Reports

If you haven't read anything else I've sent this week, read this!!
Beth

Date: Thursday, March 01, 2001 2:42 PM
Subject: [SOAWAG] Ash Wednesday action

Hello Friends,

          Yesterday's action went well. About 15 of us gathered at the Colombian Ambassador's residence for reflections and an apology to the people of Colombia. We processed from there to the World Bank for a reflection and then to the State Department. People joined us along the way and we had about 30 at the State Dept.

          Security there was very tight because Cheney was inside for a meeting. Steve Bennett, of Witness for Peace, had the megaphone when he came out and appealed to him directly to do everything in his power to end US support of the war in Colombia.

          After reading testimonials from some of the displaced women in Colombia, we crossed the street as a group, heading for the entrance to the building. The police reacted very strongly to this, and pushed people back towards the curb. I continued forward with a bag of ashes, which I poured on the street and driveway of the State Department while speaking about the symbolism of the destruction caused by US policies. One of the cops was pulling me backwards as I did this. I fell to the ground, he fell on top of me. Things got a little crazy then. Another cop jumped on my back and they handcuffed me and we all sat like that for a few minutes. As I lay in the ashes I had just poured, cheek pressed against pavement, one cop holding my cuffed arms and another kneeling on my back, I felt curiously calm and peaceful. I could hear friends around me saying, "He's nonviolent, Don't hurt him" as others across the street drummed and sang freedom songs.

          I kept one image firmly in my mind during this brief interval, the face of Ana, who shared her story of displacement with us in Bogotá. Her story resonated with me because I knew my family would be in her place if we lived in Colombia. Her husband was arrested by the police, who then turned him over to the paramilitaries because he was the director of a human rights group. She never saw him again. When I talked with her alone afterwards, it was she who comforted me. "La lucha sigue" was her parting phrase. I thought of her as I was arrested, knowing that unlike her husband, I would be reunited with my family very soon.

          Things de-escalated very quickly after this. I was pulled to my feet and stood for about 10 minutes watching the group across the street as I waited for the transport officer to arrive. In the midst of the lively crowd, my children watched me being searched and my shoelaces being taken, looking very serious and concerned. My wife Rose bent over and whispered in their ears. They waved as I was put into the back of the police car and driven away.

          In that moment, I wished there was some way I could let them know that it would all be OK; that no paramilitary group was going to dump my mutilated body into the river; that they wouldn't end up wandering the streets forever, afraid for their lives if they went home. The last words I heard before the car door slammed shut were from my friend Bill Frankel-Streit, just two days out of jail himself for a protest of the Iraq sanctions. He read some statistics I had compiled on the war in Colombia then said, " Why don't we hear this on the news? It's up to us to rise up and make our voices heard . . ." I felt immensely grateful for this community of faith and resistance my children are growing up in.

          I was taken to a precinct on the outskirts of town, and led into a small cell. I sat down on a metal bunk welded to the wall as the steel bars of the door clanged shut. A little while later, the arresting officer came to the door of the cell. "Looks like you're going downtown for the night." I said I had expected that. He said if I paid $100 I could go home now and forget the whole thing. I declined and he went away. He came back twice more and the same scene was repeated.

          During one of these visits he complained that his boots had gotten scuffed and he would have to pay out of his pocket to have his pants dry-cleaned. I tried to explain that this really wasn't about him; that he was protecting an institution that was turning entire communities to ashes. I couldn't find words to bridge the gap.

          After a couple of hours, he seemed to realize that I wasn't going to pay and the threat of going downtown didn't seem to have much power. He charged me with failure to obey a police order (a traffic offense unlikely to result in any jail time) and released me with a March 23rd court date. I stepped out into the bright sunlight with no shoelaces and not a dime in my pocket, and began the 30 block walk to the Catholic Worker house, grateful for the time to process what had just happened.

          I'll go to court and if the charges are not dropped, I'll speak out about what I saw and heard in Colombia. The next week, we'll rally at the White House, demonstrate at the Capitol, and have a much larger civil disobedience action at the Pentagon. A few weeks after that, Josh Raisler Cohn will stand trial for Ft. Benning actions. Charlie Liteky, Susan Crane, Phil Berrigan and others will continue their faithful witness from behind prison walls. Others will go to Colombia and organize demonstrations, teach-ins and actions when they return. Coalitions will form, people will lobby Congress, awareness of the US role in this war against the poor will grow across the nation.

