US Marines deserter declares himself a conscientious objector

SAN FRANCISCO April 2 - A US Marine reservist who deserted his unit turned himself in and declared himself a conscientious objector Tuesday, officials said, becoming one of the first to do so since war erupted in Iraq.

Lance Corporal Stephen Funk, 20, who signed up for the Marines and went through boot camp last year, underwent expert marksman training before realising he did not want to join in the violence.

``I wasn't thinking about the violence ... how my beliefs against violence would be challenged,'' Funk told reporters before his surrender.

``I was just thinking of it as something to do as I passed by time to become a California resident, and to learn new things.''

He turned up at his Marine base in the California city of San Jose, south of San Francisco, to register as a conscientious objector, becoming one of the first members of the US armed forces to do so since war erupted last month.

``He turned himself in this morning around 10:00 am (1800 GMT),'' said Captain Patrick O'Rourke of the Marines' 1st Beach Terminal Operations, 4th Landing Support Battalion.

``This a common thing, it's nothing special,'' he said playing down the significance of Funk's action that came amid a blaze of publicity as US forces battled towards Baghdad.

Funk will be interviewed by a chaplain, a psychiatrist, and a Marine investigator before a panel decides whether he will be punished or not.

Funk's Marine reserve company received orders to deploy for possible war last month, prompting the soft-spoken youngster to decide he was not cut out for killing, the San Jose Mercury Herald said.

He was declared AWOL (absent without leave) after failing to turn up as ordered when his unit was shifted to the Camp Pendleton Marine base that lies nears the city of San Diego.

``I believe that it is impossible to achieve peace through violence,'' Funk said in a statement released by his lawyer Stephen Collier. ``I hope other soldiers will find the courage to follow their beliefs,'' he added.

Funk will not be detained or punished while waiting for his application to be processed and will simply have to turn up for duty until his petition for conscientious objector status until a decision is made, O'Rourke said.

More than one hundred military personnel were granted conscientious objector status during the first Gulf War that erupted in 1992.

While military officials said they did not expect to receive many applications from conscientious objectors, pacifist groups reported a rise in requests for information since Washington began mobilising for war with Iraq.

``Our call volume has doubled,'' Teresa Panepinto of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors told the Mercury Herald.

MEANWHILE, thousands of mostly Latin American soldiers fighting for the United States in Iraq will get more than just their pay: they will earn fast-track US citizenship, key to their ``American dream.''

Many of the nearly 15,000 military personnel of Latin American origin deployed in the Gulf area are US residents but not US citizens.

But thanks to a decree President George W. Bush signed in July, thousands of armed forces members on active-duty after September 11, 2001, as well as those who retired then or since then with honours, can apply for US citizenship immediately, Daniel Kane, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, told AFP.

Normally, a non-US citizen who obtains residency must wait five years before beginning the paperwork for US citizenship. And in the armed forces that wait had been cut to three years.

But since Bush signed his order, a soldier with US residency can request US citizenship starting his first day on active duty, instead of waiting three years, Kane explained.

According to Pentagon data, 31,044 resident non-citizens were on active duty in the armed forces in April. Just over two percent of the total, most of them Latin American-born servicemen, are in the Marines and Navy.

Between July 2002 and February 2003, 5,441 foreign-born members of the US military took up Bush on the offer granting fast-track US naturalization. Once US citizens, they can request residency, and later citizenship, for family members.

The INS did not offer a precise number of how many of those were from Latin American nations.

But the regional presence among US armed forces, just as in the rest of the US work force, is clear. Of the first US soldiers who died in combat, one was Guatemalan and two Mexican, and among the US prisioners of war in Iraq, one is Panamanian and the other a son of Mexican immigrants.

US armed forces allow foreigners into their ranks only when they hold US residency, which allows them to work legally in the United States.

When the war on Iraq began, the US embassy in Mexico received hundreds of calls from Mexicans who said they were willing to fight in Iraq in exchange for citizenship, and diplomats had to clear up the misunderstanding, stressing US residency was a prior requirement.

``It is absolutely false that the US Army and Navy are recruiting Mexican undocumented workers offering then US citizenship,'' the Mexican embassy here said in a statement March 10.

Many US military jobs, including work in such areas as electronics, intelligence, special forces and on war planes, require US citizenship. - Reuters