<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/06/24/1651292-cp.html">http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/06/24/1651292-cp.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="up"> </a>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="463">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="323">
<div id="headline"><b>Draft dodgers to be feted at B.C. reunion</b><br>
</div>
<div id="smtext"><font color="#999999"><b>By GREG JOYCE</b></font><br>
</div>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="48"><a href="javascript:sendit();"
onmouseover="movepic('button1','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/email_on.gif')"
onmouseout="movepic('button1','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/email_off.gif')"><img
src="cid:part1.08020100.01090706@r2rconnect.net" name="button1"
border="0" height="46" width="48"></a></td>
<td valign="top" width="43"><a
href="http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/06/24/pf-1651292.html"
onmouseover="movepic('button2','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/print_on.gif')"
onmouseout="movepic('button2','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/print_off.gif')"><img
src="cid:part2.09030607.05010600@r2rconnect.net" name="button2"
border="0" height="46" width="43"></a></td>
<td valign="top" width="44"><a
href="http://rapids.canoe.ca/cgi-bin/reg/NR-cust_service.pl?MODE=CUSTOMER_SERVICE&LOOK=CNEWS"
onmouseover="movepic('button3','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/write_on.gif')"
onmouseout="movepic('button3','http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSImages2003/write_off.gif')"><img
src="cid:part3.04000200.07080906@r2rconnect.net" name="button3"
border="0" height="46" width="44"></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<img src="cid:part4.05090508.09080209@r2rconnect.net" height="1"
width="463"><br>
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="1" width="125">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="8"><img
src="cid:part4.05090508.09080209@r2rconnect.net" height="1" width="8"></td>
<td>
<div id="medtext"><br>
<!-- AdSpace site=canoe.ca&VChannel=cnews&SubChannel=canada&position=bigbox&HChannel=news -->
<script language="JavaScript1.1"
src="http://ads5.canoe.ca/js.ng/site=canoe.ca&VChannel=cnews&SubChannel=canada&position=bigbox&HChannel=news">
</script>
<script
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingScript/ebBannerServing_123827.js"></script>
<script
src="http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/AdServerPipe.asp?param=%3CType%3ACommand%3BCode%3A14%3BobjRef%3AgEbCurBanner%3BFlightID%3A123827%3BPluID%3A0%3BPage%3Acnews.canoe.ca%3BWebPageSource%3A0%3B%3E%3CType%3APlugin%3BAudioVersion%3A0%3BFlashVersion%3A8%3BPlatform%3A8%3BBrowser%3A512%3BWMPVersion%3A0%3BResolution%3A2%3B%3E&ord=126942859368707971151411799890&CSVersion=5.6&OptOut=0"></script>
<script
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingCachedScripts/ebBannerMain_611_3.js"></script>
<embed
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingCachedScripts//Res/Empty_Movie.swf"
play="false" id="ebReportingFlash" name="ebReportingFlash"
quality="high" wmode="window" allowscriptaccess="always" menu="false"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"
style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; position: absolute; width: 0px; height: 0px;">
<script
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingCachedScripts/BTemplates_611_2/Banner.js"></script>
<script
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-1884/Type-11/221789_B8E56DE8-BBCB-470A-AA57-555E3D0BC5DB.js"></script>
<div id="ebBannerDiv_0_126942859368707971151411799890"
style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: visible; display: inline;">
<embed
style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; width: 300px; height: 250px;"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"
allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
menu="false" wmode="opaque" play="true"
src="http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-1884/Type-2/4C8C5ACC-AD3C-4008-A51D-B57AF675FEA9.swf?ebDomain=cnews.canoe.ca&ebDCPipe=http://datacapture.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BurstingDataCapturePipe.asp&ebAdID=221789&ebMovie1=http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-1884/Type-2/B92F2183-D869-484B-9B05-2E3845AD6A51.swf&cp=http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingCachedScripts//Res/ebV54_&ebIntTime=http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingCachedScripts//Res/ebInteractionTimeV55.swf&ebResourcePath=http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/&ebCampaignID=26285&ebStreamingPrefix=http%3A//ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/FLVStreamXML/&ebStreamingSuffix=.xml&ebStreamingAppURL=rtmp%3A//cp16207.edgefcs.net/ondemand&ebStreamVirtualPath=Res/Site-1884/&ebAdIdentifier=gEbBanners%5B0%5D.displayUnit&clickTag=http%3A//bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BannerRedirect.asp%3FPage%3D%22cnews.canoe.ca%22%26PluID%3D0%26Pos%3D126942859368707971151411799890%26
EyeblasterID%3D221789&clickTAG=http%3A//bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BannerRedirect.asp%3FPage%3D%22cnews.canoe.ca%22%26PluID%3D0%26Pos%3D126942859368707971151411799890%26EyeblasterID%3D221789&ebLC=gEbBanners%5B0%5D.displayUnit_ebBannerFlash"
name="ebBannerFlash_0_126942859368707971151411799890"
id="ebBannerFlash_0_126942859368707971151411799890"></div>
<noscript>
<a
href='http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BannerRedirect.asp?FlightID=123827&Page=&PluID=0&Pos=2547'
target='_blank'><img
src='http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BannerSource.asp?FlightID=123827&Page=&PluID=0&Pos=2547'
border=0 width=300 height=250'></a>
</noscript>
<img src="cid:part6.03020702.09030808@r2rconnect.net" border="0"
height="1" width="1"><!-- /AdSpace --></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>VANCOUVER (CP) - The final lines of The New Colossus, by 19th
century American poet Emma Lazarus, are synonymous with seeking a
better life in a new country.
