LEGAL UPDATE
There are 52 people in jail. 5 have asked that no one post bond for them. 1 person is refusing to provide identification. Everyone is being required to post $1,000 bond before being released after being arraigned for the charge of trespassing on federal property.
1 person was arrested on Sunday by Columbus City police for refusing to particpate in the unconstitutional police search that the city of Columbus forced people to undergo as a condition for their participation in the public demonstration. He was released on a $250 bond. Late last week, SOA Watch and the ACLU filed an emergency brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to get them to rule on the appeal from the 2002 mass-searches, and to prevent the police from searching today. There has been no response from the Court.
On Saturday, November 22, 11 people were arrested and put in Muscogee County Jail for accidentally driving on to the base which is accessed by a public highway. On Monday, the passengers were released but drivers are still being held in jail on a $1,000 bond. Some of the people who are currently in jail were also arrested on Sunday for accidentally driving on to the base, but it is unclear how many at this point, possibly 3 or 4.
SOA Watch will continue to post updates on the web site. http://www.soaw.org
Nuns, Priests, Veterans & Students Arrested on the Military Base after Commiting Civil Disobedience to Close School of Americas
Columbus, GA - Over ten thousand people gathered this weekend outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia in the most diverse demonstration yet of opposition to the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC), a combat-training school for Latin American soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared", massacred, and forced into refuge by SOA graduates.
The gathering culminated today with a solemn "funeral" procession. More than 30 people had been arrested after entering the base in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. They took this action despite knowing they likely face 3-6 months in federal prison. They are being held at the Muscogee County Jail in Columbus. Since protests against SOA/WHISC began over ten years ago, 210 people have served or are now serving sentences of prison and probation for civil disobedience. SOA Watch activist have collectively served more than 75 years in federal prisons across the country.
"Prison will not deter us," said Kathy Kelly, who was among those arrested today. "We intend to close this school and to change the foreign policy that this school represents." Kelly works with and helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a grassroots organization that campaigns to end economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people.
Yesterday the U.S. Military blasted music at high decibels from inside Ft. Benning, directed at the peaceful, permitted demonstration outside of the gates of the base. The music stopped late yesterday afternoon. Throughout the weekend Columbus Police used metal detectors to search every person attending the demonstration.
"We will not allow these blatantly unconstitutional attempts to drown out our voices," said Bill Quigley, a professor of law at Loyola Law School, and lawyer for SOA Watch. "These childish actions by the federal, state and local government only strengthen our resolve to stand up for our rights and all the victims of the School of the Americas."
The Columbus convergence concludes a week of resistance to empire and corporate globalization. Thousands gathered in Miami to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and 100,000 gathered in London-during Bush's visit-to protest the invasion and occupation of Iraq. SOA Watch organizers have been coordinating with organizers in Miami, and working in solidarity with organizers in England. The three mobilizations released a joint statement of solidarity (see http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=689 ).
"Our struggles are interconnected," said Fr. Roy Bourgeouis, founder of SOA Watch. "From the SOA, to FTAA, to the invasion of Iraq, our government's foreign policy is serving the interests of a few, and making us a lot of enemies."
School of the Americas Watch: http://www.soaw.org
The Atlanta Independent Media Center covered the annual School of the Americas/WHISC protests and civil disobedience live from just outside the main gates of Fort Benning. For independent media coverage and live audio broadcasting from Columbus visit: http://www.atlanta.indymedia.org
Please also see:
SOAW and WHISC to Meet, This Weekend;
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1203&blz=1
UPDATE from Jonah House
Dear friends,
We trust that, like us, many of you have been watching events in both Miami, FL and Columbus, GA and wondering what has happened in this country in so short a time. We were in a privileged position to have people close to us at both sites and to have their reports first hand; we’ve also attended to the internet reports and to Democracy Now. What a different picture we get from the Corporate Press.
In George, more than 10,000 gathered for the annual remembrance of the massacres of the 5 Jesuits and 2 women at the University of Central America. They were subject to a lot of abuse from the military (and the police). The base blared marshal music to drown out the SOA speakers; the legal team was able to put a stop to that after some time.
There were some 51 arrests – far fewer than in recent years but we understand that each of the persons that faced arrest did so with full understanding that he or she was looking squarely at 3 or 6 months in jail or prison. They are courageous people; we can only be grateful to them.
Among those arrested was Gary Ashbeck from Jonah House. He prepared for the action with a number of other people and he and two of them – Ben Jimenez, S.J. and Mike O’Grady, S.J. – are refusing to post bail and thus remaining in the local jail awaiting trial and sentencing.
