South African resistance to war has a long tradition, and a history that includes conscientious objectors, pacifists, deserters and draft dodgers, as well as those whose objections are based upon the notion of "just war" as opposed to unjust or illegal war.
The first known conscientious objectors in South Africa were English, Scottish, and Irishmen who were disillusioned by the treatment of Boer civilians kept in the concentration camps. [1] Those who based their objection to war either on grounds of the rejection of a particular system, such as the apartheid regime, or doctrines that exclude war based upon illegal means. The End Conscription Campaign was an organisation active from 1983–1994, that for the most part, pursued the notion of objection to war based upon freedom of conscience.
Those who resisted war in general or in part due to either religious, private or personal convictions by failing to enlist, deserting, or refusing to do service by other means were deserters and punishable under the Military Discipline Code (MDC), which forms part of the 1957 Defence Act. Although the 1957 Defence Act requires military service obligations after completion of the initial military training, the obligations are not enforced because of an August 1994 moratorium placed on prosecution for not responding to the call-ups.
However, the moratorium does not apply to cases of absence without leave or desertion. In other words, conscription is not enforced, but those who deserted under the apartheid system or who failed to respond to call-ups can still technically be prosecuted.
The Committee on South African War Resistance (COSAWR) was founded in 1978 by the merging of two groups of South African war resisters active in Britain. A branch in the Netherlands was formed in 1979. [2] It functioned as a self-help organization for South African military refugees, worked to raise the issue of militarism in South Africa and conducted research into the South African military structure and resistance. Its magazine Resister became the leading magazine on South Africa's militarisation. In 1990, when the sentencing of conscientious objectors in South Africa changed considerably, most members decided to return to South Africa.
The Conscientious Objector Support Group (COSG), an umbrella organisation, was formed in 1978. In 1982, serving sentences in military detention barracks were being served by 263 conscientious objectors. In 1983, the Defence Act was amended to provide for the first time a six-year substitute service outside the armed forces for conscientious objectors.
The Stop the War Committee was an anti-war organisation which opposed the Second Boer War.
It was formed by William Thomas Stead in 1899. [3] [4] Its president was John Clifford, and prominent members included Lloyd George and Keir Hardie. The group was generally seen as pro-Boer.
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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.
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–industrial complex due to a crisis of conscience. In some countries, conscientious objectors are assigned to an alternative civilian service as a substitute for conscription or military service.
Conscription evasion or draft evasion is any successful attempt to elude a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces of one's nation. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws of one's nation. Illegal draft evasion is said to have characterized every military conflict of the 20th and 21st centuries, in which at least one party of such conflict has enforced conscription. Such evasion is generally considered to be a criminal offense, and laws against it go back thousands of years.
Conscription in Australia, also known as National Service following the Second World War, has a controversial history which dates back to the implementation of compulsory military training and service in the first years of Australia's nationhood. Military conscription for peacetime service was abolished in 1972.
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).
In the United States of America, military conscription, commonly known as the draft, has been employed by the U.S. federal government in six conflicts: the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The fourth incarnation of the draft came into being in 1940, through the Selective Training and Service Act; this was the country's first peacetime draft. From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the U.S. Armed Forces that could not be filled through voluntary means. Active conscription in the United States ended in 1973, when the U.S. Armed Forces moved to an all-volunteer military. However, conscription remains in place on a contingency basis; all male U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, residing within the United States, who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service System. United States federal law also continues to provide for the compulsory conscription of men between the ages of 17 and 44 who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, U.S. citizens, and additionally women in certain health care occupations, for militia service pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and 10 U.S. Code § 246.
Jeremy Dean Hinzman is an Iraq War resister who was the first American deserter to seek refugee status in Canada.
The Federal Republic of Germany had conscription for male citizens between 1956 and 2011. On 22 November 2010, the German Minister of Defence proposed to the government to put conscription into abeyance on 1 July 2011. The constitution, however, retains provisions that would legalize the potential reintroduction of conscription.
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.
Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter was a New Zealand socialist, pacifist and conscientious objector.
Conscientious objection to military taxation (COMT) is a legal theory that attempts to extend into the realm of taxation the concessions to conscientious objectors that many governments allow in the case of conscription, thereby allowing conscientious objectors to insist that their tax payments not be spent for military purposes.
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.
Nan Cross was a South African anti-apartheid and anti-conscription activist.
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.
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
Conscience: Taxes for Peace Not War is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom. Conscience's primary aim is to change British tax law to allow conscientious objectors to military taxation to redirect the military portion of their taxes to a fund designed for international peacebuilding, conflict management, conflict prevention and other non-violent interventions. Quakers, Mennonites, Baháʼís, Buddhists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Haredim Jews all practice conscientious objection for reasons of faith. Many other individuals do so for reasons of conscience, some believing there is little moral difference between actually firing lethal weapons and paying someone else to do so. Conscience believes that to deny these individuals the right to redirect the military portion of their taxes is to deny them freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as enshrined in various national and international human rights laws.
The Insubordinate movement was a mass antimilitarist movement of civil disobedience to compulsory military service in Spain, the movement lasting from the early 1970s until the abolition of conscription on 31 December 2001.
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.
The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) is a European umbrella organisation for national peace organisations supporting conscientious objectors. Its seat is in Brussels and it was founded in 1979. It aims to organise solidarity campaigns for conscientious objectors facing legal charges in European countries and to lobby for such rights in European institutions. Together with War Resisters' International, which is also one of its members, it is considered one of the leading international NGOs working on conscientious objection.
The "'Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner/innen e. V."’ (IDK) is a German section of the War Resisters' International (WRI). It is an organization of anti-militarists, pacifists and conscientious objectors. The office of the IDK is located in Berlin-Hermsdorf. The IDK archive is located in the Archive active (Hamburg).