</p>
<p>The poem adorns a plaque at the Statue of Liberty in New York City's
harbour, a welcome for immigrants arriving in the United States looking
for a new life:
</p>
<p>
Give me your tired, your poor, </p>
<p>
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, </p>
<p>
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
</p>
<p>
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: </p>
<p>
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
</p>
<p>In the late 1960s and early '70s, thousands of Americans - not
necessarily tired, poor or wretched, but many tempest-tossed - left
their country and came to Canada to avoid the military draft and the
Vietnam War.
</p>
<p>Early next month, those draft resisters, or draft dodgers, will be
honoured at a reunion in Castlegar, B.C., about 600 kilometres east of
Vancouver.
</p>
<p>
The four-day event also will honour Canadians who assisted the draft
dodgers.
</p>
<p>Organizers of the The Our Way Home Peace Event and Reunion, July
6-9, want to bring draft dodgers together to talk about their
experiences and acknowledge their contributions.
</p>
<p>"The immigrant group that came from the U.S. during the Vietnam War
is the largest outward migration from the U.S.," organizer Isaac Romano
said in a recent interview from Nelson, B.C.
</p>
<p>"Their contribution over the last 35 years to the fields of
medicine, education, the sciences, and all areas, has been very
important to Canadian life."
</p>
<p>Planning for the event has been underway for two years and ran into
controversy early over the organizers' desire to erect a large
sculpture to honour the resisters' legacy.
</p>
<p>The Welcoming Peace sculpture created an international kerfuffle two
years ago and has since been shuffled between municipalities who found
it too controversial. It's home now is in a private gallery in Nelson.
</p>
<p>
The statue depicts a Canadian welcoming with open arms two Americans.
</p>
<p>"An opportunity to honour this immigrant group that chose a path of
coming to Canada, as opposed to going off to a distant land to kill
people and perhaps get killed themselves, is really a model at a time
when we want to look for non-violent solutions to conflicts in the
world," said Romano.
</p>
<p>
Most events take place at the Brilliant Cultural Centre in Castlegar,
where the local Doukhobors meet for community events.
</p>
<p>
It's fitting that many of the reunion events are there, said Romano.
</p>
<p>
Thousands of Doukhobors came to Canada from Russia at the end of the
19th century.
</p>
<p>
They were pacifists who rejected the institutions of militarism and
wars.
</p>
<p>Former U.S. senator George McGovern, the Democratic presidential
candidate in 1972 who lost to Richard Nixon, is keynote speaker.
</p>
<p>"I'll talk about the lessons of the Vietnam tragedy and why I'm
pleased that some Americans stood up against it, including myself,"
McGovern said in a telephone interview from his home in Mitchell, S.D.
</p>
<p>
"They were as patriotic as any of the young men who went to the war."
</p>
<p>McGovern, 83, is part of a long list of well-known peace activists
attending, including Tom Hayden, a student leader in the 1960s, a civil
rights activist and former California senator.
</p>
<p>
Arun Ghandi, the grandson of Mahatma Ghandi, will speak on non-violence
and the path of war resistance.
</p>
<p>McGovern said Americans who fought in Vietnam "deserve our respect
for doing what they believed in but we also need to pay our respects to
those who stood up on grounds of conscience against the war."
</p>
<p>War resisters and veterans will come together on the event's opening
day, participating in a workshop called Healing the Effects of War
Together.
</p>
<p>
Similarities and differences between Vietnam and the current conflict
in Iraq will form part of the event.
</p>
<p>"We're now seeing a time in history when Canadians are called again
to assist Americans being called to go off to a distant land to kill in
Iraq," said McGovern, whose mother was Canadian and who lived in
Calgary for a few years as a young child. </p>
<p>
Some panel presentations will include American deserters from the war
in Iraq and their lawyers, said Romano.
</p>
<p>
McGovern agrees there are parallels.
</p>
<p>
"In each case, we were misled by our government into getting involved.
In each case we went into countries that were no threat to us and had
done nothing against us."
</p>
<p>Americans were "propelled" into the Iraq conflict because of the
"emotionalism" stemming from the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., he
said.
</p>
<p>The U.S. administration led Americans to believe that the attack in
the U.S. was related to Saddam Hussein and his government, said
McGovern.
</p>
<p>
"Saddam Hussein is a big enough s.o.b. without blaming him for
something he had nothing to do with," said McGovern.
</p>
<p>Bob Lerch, who left the U.S. in the early 1970s just before he was
to be drafted and now lives in the reunion's area, said participants
should celebrate "the positive aspects of those people who chose not to
go into war."
</p>
<p>"Some people think war is the answer and I don't think war is the
answer. War leads to more war," said Lerch, who now operates an auto
repair shop called Organic Mechanix in the tiny community of Crescent
Valley.
</p>
<p>
He moved from New York City and has had no regrets.
</p>
<p>
"This is the best country in the world."
</p>
<p>
It's not clear whether the reunion will attract protesters opposed to
honouring draft resisters the way the statue did.
</p>
<p>
Some offended veterans got a sympathetic ear from the U.S. ambassador
to Canada at the time, Paul Cellucci.
</p>
<p>
The City of Nelson initially supported the statue and reunion but
withdrew its support in the face of the controversy.
</p>
<p>In May, reunion organizers announced the statue would be placed in
the Doukhobor Village Museum in Castlegar, a half-hour drive from
Nelson, but that city subsequently rejected the plan.
</p>
<p>
The bronze statue finally found a home in the art gallery of Nelson
artist Ernest Hekkanen.
</p>
</body>
</html>