Spain (State of)

Pedro Oliver of KEM-MOC (the Basque CO Movement) evaluates the prison experience of insumisos as a political tool.

From the very beginning, in 1989, MOC and other anti-militarist groups have endeavoured to make their total resistance campaign ("Insumisión") its own best antidote against state repression.

As well as being Prisoners for Peace Day, 1 December is now World AIDS Awareness Day. Insumisión Rosa (Pink Resistance), the gay group in MOC-Madrid, hand out the following text:

Since objectors have been going to prison, we have denounced the treatment of people deprived of their liberty and of prison rules which block the flee circulation of syringes and condoms.

KEM-MOC Bilbao

Elias and Ramiro looked around as they entered the barracks on 5 November. How on earth had they, two anti-militarists, ended up here? "OK, it's tough to be a MOC activist, but standing In the ranks trying to look military as you figure out what the sergeant's barking means, that may be just too much!"

They are taking it with good humour, as If they're in a surrealistic story. They'll play soldiers for awhile before they finally report to -their" commander and announce that they are total resisters and therefore refuse to obey orders and to perform military service.

CCPR/C/79/Add.61
3 April 1996

(...)

15. Finally, the Committee is greatly concerned to hear that individuals cannot claim the status of conscientious objectors once they have entered the armed forces, since that does not seem to be consistent with the requirements of article 18 of the Covenant as pointed out in general comment No. 22 (48).

(...)

By RAFAEL SAINZ DE ROZAS

--This year will be the last. Starting next year, the Prisoners for Peace Honour Roll will not include those hundreds of Spanish names which, since 1989, have reminded us of the total resisters in jail. As laid down in the new penal code-approved on 8 November-after next May no one will be sent to prison for insumisión (total resistance to military and alternative service) in the state of Spain.

Insumision: a question of state

In 1971, Pepe Beunza made history as the first modern Spanish conscientious objector; today he visits prisons to support young objectors who refuse the alternative service which Pepe demanded. With more objectors than conscripts in parts of the state, and with alternative service in administrative chaos, is the Spanish model of massive disobedience to conscription now on the verge of success?

I am Javier Roncero, member of the youth organisation Juventud Obrera Cristiana de Espana (JOC-E; Christian Worker Youth). Through a learning process, both in the family and with this group, we have taken on responsibilities for social change, thinking and taking action according to an alternative vision of society, with more solidarity, more fairness, and in peace.

My refusal to perform military service comes out of this belief. The state's response to this political problem is one of repression-imprisonment for between one year and two years, four months, and a day (as is my sentence).