U.S. Deserters Will Find No Swedish Haven
American deserters from a Persian Gulf war will not be given asylum in neutral Sweden, unlike deserters from the Vietnam War a generation ago, the Foreign Ministry said today.
Sweden rejected a request by the German Greens party to accept U.S. soldiers now in Germany who wish to desert and it will not accept deserters from a U.N.-sanctioned war in the gulf, spokeswoman Birgitta Ahlen said.
“It will be politically impossible to grant asylum.”
German peace groups said today that at least 24 American soldiers are ready to flee if they are ordered to the Persian Gulf, and a Greens Party spokesman said his group is trying to arrange asylum in Sweden or Yugoslavia.
Although there would be no domestic legal restrictions against granting asylum for American gulf deserters, such actions could not be defended internationally, Ahlen said.
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