SOAW–West News for May, 2003
1) May 7: Prisoner Addresses and May Events.
2) May 13: Global Exchange to award Fr. Louie.
School of the Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
May 7, 2003San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org
See below for details:1. Prisoners of Conscience - Addresses for Don, J.C., Ann, Rachel and Laura
2. Articles about Rachel Montgomery & Laura Slattery, and the Pilgrimage to Prison
3. Thursday, May 8, 4:45 PM, Showing of John Smihula's documentary, "Hidden in Plain Sight" at Commonwealth Club, San Francisco
4. Thursday, May 8, 4:30 PM, Demonstration at Coca-Cola Office, Oakland, to appeal for continued protection of Coca-Cola workers and union organizers.
5. Related Events: Friday, May 9, 7:30 PM
"NEW APPROACHES IN PEACE STUDIES"
Professor Johan Galtung
155 Dwinelle on the UC Berkeley campusAlso on Friday, May 9, 9 AM to 5 PM
"PEACEFUL CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION: The TRANSCEND Approach" in Berkeley
Info: Marilyn Langlois, SOAWW-Contra Costa, 510-232-4493BAY AREA SOAW PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE:Don Haselfeld
# 91381-020 Beta Inmate Qtrs.
Federal Prison Camp
3705 W. Farm Rd.
Lompoc, CA 93436-2756
Until 10/01/03JC Orton
# 91331-020
USP Atwater
P.O. Box 019000
#1 Federal Way
Atwater, CA 95301
Until 7/25/03Address for Ann, Rachel, and Laura
FPC Dublin
5775 8th Street
Camp Parks
Dublin, CA 94568Ann Huntwork
# 91391-020
Until 10/01/03Rachel Montgomery
# 91367-020
Until 10/25/03Laura Slattery
# 91364-020
Until 07/25/03Long walk to prison for political activists
2 women hold protest en route to Dublin cells
By Ulysses Torassa
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, April 28, 2003It's a long walk from the flats of East Oakland to the gates of the federal prison in Dublin, but nonviolent activist Laura Slattery is used to traversing long distances -- personally, as well as geographically.
More than 10 years ago, Slattery was a freshly minted West Point graduate and Army lieutenant, asking her superiors to send her overseas to see action in first Persian Gulf War. These days, the San Francisco resident travels the world teaching the philosophy and techniques of nonviolent social action. But she won't be traveling much after Tuesday.
That's the day she and another Bay Area woman, Rachel Montgomery of Oakland, are to report to Women's Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin to begin serving sentences. They'll be doing time for their part in a protest last year in Georgia at the Defense Department-run Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, which trains police and military personnel from Latin America and other countries in the Western Hemisphere.
To help draw attention to their cause, the two women decided to spend 2 1/2 days walking 30 miles to the prison, a trek that started Sunday morning with a pancake breakfast at the Oakland Catholic Worker house on International Boulevard. Unfortunately for Montgomery, she developed a painful foot condition shortly before the journey was to start and is expected to complete
much of it on horseback.About two dozen people joined Slattery, 37, and Montgomery, 26, for some or all of the walk on Sunday. Most were members of local chapters of a group called the School of the Americas Watch, which has been working to shut down the Fort Benning, Ga., military school since 1990. The watch group organizes a protest each November at the school that draws thousands of people, and last year about 100 were arrested for trespassing during the demonstration -- including Slattery, Montgomery and eight other Bay Area activists.
"The people in Latin America call it the School of the Assassins," said Dolores Perez Priem, co-founder of the San Francisco chapter. Publicity about atrocities committed by military officers and others trained at the school prompted Congress to revamp and rename the school in 2000. While several reforms were part of the change, Priem said one result is that the school is more secretive about the people who teach and enroll there, making it harder to track whether its graduates are implicated in future
crimes.Officials at the school called the criticism wrongheaded, at best. The school has operated for 40 years to support the U.S. government's foreign policy, said Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the institute. Under its new marching orders from Congress, each course now contains at least eight hours of instruction on human rights.
And because practically all countries in the region are now democracies, Rials said the skills that are taught are being used to further the success of those governments.