Earlier today we learned from the SOA legal team that bail was set at $1,000 for most of the 51 who were arrested going into the SOA. All but the three named above intend to pay the bond. They are being held at the Muscogee County Jail; they may remain there until trial (and even beyond) or they may be moved. We will try to keep you au courant. Their address is:
Name, no number needed
Muscogee Co. Jail
700 10th St
Columbus, Georgia, 31901
Send only letters; the jail accepts nothing else.
What follows is the statement Gary, Ben and Mike prepared along with the other signers of the statement: they were also arrested but will fact trial and sentencing at a later date – as yet undisclosed:
"IS THE CAUSE WORTH A PRECIOUS SOLDIER´S LIFE?"
STATEMENT ON PARTICIPATING IN THE PROTEST AGAINST THE SOA-WHISC
November 22, 2003
There are many and varied reasons for opposing the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC, fomerly the School of the Americas -- SOA).
We are here today to repudiate the U.S. Army´s practice in the past of using torture manuals in the training of Latin American soldiers.
We are here today to reject the School of the Americas´ record of training dictators, torturers, and other human-rights violators. Some of its graduates participated in the brutal assassination of the six Jesuit priests and the two women in San Salvador in 1989. These martyrs are present with us here in Columbus, Ga., this weekend as we revere and honor in our Mass and procession a very significant relic of them -- some of the blood which they shed for the people of El Salvador, which was collected from the garden where they had been slain.
In another case, Father James Carney, who had been in basic training at Ft. Benning before serving in Europe during World War II in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, disappeared in Honduras in 1983; some of the Honduran troops alleged to have been involved in his torture and disappearance were products of the SOA.
But we are not concerned only about past atrocities. And our concern goes beyond the question of whether a few human-rights units are included in the institute´s curriculum. Indeed, when Father Joseph Mulligan visited the SOA in 1990, some instructors told him that some mention was being made of the notion of human rights but that the trainees did not take it seriously, throwing in the teachers´ faces the facts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other U.S. atrocities.
One of our main reasons for demanding that the U.S. government close SOA-WHISC has to do with the recruitment of Latin American troops into the military strategies and operations of the U.S. government. SOA-WHISC is a symbol and instrument of this, as its very name indicates. Other countries of the hemisphere have been pressured into sending token forces (about two hundred from each of several nations) to cooperate in a military occupation which the Bush administration has defined as necessary for U.S. security. Do the people of Latin America need to participate in this kind of "security cooperation"?
Troops from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic have joined U.S. soldiers in Iraq, which we find very sad and ironic. It is especially ironic in the case of Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, since those countries were occupied by the U.S. military in the early 20th century.
Another reason for closing SOA-WHISC has to do with the nature and purpose of the Latin American military forces. They do not exist primarily to defend one nation against another, but rather to protect an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources within each country against movements of social and political change. By training and equipping the armed forces of Latin America, the U.S. military is strengthening the hand of the privileged elites in their efforts to repress unions, farmers, students, and others struggling for justice. The most needed priority for Latin America is not further militarization.
As Christians we hope and struggle for a world of justice and peace:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.... Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5).
Of course, this year the demonstration against SOA-WHISC is an occasion to express opposition to the invasion and the current occupation of Iraq as well as the growing militarism of the U.S.
We grieve for the U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, and our hearts go out to their loved ones. We are also profoundly saddened by the far greater number of Iraqi deaths resulting from the U.S. invasion and military occupation. And we are deeply concerned about the troops from Latin American countries and from other nations who are in Iraq.
We support these troops, but we want to do more than pray for them and send condolences to their families when they die. And so we say: bring them home, save their lives.
They are seen by many as foreign invaders in Iraq, and the Iraqi militants consider themselves patriotic freedom-fighters struggling against the occupiers. Our forces will be killing more and more innocent civilians in their pursuit of the guerrilla combatants.
To the U.S. and Latin American soldiers in training at Ft. Bennett, Ft.Bragg, and other military installations, we say: please reflect seriously on the reasons which have been given for the war in Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction? Ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda terrorists? Or does it have more to do with oil and other natural resources in the Middle East, and lucrative construction contracts for well-connected U.S. corporations, and privatizing the Iraqi economy for American companies?
Do you want to risk your life, and risk leaving your family without you, and kill Iraqi militants and civilians for such purposes of the Bush administration? If not, please consider applying for conscientious objector status.
Vernon Baker, who received the Medal of Honor for his bravery as a 2nd Lt. in World War II, has said: "Before we fight a war, we have to ask ourselves a basic question: Is the cause worth a precious soldier´s life? Each of our soldiers has loved ones, and if you can´t answer the question `yes,´ then don´t fight the war" (Chicago Tribune, Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2003).
Let us all follow our conscience, being faithful to the truth as we see it. As Jesus said: "if you live according to my teaching, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-31).
Gary Ashbeck
Father Benjamin Jimenez, S.J.
Kathy Kelly
Father Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.
Brother Mike O´Grady, S.J.
