990621 Statement

Hungarian League Against Conscription and
Italian Committee against Compulsory Military and Civil Service ("Né giusta né utile - Comitato per l'abolizione della leva obbligatoria militare e
civileť) call the international community to protect the men who avoided compulsary military service in the latest Kosovo crisis. Every deserter should have the
right to return without punishment. If the international community could not guarantee this, every deserter should get asylum in other countries.
The Kosovo war demonstrated that conscription

- is a tool of oppression,
- is a source of nationalistic, chauvinistic sentiments,
- threatens peace,
- especially threatens minorities,
- forces innocent men to participate in barbaric actions.
- continuously and seriously violates human
rights.
Many young men has left Yugoslavia in
the last decade in order to avoid onscription. This process means a serious danger to some national communities, among them, to the Hungarian
minority in Vojvodina which has lost 50000 people in the last decade.
The satisfactory long-term solution for these problems is the abolition of conscription.

Henrik Farkas and Valentina Piattelli