          And the war will continue, supported by the US. No matter what we do, the fumigation will go on, the Blackhawks will fly, the paramilitaries will continue to terrorize. Ana will still live with her son in the Red Cross building where they share two bathrooms with 200 other families.

          I'm left with equal parts hope and despair. If Ana can still choose hope after what she has lived, then I'd damned well better be able to as well.

La lucha sigue. - Jeff

[Jeff Winder is the Program director for SOA Watch in Washington DC.]

02/20/01 ~ School of the Americas Watch West (SOAWW)
National: www.soaw.org

(1) Thanks so much to everyone for the great response to Fr. Roy Bourgeois' visit to San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Monterey and Santa Cruz.

(2) Good media coverage includes
(a) Mon. Feb. 19, 60-minute KPFA (Flashpoints) interview of Fr. Roy. Audio available at www.flashpoints.net/. Cassette tape available by calling 510.848.6767 x625.

(b) Sun. Feb. 25, cable Channel 29 (Community TV) in San Francisco, 8:30 to 9:30 PM during the program called "Collision Course." Premier showing of 60-minute video of San Francisco events with Fr. Roy. Copies available from Judy at jliteky@aol.com.
(3) Good print coverage for sharing with friends and sending to your Representative, (U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515) and to Senators Feinstein and Boxer (U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510).
(a) Sat. Feb. 17, Contra Costa Times, Theresa Keegan, "Fr. Roy Bourgeois: Priest Abhors U.S. Teaching of War Tactics" (See below.)

(b) Sun. Feb. 18, San Francisco Chronicle, Stephanie Salter, "An American School for Foreign Soldiers" (See below.)
(4) The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a resolution to close the SOA on Tues. Feb. 20. Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced this resolution on Tuesday, Feb. 12. Copies of the resolution available soon. Can you think of other local bodies that might do the same?

(5) SOME NEXT STEPS
(a) The next San Francisco meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 1 from 7:00-8:30 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Center, 1187 Franklin at Geary.

(b) March 28-April 3, Washington DC ~ Vigil, Lobby, Nonviolent Witness If you are interested in traveling to DC and talking with our members of Congress, please contact Gwen at animo3@pacbell.net.
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Contra Costa Times, 02/17/01
Father Roy Bourgeois: Priest Abhors U.S. Teaching of War Tactics
by Theresa Keegan

It's been almost 20 years since Father Roy Bourgeois was banned from Bolivia for criticizing the dictator and helping the poor. The banishment may have removed him from the country, but it didn't remove his concern about America's involvement in Latin America.

In fact, upon his return to the United States, the Maryknoll priest became an even louder critic of our foreign policy in Latin America. But for years his concerns fell on deaf ears. The threat of communism overshadowed concerns about the poor. "We could not get beyond that," says the soft-spoken priest.

But the end of the Cold War changed the conversation. "The bogeyman was gone," he explains. Suddenly Americans were willing to listen to his tales of tragedy.

And they're still listening, as evidenced by his talk Thursday night in Walnut Creek, where more than 125 people gathered to hear this crusader talk about America's foreign policy. Both young and old spent an evening eagerly listening to updates about the controversial School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. They couldn't get enough information about Plan Colombia, America's $1.3 billion program to eradicate cocaine from the country. The evening was a welcome shattering of the stereotype that Americans care only about ourselves.

Much of the conversation was critical of America's role in Latin America. But don't think this was just a bunch of anti-government extremists gathering around simply to complain. The audience at Grace Presbyterian Church was as mainstream as it could get. Veterans, homemakers, grandmothers and high school students were told how to make their voices heard in protestation. Phone calls. Letter writing. Telling a friend. Contacting representatives. The evening could have been billed as an empowering primer in democracy.

Indeed, the opportunity to act on their beliefs is a key reason Father Roy's message resonates with people. His influential quest to shut down the controversial School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. depends on such grass-roots efforts.

When a 1990 fact-finding report revealed this school is the training grounds for soldiers who've committed some of the cruelest war tactics known to humanity, the situation could've easily become just another depressing report.

But Father Roy wasn't willing to let it go. Armed with information and outrage about the atrocious tactics taught at this taxpayer-funded school, Father Roy rented a tiny apartment across from the school's entrance. The School of the Americas Watch was formed.

"I was so angry at what my country was doing, but I couldn't let the anger dominate," explains Father Roy. Instead, he followed in the steps of other nonviolent leaders. There were hunger strikes on the steps of the nation's capital. Protests onto the school grounds. Vigils and memorials. But it wasn't until the military started putting the protesters into jail that the movement to close the military school really grew for mainstream America.

