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We Demand Amnesty: Total, Universal & Unconditional

By VVAW

WHO NEEDS AMNESTY?/A HISTORY OF INJUSTICE!

Terry is in his late twenties, has 3 purple hearts, some shrapnel in both his knees, and a lot of bad memories from the Battle of Hue. He also has an Undesireable Discharge, (UD). On returning from Vietnam, Terry found he could no longer handle his remaining tour of duty with the USMC and tried to drop out. A number of psychiatrists, both civilian and military, agreed that he should be given a medical discharge for his inability to readjust emotionally on returning from the war -- the USMC saw things differently, however, and threw him in the stockade. With its normal lack of compassion and humanity, the Corps ultimately threw Terry out of the service, not with a medical discharge, but with a UD! Today, Terry is unable to receive any GI Bill benefits, is severely limited in jobs and totally denied any medical treatment from the VA. When the shrapnel in his legs causes them to swell up, as it periodically does, Terry is not only unable to get any medical treatment and unable to receive any compensation, but is also unable to go to work and earn a living.

An unusual case? Hardly! Today there are hundreds of thousands of Americans in much the same situation as Terry. These people are forced to suffer the unjust punishment of losing their civil rights, their liberty and jobs because of having resisted the war in Indochina or for resisting the racism and oppression of the military. Contrary to Nixon's deliberate distortion about the "few hundred" anti-war exiles, there are in fact 60,000 to 100,000 of them. Moreover, the majority of war resisters are inside the U.S., not in exile. They are the GI's and civilians in stockades and prisons, the estimated 200,000 fugitives underground and the 1/2 million vets with less-than-honorable discharges. They and the American people share a common oppression and need: That of amnesty!

WHY DO WE NEED AMNESTY?

A white deserter from the military police now in Canada said: "I want amnesty because amnesty is the best way for America to confront what the Vietnam war was -- if we don't confront it, it will happen again." His desertion points to the crux of the amnesty issue; amnesty more than anything else speaks to the very essence of the anti-war movement and the racism and oppression of our society that led to the war in the first place! Amnesty is the recognition of the price that the American people have paid to oppose the war.

Those Americans, civilian and military, who resisted the war can not be forgotten if the nation is to really learn the lessons of th war. To forget them is to allow the government to quietly cover-up its crimes in Indochina and the social injustice here at home. To sigh with relief now that American ground troops are no longer involved in the conflict, even as the bombing of Cambodia continues, is like trying to put a band-aid on a cancerous sore that is not about to heal. Those Americans in need of amnesty have every right to receive it; they have committed no crimes for which they should be punished in the first place!

Amnesty also speaks to the racism and class divisions in our society. It is no accident that the cannon fodder for Vietnam was basically made up of poor and 3rd World Americans. For this group of people, society's alternatives are very few. They have traditionally regarded the military as a way out of their economic situation, and as a way of helping their families. Often it was not even a matter of finding a decent job, but of having to be concerned with survival. Entering the military was always seen as one more way of survival among a bleak set up of options.

Many poor and 3rd World Americans simply did not have the information available about legal resistance. Many were sucked into the 'patriotic' trap of saving the U.S. from Communism. These resisters didn't have the privilege of avoiding the war by going to college or the money needed to pay for sympathetic psychiatrists. They were forced into the military and into having to resist the war. Their acts of resistance, conscious or unconscious, whether they were refusing to go into combat, deserting, slugging their CO,, or taking drugs to escape the oppression of the military, must be seen as attacks on the military machinery that helped create their problems in the first place. Their response must be seen in the same light as the response of those who burned their draft cards and refused induction for reasons of moral belief. Amnesty for those GI's in military prisons, or for those veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, would strike a major blow against the racism and class oppression of our society.

AMNESTY FOR VETS AND GI'S/THE UNIVERSAL DISCHARGE!