There are 52 people in jail. 5 have asked that no one post bond for them. 1 person is refusing to provide identification. Everyone is being required to post $1,000 bond before being released after being arraigned for the charge of trespassing on federal property.
1 person was arrested on Sunday by Columbus City police for refusing to particpate in the unconstitutional police search that the city of Columbus forced people to undergo as a condition for their participation in the public demonstration. He was released on a $250 bond. Late last week, SOA Watch and the ACLU filed an emergency brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to get them to rule on the appeal from the 2002 mass-searches, and to prevent the police from searching today. There has been no response from the Court.
On Saturday, November 22, 11 people were arrested and put in Muscogee County Jail for accidentally driving on to the base which is accessed by a public highway. On Monday, the passengers were released but drivers are still being held in jail on a $1,000 bond. Some of the people who are currently in jail were also arrested on Sunday for accidentally driving on to the base, but it is unclear how many at this point, possibly 3 or 4.
SOA Watch will continue to post updates on the web site. http://www.soaw.org
Nuns, Priests, Veterans & Students Arrested on the Military Base after Commiting Civil Disobedience to Close School of Americas
Columbus, GA - Over ten thousand people gathered this weekend outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia in the most diverse demonstration yet of opposition to the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC), a combat-training school for Latin American soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared", massacred, and forced into refuge by SOA graduates.
The gathering culminated today with a solemn "funeral" procession. More than 30 people had been arrested after entering the base in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. They took this action despite knowing they likely face 3-6 months in federal prison. They are being held at the Muscogee County Jail in Columbus. Since protests against SOA/WHISC began over ten years ago, 210 people have served or are now serving sentences of prison and probation for civil disobedience. SOA Watch activist have collectively served more than 75 years in federal prisons across the country.
"Prison will not deter us," said Kathy Kelly, who was among those arrested today. "We intend to close this school and to change the foreign policy that this school represents." Kelly works with and helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a grassroots organization that campaigns to end economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people.
Yesterday the U.S. Military blasted music at high decibels from inside Ft. Benning, directed at the peaceful, permitted demonstration outside of the gates of the base. The music stopped late yesterday afternoon. Throughout the weekend Columbus Police used metal detectors to search every person attending the demonstration.
"We will not allow these blatantly unconstitutional attempts to drown out our voices," said Bill Quigley, a professor of law at Loyola Law School, and lawyer for SOA Watch. "These childish actions by the federal, state and local government only strengthen our resolve to stand up for our rights and all the victims of the School of the Americas."
The Columbus convergence concludes a week of resistance to empire and corporate globalization. Thousands gathered in Miami to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and 100,000 gathered in London-during Bush's visit-to protest the invasion and occupation of Iraq. SOA Watch organizers have been coordinating with organizers in Miami, and working in solidarity with organizers in England. The three mobilizations released a joint statement of solidarity (see http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=689 ).
"Our struggles are interconnected," said Fr. Roy Bourgeouis, founder of SOA Watch. "From the SOA, to FTAA, to the invasion of Iraq, our government's foreign policy is serving the interests of a few, and making us a lot of enemies."
School of the Americas Watch: http://www.soaw.org
The Atlanta Independent Media Center covered the annual School of the Americas/WHISC protests and civil disobedience live from just outside the main gates of Fort Benning. For independent media coverage and live audio broadcasting from Columbus visit: http://www.atlanta.indymedia.org
Please also see:
SOAW and WHISC to Meet, This Weekend;
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1203&blz=1
UPDATE from Jonah House
Dear friends,
We trust that, like us, many of you have been watching events in both Miami, FL and Columbus, GA and wondering what has happened in this country in so short a time. We were in a privileged position to have people close to us at both sites and to have their reports first hand; we’ve also attended to the internet reports and to Democracy Now. What a different picture we get from the Corporate Press.
In George, more than 10,000 gathered for the annual remembrance of the massacres of the 5 Jesuits and 2 women at the University of Central America. They were subject to a lot of abuse from the military (and the police). The base blared marshal music to drown out the SOA speakers; the legal team was able to put a stop to that after some time.
There were some 51 arrests – far fewer than in recent years but we understand that each of the persons that faced arrest did so with full understanding that he or she was looking squarely at 3 or 6 months in jail or prison. They are courageous people; we can only be grateful to them.
Among those arrested was Gary Ashbeck from Jonah House. He prepared for the action with a number of other people and he and two of them – Ben Jimenez, S.J. and Mike O’Grady, S.J. – are refusing to post bail and thus remaining in the local jail awaiting trial and sentencing.
