Support for Tahan Jones grows as court martial nears
1992Jeff Mackler 1992-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 7 →
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As the Feb. 24 court-martial trial of Marine Corps Gulf War resister Corporal Tahan Jones approaches, public support for this courageous antiwar fighter has escalated.
Amnesty International has declared Jones to be a prisoner of conscience, thereby increasing the pressure on the Marine Corps to retreat from its threat to impose a maximum penalty of seven years incarceration.
Jones is charged with desertion to avoid hazardous duty and missing a troop movement, charges which have brought Gulf War resisters stationed in Germany a jail sentence of five years and U.S. resisters sentences of up to two and one-half years in the brig.
Roger Sheppard of the New England Defense Committee for Tahan Jones and Erik Larsen reports statements of support from several individuals prominent in public life.
Boston University Professor Howard Zinn, for example, writing on behalf of Jones, Erik Larsen, and all other Gulf War resisters observes: "All of these military resisters to war are part of a long historic tradition from the American colonists who refused to fight in the British king's war, to those soldiers who refused to fight in the Mexican War, to the Black GIs who identified with the Filipino rebels who fought against American occupation at the turn of the century, to the conscientious objectors of both world wars, and the great Gl movement against the Vietnam War."
In a similar vein, author Kurt Vonnegut's solidarity statement reads: "No liberty-loving American patriot-and especially one who has served as a front-line soldier in a war for the survival of all that is decent and humane-can celebrate or even tolerate the severe punishment of two of our citizens, whether in uniform or not, for declining to behave like unreasoning conscienceless robots when there is not one iota of a national emergency to justify their behaving otherwise."
"Those who refused to participate in this shameful atrocity, rejecting the use of violence on principled grounds," writes Noam Chomsky, "deserve our firm support and our gratitude for showing that human values still remain alive."
Meanwhile, Marine Corps authorities, consistent with the contempt demonstrated for the legal rights of all GI resisters previously herded into Camp Lejeune, N.C., for kangaroo court martials, have ignored virtually every pre-trial motion brought by Jones. Defense attorney John Murcko told Socialist Action that all 15 witnesses requested by Jones to present evidence on his behalf—with the single exception of his mother, Mini'mah Mustafa have been denied.
Jones's application for conscientiousobjector status was similarly denied despite the favorable recommendation of Marine Corps chaplain H. L. Kibble.
An African American reservist from Oakland, Calif., Jones was among the most outspoken opponents of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, often pointing to the racist nature of the war and its disproportionate negative effects on the Black community.
Letters and calls demanding that all charges against Jones be dropped should be addressed to: Commanding General C. L. Vermilyea, 4th MAW, FMF, USMCR, 4400 Dauphine Street, New Orleans, LA 70146. Telephone: (504) 948-1210.
Support for Jones is being organized nationally by the Tahan Jones/Erik Larsen Defense Committee, 1678 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Phone: (510) 6551201. Contributions are urgently requested.