Since 1963, approximately 500,000 GI's have received discharges under less-than-honoralbe conditions as a result of their resistance to the green machine and to the war. Thousands more are still inside military prisons. Much of this resistance was directly aimed at the racism and oppression of the military. The reaction of 3rd World GI's to the military's institutionalized racism is clearly reflected in the disproportionate number of BCD's, UD's and DD's they received. In 1972 alone, black GI's received 32.6% of all Dishonorable Discharges! The injustice of this speaks for itself. GI's and vets come from the most underprivileged group of Americans in the first place! The less-than-honorable discharge makes their lives even more miserable by preventing them from being considered for jobs and thereby placing a heavy financial burden on the women in their families. They many problems that this all causes are obvious: family instability and broken homes, poverty, crime, drug abuse --- in short, wasted lives.

In the interest of 'justice' and as a partial solution to this, these Americans must receive amnesty. This amnesty must include a release of all those still in military prisons. It would have to include the upgrading of all their discharges to a single, universal discharge. The case for the universal discharge can be quite simply stated: Those with less-than-honorable discharges for resistance to the war are being unfairly punished! They shouldn't have them in the first place. Perhaps more importantly, the military should cease to prosecute its personnel for acts that are also considered crimes by civilian laws. They should be tried only under civilian courts, not military tribunals. What happens when a man is thus courtmartialed, sentenced to prison and given less-than-honorable discharge, is that he is punished not once, but twice! This is a form of double jeopardy. All military personnel should receive one type of discharge, and previously issued discharges under less-than-honorable conditions must then be upgraded to this level.

AMNESTY: NO CASE-BY-CASE REVIEW!

We must be very careful to avoid accepting an individual of case-by-case review for amnesty. Amnesty is a collective problem, not an individual one. We will lose the point of the amnesty issue if we accept a case-by-case review as we would be implying that they are getting forgiveness or 'pardon' as specific individuals rather than correcting the injustice and punishment given to a group of people for war resistance. We can't allow the government to pick those who will be amnestied as we would be allowing them to reinforce their own racist and class values. With a case-by-case review it is certain that the government wouldn't be giving amnesty to poor Americans with few skills needed for the economy. Those 3rd World Americans getting amnestied under such a system would have to be counted on the fingers of one's hand.

Finally, a case-by-case review would allow a separation between civilian and military resisters. Men who left the military, or resisted inside it, did so for the same reasons that civilian men refused the draft or went to prison. Both kinds of actions were clearly forms of anti-war resistance and should receive the same amnesty. A case-by-case review would enable the government to obscure this fact by having civilian courts deal with civilian resisters and then dropping the military resisters into the quicksand of military 'justice', never to be seen or heard from again. We cannot accept this 'divide and conquer' tactic. The amnesty movement must stand united if it is to be successful!

VETS WILL NOT BE USED AGAIN!

War resisters are not criminals; the real criminals are the leaders in our government who have violated both the U.S. Constitution and international law in waging the war in Indochina. As veterans of the war, we know this. We also know that our government used us. Even as we were used as the instruments of our government's hideous policy in Indochina, it is now trying to use our name, and the names of our dead brothers to justify that war. In our name, Nixon now says that amnesty cannot be granted because it would do us and our dead comrades dishonor.

We won't be a part of the hypocrisy of Nixon's lies. The war was wrong and those that resisted were right. Understanding this, we demand and actively seek, a total, universal and unconditional amnesty for all groups of war resisters. This would include:

1. All military and draft resisters in exile or underground in the U.S.
2. All people who are or have been in civilian or military prisons, or those who are sought for prosecution because of their opposition to the war, --- this would include a clearing of their records.
3. The more than half million veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, --- all discharges would retroactively be changed to a single, universal discharge. Only with a total, universal and unconditional amnesty for those who resisted the war, at home and while in the military, can we truly mark an end to the U.S. government's disastrous policy in Indochina, attempt to prevent such future wars, and begin to clean up the incredible mess our leaders have left us with here at home.

UNITY -- STRUGGLE -- VICTORY!!