The SOAW–W Media Page

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Subject:  SOAWW: SF Press Conference with POC's SOAWW Date:       Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:41:12 -0800 From:      Julia Dowd SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS WATCH WEST 1187 Franklin Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 For more information contact: Dolores Priem 415-387-2287or E-mail: doloresmp@aol.com FR. LOUIS VITALE, RELEASED FROM FEDERAL PRISON, CONTINUES TO CONDEMN U.S. TERRORIST SCHOOL NINE BAY AREA SOA WATCH DEFENDANTS PREPARE FOR TRIAL AND JOIN RANKS OF GROWING NUMBERS OF PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE * January 22, Wednesday, 1 to 2 PM:  Press Conference  St. Boniface Church Theater, 133 Golden Gate Ave (between Jones & Leavenworth) Speakers:  Fr. Louis Vitale, Pastor, St. Boniface; and Laura Slattery, West Point graduate and SOA Watch defendant facing trial. Fr. Louis Vitale, pastor of St. Boniface Catholic Church in San Francisco, will meet the press for the first time since his release from federal prison on January 10th for protesting at the School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia. Fr. Vitale is well known as a champion for social justice and human rights causes both locally and internationally.  His concern extends to civilian noncombatants who have suffered as a result of U.S. training and assisting Latin American militaries. Fr. Vitale will explain his continued strong opposition to the military training school and will refer to the objective findings of Amnesty International's investigative publication Unmatched Power, Unmet Principles.  This report recommends that the SOA military training school (now renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - WHINSEC) be suspended until an independent commission investigates its past activities. This commission would also recommend appropriate reparations, including criminal prosecution, redress for victims and their families and a public apology.  Amnesty International agrees with SOA Watch that the newly named WHINSEC is really the same institution. The report states: "WHINSEC is essentially the same school as SOA, with the same primary mission of conveying military skills to members of Latin American armed forces."  The Department of Defense assertion that "WHINSEC is an entirely different institution" is simply an attempt to give impunity to the SOA and its graduates responsible for heinous crimes in this hemisphere. Laura Slattery, a West Point graduate, is one of nine Bay Area demonstrators arrested for trespassing and now facing trial for peacefully protesting at Fort Benning in November of 2002.  She will speak on why she, eight other Bay Area prisoners of conscience, and 70 others from across the nation are willing to face jail time in their continued effort to demand that this US terrorist training school be closed down. The School of the Americas has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in commando tactics, military intelligence, psychological operations and other civilian-targeted warfare.  UN Truth Commission reports on El Salvador and Guatemala have confirmed SOA graduates' involvement in massive human rights abuses against civilians over the past twenty years.  SOA Watch is an independent organization with a twelve-year history of legislative advocacy and disciplined nonviolent direct action to challenge oppressive U.S. foreign policy in Latin America and to close the SOA/WHISC.                                   #  #  # Subject:  SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS PROTESTS FEATURED IN NEW BOOK Date:       Tue, 12 Nov 2002 08:50:53 -0500 From:      CENTER LANE PRESS November 12, 2002  Contact: Brad Davis, Marketing Director CENTER LANE PRESS 305.759.9098 RE: FIRST SIGNING OF NEW BOOK ON PROTEST TO TAKE PART AT SOA WATCH THIS WEEKEND   Photojournalist Al Crespo, will be signing copies of his new book PROTEST IN THE LAND OF PLENTY at this year's SOA Watch in Columbus, Georgia. During the last 13 years, tens of thousands of Americans have come to Columbus, Georgia, to take part in the annual protests against what has been termed, "a terrorist training camp on U.S. soil - the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation  (SOA/WHISC), a combat training school for Latin American soldiers." Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who created the SOA Watch,  and who was the founder of these protests has contributed an essay to the new photojournalism book on on the creation and reasons for the SOA Watch. The book features 222 dramatic and compelling pictures of over 40 protests and demonstrations that captured America's attention as we entered the 21st century.  Spanning the years 1997 through 2001, the book provides dramatic and often moving photographs and essays on protests as diverse as those dealing with the issues of "globalization," to the plight of Haitian refugees.  The book chronicles for the first time the breadth of protests and demonstrations that have attempted to shape and mold public policy as America entered the 21st Century. Photojournalist Al Crespo spent the years 1997 through 2001 documenting protests from California to New York and Seattle to Miami.  In Los Angeles.  In the last 5 years Crespo has covered more protests than any other photojournalist, and today has the largest private collection of protest photos in the country.  Crespo became an unwilling participant himself when he was one of a number of journalists that were shot with rubber bullets by the police during the 2000 Democratic Convention.  In the aftermath of that incident, he became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and it's police department filed by the Southern California ACLU.  That lawsuit was settled earlier this year resulting in an agreement by the City Of Los Angeles to a change in policy which recognizes that " the press has the right to cover public protests, even if there is a declaration of unlawful assembly and the order to disperse is issued." www.centerlanepress.com Father Louis Vitale to be Interviewed on Australian Radio Tomorrow Father Louis Vitale, Pastor of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco, will be interviewed by Neil Smart of 5UV Radio Adelaide 101.5FM (Australia), on Tuesday, July 16 at 2:40 PM (Pacific Standard Time) for the Morning Breakfast Program. Radio Adelaide is the Independent Radio Station of the University of Adelaide.  You can hear the interview live via Real Audio at  www.adelaide.edu.au/5UV/. Father Vitale recently returned to San Francisco from Columbus, Georgia where he and two other Bay Area activists were on trial with 34 other SOA Watch defendants for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas/WHISC. Father Vitale was sentenced to three months in federal prison. Twenty-eight of the other defendants received prison sentences ranging from three to six months.  Fines ranged from none to $5,000. ----------------------------- Michael Bass SOA Watch West/Media 510 654-5355 510 654-5532 FAX riovi@aol.com www.soaw.org   Subject:  (SOAWW) Award winning article on SOA by Times (UK) journalist Date:       Sun, 21 Jul 2002 03:08:58 EDT From:      Michael Bass Christine Toomey, Times (UK) reporter, won an award from Amnesty International for her article entitled,  "The School of Assassins that the US Army Has Tried to Hide."  Click on Killing Fields, or you may go to the source: www.timesonline.co.uk/article/*.html ------------------------------------ Michael Bass SOA Watch West/ Media (510) 654-5355 riovi@aol.com www.soaw.org

 
 

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