"They seem to be holding onto not only a previous incarnation of U.S. military training, but also a previous incarnation of the Western Hemisphere and of these countries," Rials said of the activists. "The only dictatorship left in this hemisphere is Cuba, and we don't teach Cuba."
Slattery said she believes that the school has curbed the practices she had found most egregious. But she said that offering military training -- even to democratically elected governments -- is no way to promote peace. "I no longer believe military solutions do anything -- they just kill brothers and sisters of mine," she said.
Slattery and Montgomery were tried in federal court in Georgia and found guilty of trespassing, with Slattery receiving a three-month prison sentence and Montgomery drawing six months.
Neither woman has been in prison before. Slattery said she expected to spend her time meditating, learning yoga and listening to her fellow inmates. "I feel pretty prepared," she said. "Luckily, in our country it's just jail. In other countries, people (who protest) pay a much higher price."
URL: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/*/BA242261.DTL
Activists take long walk to jail
Two hope journey from Oakland to Dublin will bring attention to nonviolent cause
Oakland Tribune
By Brooke Bryant
Wednesday, April 30, 2003DUBLIN -- Rachel Montgomery is a dog walker and sometime activist. Laura Slattery is a former Army lieutenant turned nonviolence educator. Now, they're both prisoners. The Bay Area residents turned themselves in Tuesday to the Federal Corrections Institute in Dublin after walking 31 miles from Oakland to publicize their plight.
They will serve their sentences -- six months for Montgomery, 26, and three months for Slattery, 36 -- for trespassing at the former School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., during an annual protest in November. The two began walking Sunday, and made their way through the East Bay Regional Parks system. Their trip concluded about noon Tuesday, as they marched up Dublin Boulevard with a small, banner-carrying band of supporters. In their last moments of freedom, they talked with the media, grabbed a bite to eat and spent some time with friends and family in a parking lot across the street from the Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, the military base that houses the prison.
Montgomery said that she first began thinking about "crossing the line" -- a chalk line that demarcates when protesters are trespassing -- during the 2001 protest. Since Sept. 11, 2001, that line has been reinforced by a cyclone fence.
By the time last year's event rolled around, she had made her decision. "My reason for doing this came out of a questioning of myself: How committed am I to peace and nonviolence?" Montgomery said. "It was a way to go beyond talking about peace and nonviolence by actually putting my body on the line." Slattery settled on the same decision in a similar way.
The first gesture she made was at the 2001 protest, hanging her Army jacket on the school's fence. "I thought I'd give my jacket back to those who still believe in military solutions," she said. Both were arrested, along with about 90 others, and sentenced to jail time at Dublin's federal prison.
A little after 1 p.m., Montgomery and Slattery linked arms with three supporters and crossed the street to turn themselves in at the guard shack, each carrying a copy of the Bible.
Billowing clouds swallowed what began as a partly sunny day, and rain began to speckle the pavement by the time the two women ducked into a police car on the other side of the chain-link fence.
The women are part of a group of critics who are calling for the school to be closed, at least temporarily while an investigation is conducted into its activities. The School of the Americas military curriculum, taught in Spanish, included counter-insurgency courses. Critics say that it teaches terrorism and torture, pointing out that graduates have been involved in a number of human rights atrocities in Latin America over the last few decades.
Graduates of the School of the Americas include Manuel Noriega and Haitian coup leader Raoul Cedras, both linked to human rights abuses. But Armin Lopez Pelaez and Luis Alberto Coquet, who brokered a peace agreement between Peru and Ecuador, are also alumni.
School officials and other supporters acknowledge that some graduates have gone on to commit crimes, but say that this is in spite of the school's training, not because of it.
The School of the Americas closed down Dec. 15, 2000, when Congress revoked its mandate after a decade of protests. It reopened a month later under the name Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. School officials say it's a different school altogether -- for one thing, it now offers courses in human rights.
But protesters claim it's the same thing under a different name. Many, like Slattery, insist that an investigation should be conducted into the school's past, and the effects it has had on Latin America.
There is currently a bill in Congress that would close the new school, prohibit it from reopening for at least 10 months, and establish a congressional task force to assess the kind of training that is appropriate for the United States to provide to Latin American militaries. Slattery says she'll go back to the annual protest, but she won't cross the line again.
