S. Forest Service, the Soil Conservation Service, and the National Park Service. Others helped provide social services and mental health services.

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The End Conscription Campaign was an anti-apartheid organisation allied to the United Democratic Front and composed of conscientious objectors and their supporters in South Africa. It was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of all white South African men into military service in the South African Defence Force.

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The Richmond Sixteen were a group of "absolutist" British conscientious objectors during the First World War. Conscripted into the British Army in 1916, they refused to undertake even non-combatant military duties. Brought together at Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, most not knowing each other previously, they were transported to France, where they were court-martialled and formally sentenced to be executed by firing squad, but this sentence was immediately commuted to ten years' penal servitude. They were released in April 1919, several months after the Armistice of 11 November 1918 and a few weeks before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Joseph and Michael Hofer were brothers who died from mistreatment at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth in 1918. The pair, who were Hutterites from South Dakota, were among four conscientious objectors from their Christian colony who had been court-martialed and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for refusing to be drafted in to the United States Army during World War I. After initially being sent to Fort Alcatraz for refusal to comply with military orders and discipline, Joseph and Michael were transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they both died within two weeks of their arrival. Their bodies were returned to their families in military uniforms that they had refused to wear.

Conscientious objection in the United States is based on the Military Selective Service Act, which delegates its implementation to the Selective Service System. Conscientious objection is also recognized by the Department of Defense.

References

↑ Aletta J. Norval, Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse, p 262.

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[1] Aletta J. Norval, Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse, p 262.

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