user preferences

Search author name words: Laure Akai

Support Total Objector Antti R.

category international | repression / prisoners | appeal / petition author Monday November 21, 2005 00:22author by Laure Akai - Praga Anarchist Group Report this post to the editors

In Prison in Finland for Refusal to Serve

Sign the online petition, write letters or organize a solidarity event!

On Nov. 15, Antti Rautiainen was sentenced to 53 days in jail for refusing to report for military call-up.

Since 1997, Antti has been called up more than 20 times and every time he refuses to report. He manages to avoid service but from time to time has got caught and has had to serve time before.

The authorities usually issue fines and call him up for the draft again but he is a total objector and refuses to pay the fines which means prison time.

War Resisters International report that another conscientious objector received almost 200 days in jail. You can see more information on their page.
http://wri-irg.org/news/alerts

Related Link: http://wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20051117a.html
author by l.akai - fapublication date Mon Nov 21, 2005 02:09author address author phone Report this post to the editors

A Farewell to army

What do I have to say if I am jailed in November of 2005 for draft refusal?

I refused from all military service, call ups included in November of 1997. My first call up date was 12th of November 1997, 19th call up date given to me was 14th of March 2005 and 20th date was 15th of July 2005. I never showed up in a call up, except once when I visited event with three other anarchist total objectors in order to sound a fanfare and read a manifest against army. But army officials handled us to police, and consider that this action did not qualify as fulfilling my "call up duty".

During last 8 years, I have been almost continuously under an arrest warrant in Finland. Almost any time I have had dealings with police or border guards, I am fined for absence from a call up, and given a new call up date. Usual fine amounts 90-120 euros. I do not pay these fines, because I think right for conscientious objection should not be on sale. Thus fines are converted to a prison term, 7-10 days for each absence from a call up. Often I complain to court for these fines, after all my only crime is conscious objection, and I should not be punished dozens of times for one single "crime".

Finnish court degrees have not considered serial punishment for one "crime" as a problem, and my own resources and skills are not enough for filling a complaint to international court degrees. New Finnish law on advocates, which deprived amateurs a right to work as court advisers, has lead to a situation where I may not receive any compensated legal aid - although altogether I have been given several months of prison, no real advocate will take my cases since each of the 20 cases alone is just a misdemeanor, which does not qualify for state compensations for lawyer's work. Occasionally I have also missed court sessions, which may result an additional fine of 400 euros, which are converted to 15 more days in prison.

This far I have been imprisoned only once, in July-September of 2001 I spent two months in prison. One may read about my experiences in prison back then from http://www.kolumbus.fi/antra/NOKKAEN.htm

Draft refusal is apparently the most difficult way to avoid conscription in Finland. During last 8 years, I have been unable to make any long term plans whatsoever for my life - which of course is not necessarily a bad thing. Army officials understand, that I will never go to army - thus for them it is more beneficial to play time, than to randomly define my service class and give me a date to begin duty, which used to be the practice before. My case has caused more workload to police, border guards and court degrees than to army - which is not a problem for me; I would never miss an opportunity to cause small trouble to institutions of state violence machinery.

My motivation to fight against apparatus of state violence has only grown each year. More stubbornly army and state justice system are pushing me, more I wish their destruction.

I am not against violence always and everywhere. I think defense of freedom and equality, by violence if necessary, is a right and duty of every human being. But state means a monopoly of violence, a right of ruling class to solve along moral questions on justification of the violence. And if one may draw a single lesson from history of Finland, it is that one should not count too much on morale qualities of the ruling class - alliance with nazi Germany is just one, although outstanding example on this. I rather keep my right to make moral choices, and refuse from military service.

So for me total objection is not a personal lifestyle choice, but a practical means to throw a spanner to the wheels of the state violence apparatus. A large scale draft refusal would cause more harm to state, than a method of total objection which is most popular today, where total objectors first visit a call up in order to appeal for alternative service, and only later refuse from any kind of service - this way a total objector does not end up to an endless cycle of call ups, and gets a standard 197 day prison sentence for "alternative service crime". Approval of current law on alternative service 1992 resulted a decline of number of total objectors down to less than ten persons annually. But during last 13 years we have succeeded in developing a total objection movement, which is one of the biggest in the world - according to state statistics during last couple of years more than 70 persons have been annually sentenced for a "alternative service crime", which in most of the cases means total objecting. As far as I know, only Armenia, South Korea, Eritrea and Israel have movements of such a scale, and in first three countries known imprisoned total objectors are mostly Jehovah's witnesses, a religious group freed from military duty in Finland.