Earlier today we learned from the SOA legal team that bail was set at $1,000 for most of the 51 who were arrested going into the SOA. All but the three named above intend to pay the bond. They are being held at the Muscogee County Jail; they may remain there until trial (and even beyond) or they may be moved. We will try to keep you au courant. Their address is:
Name, no number needed
Muscogee Co. Jail
700 10th St
Columbus, Georgia, 31901
Send only letters; the jail accepts nothing else.
What follows is the statement Gary, Ben and Mike prepared along with the other signers of the statement: they were also arrested but will fact trial and sentencing at a later date – as yet undisclosed:
"IS THE CAUSE WORTH A PRECIOUS SOLDIER´S LIFE?"
STATEMENT ON PARTICIPATING IN THE PROTEST AGAINST THE SOA-WHISC
November 22, 2003
There are many and varied reasons for opposing the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC, fomerly the School of the Americas -- SOA).
We are here today to repudiate the U.S. Army´s practice in the past of using torture manuals in the training of Latin American soldiers.
We are here today to reject the School of the Americas´ record of training dictators, torturers, and other human-rights violators. Some of its graduates participated in the brutal assassination of the six Jesuit priests and the two women in San Salvador in 1989. These martyrs are present with us here in Columbus, Ga., this weekend as we revere and honor in our Mass and procession a very significant relic of them -- some of the blood which they shed for the people of El Salvador, which was collected from the garden where they had been slain.
In another case, Father James Carney, who had been in basic training at Ft. Benning before serving in Europe during World War II in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, disappeared in Honduras in 1983; some of the Honduran troops alleged to have been involved in his torture and disappearance were products of the SOA.
But we are not concerned only about past atrocities. And our concern goes beyond the question of whether a few human-rights units are included in the institute´s curriculum. Indeed, when Father Joseph Mulligan visited the SOA in 1990, some instructors told him that some mention was being made of the notion of human rights but that the trainees did not take it seriously, throwing in the teachers´ faces the facts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other U.S. atrocities.
One of our main reasons for demanding that the U.S. government close SOA-WHISC has to do with the recruitment of Latin American troops into the military strategies and operations of the U.S. government. SOA-WHISC is a symbol and instrument of this, as its very name indicates. Other countries of the hemisphere have been pressured into sending token forces (about two hundred from each of several nations) to cooperate in a military occupation which the Bush administration has defined as necessary for U.S. security. Do the people of Latin America need to participate in this kind of "security cooperation"?
Troops from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic have joined U.S. soldiers in Iraq, which we find very sad and ironic. It is especially ironic in the case of Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, since those countries were occupied by the U.S. military in the early 20th century.
Another reason for closing SOA-WHISC has to do with the nature and purpose of the Latin American military forces. They do not exist primarily to defend one nation against another, but rather to protect an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources within each country against movements of social and political change. By training and equipping the armed forces of Latin America, the U.S. military is strengthening the hand of the privileged elites in their efforts to repress unions, farmers, students, and others struggling for justice. The most needed priority for Latin America is not further militarization.
As Christians we hope and struggle for a world of justice and peace:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.... Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5).
Of course, this year the demonstration against SOA-WHISC is an occasion to express opposition to the invasion and the current occupation of Iraq as well as the growing militarism of the U.S.
We grieve for the U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, and our hearts go out to their loved ones. We are also profoundly saddened by the far greater number of Iraqi deaths resulting from the U.S. invasion and military occupation. And we are deeply concerned about the troops from Latin American countries and from other nations who are in Iraq.
We support these troops, but we want to do more than pray for them and send condolences to their families when they die. And so we say: bring them home, save their lives.
They are seen by many as foreign invaders in Iraq, and the Iraqi militants consider themselves patriotic freedom-fighters struggling against the occupiers. Our forces will be killing more and more innocent civilians in their pursuit of the guerrilla combatants.
To the U.S. and Latin American soldiers in training at Ft. Bennett, Ft.Bragg, and other military installations, we say: please reflect seriously on the reasons which have been given for the war in Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction? Ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda terrorists? Or does it have more to do with oil and other natural resources in the Middle East, and lucrative construction contracts for well-connected U.S. corporations, and privatizing the Iraqi economy for American companies?
Do you want to risk your life, and risk leaving your family without you, and kill Iraqi militants and civilians for such purposes of the Bush administration? If not, please consider applying for conscientious objector status.
Vernon Baker, who received the Medal of Honor for his bravery as a 2nd Lt. in World War II, has said: "Before we fight a war, we have to ask ourselves a basic question: Is the cause worth a precious soldier´s life? Each of our soldiers has loved ones, and if you can´t answer the question `yes,´ then don´t fight the war" (Chicago Tribune, Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2003).
Let us all follow our conscience, being faithful to the truth as we see it. As Jesus said: "if you live according to my teaching, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-31).
Gary Ashbeck
Father Benjamin Jimenez, S.J.
Kathy Kelly
Father Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.
Brother Mike O´Grady, S.J.