"I think my skills can be used well in prison," said Slattery, a nonviolence educator, with a wry smile. "But I think my skills can be used well on the outside, too. Maybe even better."
www.oaklandtribune.com/*1359801,00.html
"Hidden In Plain Sight" - Showing May 8th at Commonwealth Club, SF.The new documentary by John Smihula focuses on the history of the SOA/WHINSEC. It will be shown at the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, corner 2nd Street, San Francisco
Reception 4:45 pm and Showing 5:15 pm and then Discussion.
Non-members $12.00; members $6.00.
Make a reservation by calling 415-597-6700.
Info: Dolores at 415-387-2287.**It's Time to Tell Coca-Cola To Stop Killing Workers in Colombia!**Eight Coca-Cola workers have been assassinated in Colombia for trade union activities in recent years. William Mendoza and Javier Correa are currently under death threat for trade union activities at Coca-Cola bottlers. Their wives and children have also endured death threats and kidnapping attempts.
By the time William Mendoza returns to Colombia from his US human-rights tour, the government program which protects his life will have already expired, leaving him defenseless against Coca-Cola's hired thugs. Demand the safety of William Mendoza, Javier Correa and all Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. Tell Coke that if they don't stop killing their workers, an international boycott of their products will begin on July 22, 2003, the anniversary of the first assassination. Let Coke know that we're serious about the rights of their workers.
Protest at Coca-Cola's Northern California Regional Headquarters, Thursday May 8th at 4:30 PM.
Coca-Cola's Northern California Regional Headquarters is located at 7901 Oakport St., Oakland
Contact Person: Adam Z.
Driving Directions:
Take the Hegenberger/Oakland Airport Exit off of the 880 South.
Take the first right onto Edgewater Drive
Take the first left onto Pendleton Way
Take the first right onto Capwell Drive.
Parking will be available in the parking lot at 7992 Capwell Drive.
From the parking lot, walk north half a block to Roland Way.
Turn right and continue along Roland Way two blocks until you reach Oakport.
Take a right on Oakport: the Coke Headquarters is 7901 Oakport.BART directions:
Take BART to Coliseum station.
Shuttles will leave from the parking lot by the front Entrance, starting at 4:15.PROFESSOR JOHAN GALTUNG, the world-renowned founder of the discipline of peace research and director of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network, will be in the Bay Area soon. Among his long list of worldwide mediation successes has been one involving a disputed border region between Ecuador and Peru.At 7:30 pm on the evening of May 9, 2003 , Professor Galtung will give a free public lecture entitled "NEW APPROACHES IN PEACE STUDIES" at 155 Dwinelle on the UC Berkeley campus, with an introduction by Michael Nagler, founder of UC Berkeley's Peace and Conflict Studies Program.
He will also offer a one-day workshop "PEACEFUL CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION: The TRANSCEND Approach"
Berkeley, from 9 am - 5 pm on May 9, 2003.The registration fee is $100 ($40 for students or low income). Full and partial scholarships are available to all who need them. Registration deadline is May 1.
For information and registration, please contact Marilyn Langlois, Tel 510-232-4493.
The workshop and lecture are co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Peace and Conflict Studies Program and Peace Studies Student Association, the METTA Center for Nonviolence Education, East Bay Earth Charter Community Alliance, the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists and TRANSCEND.
School of the Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
May 13, 2003San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.orgGlobal Exchange to award Fr. Louie at May 22 DinnerGlobal Exchange Human Rights Awards Dinner
Thursday, May 22
Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco
6 PM Reception
7 PM Dinner Program
Followed by DancingAwards to:
Fr. Louis Vitale, St. Boniface Church, SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience,
and Dr. Azmi Bishara, advocate for Palestinian rights, elected member of the
KnessetGlobal Peacemaker Recognition:
Rep. Barbara Lee, Arundhati Roy, Kathy Kelly and Bianca Jagger.RSVP by Thursday, May 15
Shannon Biggs, 415.575.5540
shannon@globalexchange.org
www.globalexchange.org$60 Nonprofit rate
$125 Individual rateIf you make reservations, you could specify "SOA Watch Table."
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[For archived news from previous posting,
click on: April.]