One may even compare number of political prisoners in Finland to that of China, where according to official statistics some 3000 persons are in prison for purely political "crimes". For sure, many Chinese activists are sentenced for "usual" crimes, and vast majority of the political prisoners are in laogai, "re-education camps" without any court process whatsoever. But although besides "official" political prisoners 5% of the 300 000 prisoners in "re-education camps" were political, China would still have only two times more political prisoners per capita than Finland, where in average 30 total objectors are imprisoned in any given time.

Of course, where a relative number of political prisoners in China and Finland are of same scale, one may not really compare treatment of prisoners. But current easy living of political prisoners in Finland is not due to benevolence of the state, it is a result of struggle of the previous generations of total objectors - especially hunger strikes of 1990 and 1992 taught state a lesson that total objectors are a security risk, and it is convenient to give them a privileged treatment in prisons. We have come a long way from torture camp of Karvia to which Jehovah's witnesses were sent in 1960's.

But changemakers must keep in mind, that after any concessions from side of the system it has all the cards, whereas we must again begin our organizing from the beginning. Our final goal should not be shortening of alternative service by one month or even abolition of conscription, but destruction of state army and whole violent apparatus of the state. To a big extent alternative service has lost its political meaning, it is generally understood just as a longer but less intensive way to do military duty. Some even choose total objection for purely pragmatic reasons - it takes less time than alternative service, and open prisons allow working with a better nett income. Total objectors are sentenced from a conveyor belt; courts and imprisonment have lost all media value whatsoever.

We may be content with our achievements of last 13 years, but world is developing to wrong direction much faster than our movement is growing. Nationalism and other "great narratives" are in decay, and as a consequence system of conscription is in agony all around the world. But armies and wars have not disappeared anywhere; first of all they are used to solve practical geo-political and commercial issues. In some sense we have returned to 17th century, to time of mercantilism before nationalism and conscription, when wars were first of all seen as a business activity operated by professionals exclusively.

Integration to machinery "for defense of the civilization" of international capitalism is far in Finland, both in the level of attitudes and in practice. A good example of this is a totally uncritical attitude to presence of Finnish blue berets in Kosovo. Finnish corps in Kosovo is under direct command of NATO headquarters. Under former UN administration, NATO has in practice colonized Kosovo for an unlimited period of time, even proposal of full sovereignty is raised more and more often in official level. In practice both of these variants mean ethnical cleansing of the Serbian minority.
>
A liberal democrat may argue, that ethnical cleansing of Serbian minority is a "lesser evil" than cleansing of Albanian majority, attempted by Milosevic's administration after beginning of the bombings in 1999. But I do not think that democracy means right of majority to cleanse minority. In general, ethnic conflicts should never be solved according to nationalisticparadigm, where just some nations must be taken as winners and others as losers.

Whereas majority of Finnish consider NATO as a vehicle of superpower machinations, UN is generally considered as a neutral organ for "common good". But to safeguard its own "credibility", UN is more and more often willing to go cleaning mess of Western interventions, thus becoming more and more a part of those politics itself. A formal endorsing of interventions by UN Security Council depends only on results of trading behind the curtains; apparently Finnish government would have accepted sending blue berets to Iraq as well, in case results of these machinations would have been different.

Former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen faced no consequences for secret support his government gave to US lead military coalition 9th of December 2002. It was only the opposite side in domestic politics who had to pay price for one of the biggest political scandals since Finnish independence - state official Martti Manninen was fined for revealing a classified information, and Anneli Jaatteenmaki had to abandon her post as a premier minister, although later on she was cleaned of charges in court.

Command language of Finnish air forces has been English for years, and it is no doubt that professional soldiers are eager to get into "real action". NATO-membership, which according to poll by Suomen Gallup is supported by 23% of Finnish and opposed by 57%, is not the first, but the last and perhaps meaningless and thus unnecessary step to international integration of security policies.

I do not think biggest problems in Finland to be humanitarian, or even social, I think biggest problem is a cultural one - narrow mindness, naive believe that no global problems will ever reach small and distant Finland. But no matter all our efforts, chance of Finnish army to join a war for interests of global elites is today bigger than anytime after 1945. It is only up to us if we let this happen or not. So we must fight against developments, which turn conscientious objection into apolitical routine, we should never loose the global perspective from our sight. We should always look for new, more effective means to sabotage violent apparatus of the state. Always when army comes to cities to train for occupations, we should provide them authentic feeling of a guerilla resistance, supported by hostile civilian population. Every sentencing of a total objector, every arrest of a draft resister should be made an event, which judges, cops and army officials will never forget.

Long live anarchy!

13th of November 2005

Antti Rautiainen

 
This page can be viewed in
English Italiano Deutsch
© 2005-2024 Anarkismo.net. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Anarkismo.net. [ Disclaimer | Privacy ]