Posted with all the usual caveats.
PUBLICATION: Kingston Whig-Standard (ON)
DATE: 2008.02.06
SECTION: Front
PAGE: 1
BYLINE: Jennifer Pritchett Whig-Standard Staff Writer
PHOTO: Michael Lea/The Whig-Standard
ILLUSTRATION: Iraq war resister Chuck Wiley pauses to collect his thoughtsbefore speaking at Queen's University yesterday afternoon.
WORD COUNT: 702
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Soldier seeks refuge from war; Former U.S. navy officer fled country to avoid serving in Iraq
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Chuck Wiley crossed the border into Canada during a snowstorm last winter with little more than a car chock full of belongings and a hope he would one day become a Canuck.
The former U.S. navy chief petty officer and his wife now live in Canada with an uncertain future.
Wiley, 35, is one of an estimated 200 American soldiers who have moved to Canada after deserting their homeland to avoid serving in Iraq. Many have found refuge in Toronto, where they are members of an organization called the War Resisters Support Campaign, which is working to find a way to allow them to legally stay in Canada.
Yesterday, he spoke to students and faculty at Queen's University to drum up public support for a motion expected to go before the House of Commons that would allow war resisters and their families to seek asylum in Canada. The motion, from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, also calls for an immediate halt to deportation proceedings in these cases.
Wearing jeans and a black T-shirt emblazoned with "Say Yes to Soldiers Who Say No," Wiley told the crowd that he would like to see Canada become "a refuge for those who don't want to participate in an unjust war."
Currently, there are no known resisters living in Kingston. But that may soon change if federal politicians pass new legislation to permit war resisters to stay in Canada.
As a border city, Kingston could become a popular new home for American war resisters as it did during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s and 1970s, many of the 65,000 draft dodgers who came to Canada ended up in the Limestone City.
Wiley estimates that passing such a law could send roughly 5,000 former U.S. soldiers into Canada as a way of avoiding deployment to Iraq.
If the proposed law isn't passed and Wiley is deported, he could face jail time and other serious consequences in the U.S., including receiving a dishonourable discharge or a bad conduct discharge from the military that will impact his employment opportunities.
Wiley was aware the stakes were high when he decided to give up his life in the U.S. as a way of avoiding a deployment to Iraq.
Wiley sold off most of his belongings and his home in Norfolk, Va. He and his wife, who was also a member of the U.S. military, stuffed their clothes, computers and whatever else they could fit into their car before they drove across the border into Canada on Feb. 11, 2007.
They told the border guards they were going on a three-day camping trip in Canada. The guards never questioned their reasons for entering the country.
The Wileys have been trying to make a life for themselves in Canada ever since, but it has been a difficult transition.
Wiley also hasn't spoken to his family since he came to Canada and doesn't know when he'll be in touch with them.
"The last time I talked to my parents was the second week of February last year," he said. "They told me how wrong [deserting] was."
Wiley was born in Kentucky and comes from a family with a long line of military personnel. His family boasts it has had a relative in every war. He said it was a "foregone conclusion" that he would choose the military as a career as well.
"I wasn't an economic poverty draft," he said.
Until 2005, he said, he believed in the U.S. military and its mission in the Middle East.
"I believed in the mission ... I believed we were there to help the world," he said.
But it was during his deployment on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf that Wiley started to change his opinion about the war. He came home from the Middle East knowing he didn't want to go back. Eventually, he decided he had to leave the military before he was sent back to Iraq.
Wiley started to look for ways to get out. He was still too far away from retirement and saw no other option but to leave the U.S.
He researched English-speaking countries where he could seek refugee status without the risk of extradition.
He learned about the War Resisters Support Campaign and has never looked back.
Wiley, who has a job as a maintenance worker at a school, lives in Toronto with his wife, who works at a pet store. They live in a basement apartment.
They desperately hope they can stay in Canada.
To help the Wileys and others like them, the War Resisters Support Campaign is organizing a day of national action on Tuesday, when its members are encouraging Canadians to contact their local MP to express support for a program to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. The organization is also urging the Canadian public to sign petitions and to write letters to federal politicians to encourage them to support the motion when it comes before Parliament.
For more information on the War Resisters Support Campaign, go to www.resisters.ca
[email protected]
