Bankrupt Tax Resister Refuses To Cooperate

This is a letter written to the Official Receivers Office Insolvency and
Trustee Service Australia, on 18 December 1991.

I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 5 December 1991 advising that I
have been declared bankrupt by the Federal Court of Australia and informing
me of my rights and obligations under the Bankruptcy Act.

The reason that I have been declared bankrupt is because I have a
conscientious objection to paying taxes to finance the Australian
government's military spending and complicity in the nuclear arms race. 
Therefore, I have refused to pay war taxes since 1983.  Instead, I have paid
the money to groups - such as Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth
- which conduct work in accord with my conscience.  There are three grounds
for my conscientious objection to paying military taxes.

The intellectual basis of this objection is the result of more than ten years
of peace research during which time I have specialised in the study of
conflict theory, strategic theory and nonviolence theory.  This research has
given me a clear understanding of the nature of conflict in the international
system.  It has made me realise that the popular notion that war is a
conflict between nation-states is a misconception; war is the direct result
of national elites using military violence to defend elite power, corporate
profit and personal privilege.  For that reason, spending on weapons and
warfare - which now exceeds $2 billion each day - only benefits powerful
vested interests; it does not address the security needs of ordinary people. 
Moreover, it adversely affects the possibilities for dealing creatively with
conflict in the international system.

This spending is a main reason for the death through hunger- related diseases
of 40,000 people in Africa, Asia and Latin America each day, the destruction
of twenty square kilometres of the global rainforest heritage each day, the
storage of twenty tons of nuclear waste each day and the extinction of 50-100
species of life on Earth each day.  In addition, but less conspicuously, the
patriarchal culture which drives militarism denies basic human rights to
women, indigenous peoples, the elderly, children, the disabled and those who
are homeless and in poverty.

The second element of my conscientious objection to military spending is the
result of my personal experience.  This experience includes spending three
months working - as part of a Community Aid Abroad refugee health team - in
the Shagarab East 2 refugee camp in the Sudan at the height of the Ethiopian
war and famine in 1985.  In this camp of 20,000 people, at least five people
died every day from hunger-related diseases.  This experience reinforced my
conviction that it is a gross injustice to spend money on the military when
many of the world's people do not have the resources to stay alive.

My personal experience also includes spending one month in Iraq as a member
of the Gulf Peace Team before and after the outbreak of the Gulf War in
January 1991.  For two weeks, including four nights in Baghdad during the
bombing, I witnessed the incredible human suffering and ecological damage
wrought by weapons paid for with military taxes.  Despite claims to the
contrary, it is clear to me that you cannot resolve conflict by killing
people.

The third element of my conscientious objection reflects my commitment to
nonviolence as a way of life.  It is my deeply held conviction that all life
is sacred; I believe in the unity of all that lives.  To kill another living
being, or to pay through my taxes to do so, is to kill a part of myself and
to destroy a part of the magic of the universe. I will not do it.

My whole life is devoted to constructive work designed to realise a
nonviolent world.  This includes a commitment to build a global network of
nonviolent communities and to struggle relentlessly for peace, social
justice, development and ecological harmony.

It also includes a commitment to resolve conflict nonviolently.  In all of
the campaigns in which I am actively involved, including the Koori
pay-the-rent scheme, the Melbourne Rainforest Action Group and the war tax
resistance campaign, there is an explicit commitment to nonviolence.

In summary, it is clear to me that human civilisation is in crisis and that
the planet Earth itself is under siege.  It is also clear to me that I have a
responsibility to do all that I can to stop the military machine that
threatens to destroy us all.

I do not want to kill anyone, nor do I want to pay anyone else to kill people
for me.  Military taxes violate my commitment to nonviolence, as well as
every standard by which human decency and morality can be measured.  I will
never pay taxes for war.

As a result of my commitment and after thoughtful deliberation, I must inform
you that my conscience will not allow me to comply with any directives of the
Federal Court or the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy which will facilitate the
use of my taxes for the purposes of killing.  For that reason I will not
complete the statutory document requiring a statement of my affairs.
In peace,
Robert J. Burrowes