It was bad enough the U.S. military was training foreign soldiers in executions, torture and coercion. The fact that religious people and passive citizens were being locked up for exercising their civil rights to oppose such action was too much.

"Every time they send us to prison it re-energizes the movement," says Father Roy. In the past decade, 50 protesters have collectively served 30 years in federal prison for their civil disobedience.

An annual protest -- in memory of those who were killed at the hands of graduates of School of the Americas -- has grown from 10 to 10,000 people in a decade.

Currently, Colombia has the most soldiers enrolled at the school, which frightens Father Roy, especially because of his recent fact-finding trip there.

He sees and fears a foreign policy that simply repeats history. Just as America has rewarded destructive dictatorships in Bolivia and Guatemala and El Salvador, Father Roy fears Plan Colombia has the same potential to destroy the most vulnerable citizens in its country. It's why he's determined to spread the word about this effort.

"We must ask, have we learned anything from the past?"

Copyright © 2001 Contra Costa Times

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San Francisco Chronicle, 02/18/01
An American School For Foreign Soldiers
By Stephanie Salter

UNIVERSITY OF San Francisco student Sara Suman came because her high school religion teacher once "presented me with something I couldn't ignore."

Andrea Pereira of Lick-Wilmerding High came to support the jailed human rights activist Charlie Liteky. And, like the other 500 students who gathered Tuesday on the USF campus, Alistair Rogers of Serra High came because "I wanted to see Father Roy speak live and in person."

Father Roy is the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest who staged his first protest in 1990 against the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. Last month, the school changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Operations, but Bourgeois is still its Public Enemy No. 1.

"Changing the name is like taking a bottle of poison and simply writing 'penicillin' on it," he said. "They tell us they're teaching democracy there now. How is this possible through the barrel of a gun in an undemocratic institution?"

School of the Americas was established by the U.S. Army in Panama in 1946 to train Latin American soldiers for "instability" in their own nations. In 1984, it moved to Fort Benning.

Through the Freedom of Information Act and reports by the United Nations Truth Commission, Bourgeois and other foes of the school discovered a veritable Hall of Shame among its thousands of alumni. Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and the leader of the El Salvador death squads, Roberto D'Aubuisson, are just two.

Officials at the school insist all of that -- the courses in commando training and psychological warfare -- is history. They say the facility has shifted focus, and efforts to end its $20 million in annual funding are misplaced. Bourgeois says otherwise.

"We're taking seriously what they say they're teaching: democracy and human rights," he said. "But why did I get a letter from the wife of one of the soldiers, asking for our newsletter but telling me not to send it to the school because they aren't allowed to read such material?

"This is still an Army base. They know and we know that if they strip that school of its essence, its combat courses, if they really teach about land reform, agronomy, human rights, the soldiers would not come."

Since his first protest, when a handful of kindred souls joined Bourgeois at the front gate of Fort Benning, the crowd has grown. Last November, some 9, 000 people showed up; 3,500 chose to peacefully trespass onto the base; 1,700 were arrested.

Bourgeois, 62, has spent nearly four years in various federal prisons for his School of the Americas protests. Among a core group of 50 fellow protesters, including Vietnam War hero Charlie Liteky, 30 years of prison time have been served.

Liteky, a U.S. Medal of Honor winner who lives in San Francisco, is in the middle of a one-year sentence in Lompoc prison for two misdemeanor counts of trespassing. Last week, he turned 70. His wife, Judy, stood in for him at two USF events, including the one for students.

"The number and the cross-section of kids -- from public, private and Catholic schools, and from eighth grade through college -- overwhelmed me with joy and the sense of possibility," said Judy Liteky. "Charlie will be very touched to hear that his name is known among them."

One of those knowing students is Connor Schmeding, a junior from Jesuit High in Sacramento. He and his classmates made the trip to USF with their Christian Service Director, Joanne Castronovo. Only 17, Schmeding is a veteran of nonviolent protest.

"In theology class, I learned the difference between works of mercy, which is like charity, and social action, which is more reform, like the movement to close the SOA," he said.

"I choose to be an activist. My goal in life is not to have a nice car and a lot of money; it's to help people. I want to do what (assassinated Salvadoran) Bishop Oscar Romero said: I want to be a voice for the voiceless."

E-mail Stephanie Salter at ssalter@sfchronicle.com.

© 2001 San Francisco Chronicle

         

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