Over 100 soldiers, and soldiers' families packed a meeting in Bury last Saturday 14th November to launch the 'Bring Danny Home Campaign'. Most signed the Stop the War petitions calling for troops back from Afghanistan, and to Free Joe Glenton, the soldier currently in prison for opposing the Afghan war.
Next Sunday, proceedings will start in Iraq that could lead to the ex-soldier from Manchester, Danny Fitzimmons, being hung in the very chamber that Saddam Hussein was hung. He faces a murder trial after shooting dead two co-workers in Iraq.
'We must not let it happen that his family have to watch their son's hanging on YouTube', Clive Stafford Smith, from anti-death penalty charity Reprieve told the meeting.
Danny's stepmother, Liz Fitzsimons, told the public meeting: "We don't believe he'll get a fair trial out there in Iraq, so we want him brought back here."
Sue Glenton, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton's mother, spoke in support of the campaign.
'My son is now a prisoner because he spoke against the Afghan war. He is in Colchester Glass House, the military prison. I am here on behalf of my son.
'Well, they have gagged Joe, but they can't gag me! They can't gag his wife!
'We will keep talking until Joe comes out and can talk for himself. I bring the message from Joe that he supports Danny's campaign.'
Clive Stafford Smith, who has campaigned to prevent many people facing execution on death row in the USA, is taking up Danny's case.
'Official records describe some of the experiences of war which led Danny to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: from uncovering mass graves in Kosovo to watching his friend burn to death in the truck in front of him in Iraq. He ended up using alcohol and drugs to mask the mental pain'
'In war, some people lose their lives, others lose their minds',
Smith delivered a powerpoint presentation which focussed on the fact the Danny Fitzsimons had been diagnosed with PTSD in in May 2008. Armourgroup had not screened Danny properly for PTSD before hiring him. He also referred to the enormous profits (9.5 billion in 2008--an increase of 22%) made by G4S (Amourgroup is a subsidiary of G4S)--out of war and the company's initial disgraceful reluctance to pay anything towards the costs of Danny's trial. Danny's murder trial has estimated costs of $1.8 million. Smith said that if he has anything to do with Danny's trial, it will be trial of ArmourGroup.
Case worker and solicitor, John Tipple, informed the meeting that extracting any money from G4S had entailed an enormous "battle" by the family. The multimational only eventually coughed up $75.000 (a fraction of what is needed) towards costs when Danny's step-mum threatened to expose them via the media. The company obviously panicked at this prospect and suddenly and mysteriously all the excuses about "regulations" preventing payment evaporated overnight. He went on to say that Danny is a victim, a product, of the war and just a pawn in the game being played out in Iraq by the multinationals--the people who should be on trial are ArmourGroup and the politicains who voted for the war. Both Smith and Tipple received enthusiastic applause
Mick Stott from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder charity Talking2Minds, which trains veterans of war to treat and counsel other veterans suffering from PTSD, was also a speaker at the meeting. A retired army captain turned therapist, he had served in the army for 28 years as a training analyst. He spoke about the very diverse symptoms that can occur as a result of PTSD because each individual is unique. He said that in his opinion Danny's symptoms were the result of PTSD. He read out some statistics about the number of veterans in civilian jails (12%) or on probation (10%). The founder of Talking2Minds, Rob Paxman, who was also on the platform, said that neither the armed forces nor the NHS had developed satisfactory psychiatric therapies for PTSD. The therapies that they were using had been developed in the 1920s and were now completely outdated because not enough resources had been put into research and development. Talking2Minds had been established to fill the gap and had developed therapies which had a successsful track record of treating PTSD.
The armed forces and the government denied the existence of Shell Shock in World War 1--callously and cynically accusing sufferers of "cowardice". For years, they also denied the existence of Gulf War Syndrome after the first Gulf War. PTSD, as it is now known, is still not taken seriously enough by the armed forces, the government and especially the private security contractors like G4S which simply do not want to know about it--they simply wash their hands of it and do nothing or as little as they can get away with in terms of paying for treatment and legal costs.
ArmourGroup, the British Company that took £25 million to guard Baghdad Airport, employed Danny without making proper checks on his health. In Britain, a door man working in a club is subject to more checks than people recruited and given guns to work in the private armies which supply half the 'forces' in Iraq.
The first stage of the campaign 'will put ArmourGroup on trial'. Campaigners have plans to picket an office of ArmourGroup, or the parent company Group Four.
One mother, whose husband is a professional soldier with a son serving in Afghanistan and a daughter preparing to go out there, caught the emotional mood of the meeting when she said, 'I appeal to everybody to support this campaign. It could be my Sam or my Georgia, it could be your Kevin, or your Sally who gets this PTSD'. Sue Glenton explained that, 'as a mother I realise that if Joe had not walked away from the war when he did, then it could have been Joe sat in that cell in Baghdad facing the death penalty.'
Danny sent a message to the meeting through his lawyer John Tipple.
'I am in a very dark place. I know that I have done bad things, I am not proud of them. I have seen the state of Baghdad. In the Army I helped create that mess. I want people to know that I admire the Iraqi people. I am with them in the cell in prison. They have shown me friendship. They have helped feed me.'
Case worker John Tipple, who provide legal representation for both Joe Glenton and and for Danny Fitsimmons said, 'when my grandad was in the trenches if you got shell shock and could not mentally face going over the top it was a bullet in the back waiting for you. Well it's a rope waiting for Danny and we are not going to let them use it'.
Tipple also stated that at the present time there are no less than 1,700 British soldiers AWOL and that they were being picked up at a rate of 5 a day and put in the glasshouse. The army and media have kept that quiet. How many of them are suffering from undiagnosed PTSD?
Comprehensive video of this event is available here.
Update. 2 Dec 2009
Michael Fitsimons Speaks at Manchester Meeting to Free Joe Glenton
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Manchester Town Hall. 28th November 2009. Michael Fitzsimons, brother of Danny Fitzsimons, speaks at a public meeting to free Afghan war refusenik Lance Corporal Joe Glenton. As well as expressing his support for Joe, he also said how touched he had been by the support which Joe's mother, Sue Glenton, had given to his own family's campaign on behalf of his brother. He also said that he never thought about the Stop the War Coalition until this tragedy had happened, but after talking to Joe Glenton (before he was arrested) he had come to see the campaign more positively.
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