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to PNL Page Ed Kinane
While the US power structure makes “fighting terrorism” its war cry and its pretext for gutting the Bill of Rights, the US Army runs a terrorist training camp at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
The School of the Americas, recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in anti-insurgency tactics. Back home these become anti-civilian tactics—i.e. terrorism. SOA/WHISC indoctrinates the men with guns who enforce NAFTA in Mexico and World Bank and IMF structural “adjustments” throughout Central and South America.
SOA-trained soldiers never need repel armed invaders and seldom risk engaging armed insurgents. Together with paramilitaries in countries like Colombia, they terrorize campesinos and indigenous people whose land is coveted by local elites and US multinationals, especially the oil companies. Targeting workers and labor organizers, the SOA has long been “the biggest union buster of them all.”
Since 1990 SOA Watch, a nationwide grassroots organization committed to nonviolence, has sought to expose and close the SOA. Each November SOA Watch holds a massive demonstration at Benning’s main gate. These annual demos, as well as “Gandhian Wave” actions throughout the year, have resulted in 70 SOA Watchers cumulatively spending 40 years in prison.
Until mid-January, 17 SOAW prisoners of conscience continued to serve six-month sentences for trespass at Benning in November 2000. These include a senior NASA scientist (and Southern Baptist), an 88 year-old nun, and my brother Richard John Kinane. SOA Watcher, Steve Jacobs, of Missouri, sentenced to one year, will remain in prison until July.
This past November 18th over 6000 folks from all over the country—including scores from the Syracuse and Ithaca area—converged on the main entrance at Benning. Their solemn funeral procession commemorated the deaths of six priest professors and their two housekeepers on Nov. 16, 1989 in El Salvador at the hands of the SOA-trained Atlacatl battalion. Those eight, of course, represent tens of thousands of lesser known victims of SOA terrorism.
This past November’s funeral procession differed from those of previous
years. Following Sept. 11, Benning has been on “high alert.” The formerly
“open” base on the Alabama border provides infantry training to US
and other soldiers from all over the world. It recently put a 1000 foot-long,
eight-foot high, barbed wire fence across its main entrance. This kept the procession
from entering the base as it has done for the past half dozen Novembers.
Another new wrinkle was that the mayor of nearby Columbus, Georgia, sought an
injunction to prevent SOA Watch from demonstrating just outside the main gate.
On Friday Nov. 16, US Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth ruled that SOA Watch could
conduct its now-traditional procession along Benning Road up to the edge of
the military base. Last May it was Faircloth who had found the “SOA 26”
guilty of trespass, sentencing most of them to maximum prison time. But now
Faircloth declared, “It was a question of First Amendment rights, and you
can’t play with that.” While chiding the city’s suit for claiming
the US was at war, Faircloth said even war doesn’t take away safeguards
of basic liberties.
On this balmy Sunday morning Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Viet Nam War vet, former Maryknoll
missioner in Bolivia, and founder of SOA Watch, led the procession. Immediately
behind Roy came a cadre wrapped in black shrouds and bearing simulated coffins.
The cadre, spattered with “blood,” died-in at the fence. When, after
a couple hours, military police failed to remove the corpses, many arose and
proceeded to the end of the fence and on to the base.
Among those going on base were Syracusans Mike Pasquale, Laura MacDonald and
Rae Kramer. These three, along with most of the rest of the 70 arrested on base
in this or other scrupulously nonviolent episodes were released that afternoon
with ban and bar letters. Fourteen were held in the Muscogee County jail until
being released after arraignment in federal court the next afternoon. It remains
to be seen how many will be prosecuted.
The ten-abreast, several block-long procession—including dramatic puppets—took
two hours to pass the main gate. Throughout that time names of victims of SOA
grads were intoned from the sound stage. With each name, the throng responded,
presente!—you are very much with us.
As they do each November, most participants held aloft white crosses, each inscribed
with a victim’s name. Some held Stars of David or other symbols or banners.
The Benning welcome sign was soon draped in these banners and the fence entwined
with thousands of crosses—acts of trespass the military police chose to
ignore.
Beginning in the late afternoon, 31 (mostly young) activists—including our incorrigible Laura—staged a sit-in in Benning Road preventing any traffic from entering the base there. Freedom Rising puppetistas provided vigorous and colorful support. Around 9:30 pm the 31 were dragged away by the Muscogee County Sheriff’s riot squad. For the first time ever, anti-SOA demonstrators were arrested in Columbus, and housed for two nights in the notorious Muscogee County jail.
Engaging in jail solidarity, they had group hearings with City Judge Haywood Turner on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. After mutually respectful and probably unprecedented (for Columbus) negotiation, they pled guilty to obstructing a highway, and “no contest” to obstructing an officer (the court record noted that this was a nonviolent offense). Sentenced to time served, Laura and most of the 31 also went on—with the Judge’s blessing—to voluntarily serve Thanksgiving dinner at the local Rescue Mission.
For photos of the Nov. 17 &18 events and for more info about SOA/WHISC, check www.soaw.org. Also check the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer website.
Ed, who recently finished two years’ probation following prison-time
for various SOA protests, is co-editor (with Ann Tiffany) of The Gandhian Wave,
an anti-SOA civil disobedience handbook.