SOAW–West News for November, 2003
School of thes Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
November 24, 2003San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org
Stories on the annual nonviolent vigil and protest at Fort Benning turned up in news reports across the country. The AP story run in the Chronicle featured SOAWW member Ted Sexauer prominently.
Link to Chronicle version of AP story: http://www.sfgate.com/*/.DTL.
Following are excerpts from some of the stories run nationwide. Each excerpt includes a link to the full story.
Clinton Herald, Iowa
Up to 10,000 demonstrators, including a group from Clinton, marched outside the U.S. Army infantry base that houses the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation .... LaVern Olberding, OSF, campus minister at The Franciscan University, coordinated the participation of the five TFU students, one TFU alumna, five Clinton Franciscan associates and three other sisters in this year's vigil ... [TFU alum Sarah] Martz is making her third trip to Fort Benning. "The experience of being with over 10,000 people from around the world, all of us dedicated to peace and nonviolence, is overwhelming," Martz said. "It is important not only to close the SOA but to witness to the power of active nonviolence. I keep hoping that each trip will be my last. "I keep hoping and praying that our government will finally close the school of terrorism."Centre Daily Times, State College, PA
He's not the best known of the Berrigan boys - (KRT) - Daniel and Philip hold that honor. But Jerome Berrigan, 82, is no stranger to the protest business."I really want to see what goes on here," said Jerome Berrigan, who walked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, then became a vocal protester of the Vietnam War. "I won't ask to speak. Others can clearly do that. But I'll
listen. I'm concerned about this school and what it teaches."
http://www.centredaily.com/*.htmSun Herald, Biloxi, Mississippi
Sister Helen Prejean on Saturday kept a promise she made to fellow Louisianian Roy Bourgeois 13 years ago: She took part in the annual SOA Watch demonstration in Fort Benning, Ga.
http://www.sunherald.com/*.htmTribune Star, Terre Haute, Indiana
"Thousands protest taxpayer-funded military training facility in Georgia"While prayers were recited Sunday in the Church of the Immaculate Conception at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, thousands of protesters, including 13 Sisters of Providence, marched in Fort Benning, Ga...
Almost 12,000 protesters turned out Sunday to protest the school...
At noon Sunday at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Sisters of Providence led a prayer service for those in Fort Benning, including staff and students of the college.
"We gathered ... in solidarity with those at Fort Benning," said Sister Rita Clare Gerardot, calling the facility the "School of Assassins."
The service opened with a song about social concern, "We are called." The beginning of the chorus illustrated the nuns' mission in Georgia: "We are called to act with justice ... ."
The Ledger-Inquirer, Columbus GA
As Sunday's protest ended, a labor union activist handed [Fr. Roy] Bourgeois a bright yellow T-shirt, a reminder they have joined the protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.Union reps march in step with students from Jesuit universities and peace groups, Catholic relief groups, gays and lesbians, nuns and Latin American solidarity groups.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/*.htm. (The Ledger-Inquirer carried many stories on the protest)
School of thes Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
November 25, 2003San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org
News accounts of the SOA Watch events of Nov. 22-23, 2003 are summarized first with the full text following.
(1) An estimated 27 people were arrested for crossing onto Fort Benning in acts of civil resistance. Their names will be given when available. Their trial is set for Jan. 26, 2004.
(1A) http://atlanta.indymedia.org/(2) Ted Sexauer of Sonoma is featured in several on-line news stories including ones posted to the Sacramento Bee and the San Diego Union Tribune. http://abcnews.go.com/*.html
(1B) www.ledger-enquirer.com/(3) Byrne Sherwood, Richmond High School Teacher, is featured in a news story in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. www.ledger-enquirer.com
ARRAIGNMENT from Atlanta Indy Media, (11/24/03)
All 44 people who were arrested during the SOA vigil had bail hearings this morning. 43 were arrested on Federal charges and were before Magistrate Faircloth. One person was arrested on state charges for refusing the
search at the checkpoint. He was charged with obstruction and held on $250 bond. The federal defendants were all charged with illegal entry on a military reservation for the purpose of protesting (not the exact legal language). 15 people were arrested after missing the exit and driving on the base by accident. 27 were arrested for crossing onto the base in acts of civil resistance. One person was pulled through the fence and arrested by the military. At today's hearing the charges were dropped against one man who entered the base on purpose because he is
blind. One minor had her case referred to Juvenile court. All the passengers in the lost cars and the man pulled through the fence were released without bail. The drivers and all the people who crossed the line were given
$1000 bonds, except one who was given a $100 bond. A trial date was set for January 26th. Magistrate Faircloth justified the high bails saying everyone was a flight risk because they lived so far away, despite the fact that SOA defendants have always returned for trial and that he gave $1000 bail to someone from Atlanta. Everyone has been bailed out except for three people who are choosing to stay in the county jail until trial.
BONDS SET FOR SOA PROTESTERS
Group's attorney says $1,000 bonds are too high
By Meg Pirnie, Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus GA, 11/25/03More than a quarter of the demonstrators detained on Fort Benning during last weekend's School of the America's Watch protest face criminal charges for allegedly making a wrong turn on their way to the protest site, they told U.S. Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth during a bond hearing Monday morning. They appeared in a Recorder's Court courtroom with other protesters who were arrested for trespassing on post during the demonstration. Faircloth released on their own recognizance the 11 passengers from the trespassing cars, but set a $1,000 bond for the three drivers and another 27 protesters. The judge set a $100 bond for one man and granted another a recognizance bond.
Faircloth dismissed charges against Edwin Lewinson, 73, a retired Seton Hall University American history professor, because the judge did not believe Lewinson, who is blind, could have trespassed onto the post without assistance.
Faircloth said he saw no cause for prosecution.
Three cars traveled onto Fort Benning at the Interstate 185 checkpoint over the weekend. Soldiers detained 14 people from those vehicles, eventually releasing five people, including a 17-year-old girl. The released protesters were given letters banning them from the post and assumed they did not face criminal charges. They found out Monday while sitting in court supporting detained friends that they too were charged with criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $500 fine.
Wrong direction
Rachel Craft, a 24-year-old from St. Louis, said she and several friends drove to the checkpoint and asked directions to the protest. The driver turned the car around and headed off post, but said as they were leaving they did not understand the directions to the stone gate on Fort Benning Road. They returned to the checkpoint to clarify the soldiers' instructions and immediately were arrested, she said."We had to come back to ask them to clarify, and it was at that point that we were arrested," Craft said.
Coryn Murphy, 19, of Atlanta, told the judge that when she stopped at the checkpoint, soldiers instructed her to turn around. She drove further onto the post searching for the first paved road that would lead her across to the exit
lanes of I-185. After she passed a gravel drive, a military police car turned on its lights and stopped her car. Murphy and her passengers were arrested, she said."I thought I was following his instructions," Murphy said. "As soon as the police car pulled up behind us, I stopped."
Melanie Aguilar, 19, of Iowa, said she was a passenger in another vehicle that made a wrong turn and was turned around at the I-185 checkpoint Saturday. She said a driver made the same wrong turn Sunday and approached the checkpoint planning to turn around; however, as soon as the car stopped at the checkpoint, the driver and passengers were arrested, Aguliar said. Attorney Bill Quigley, a member of the SOA Watch's legal collective, asked that trespassing charges against the passengers in the cars be dropped.
Faircloth responded that Monday's hearing was a bond hearing and thus not an appropriate place to make motions to dismiss charges.
$1,000 bond for most
Most detained protesters told Faircloth their names, ages and hometowns, but said little else during the proceedings. A few said they could not afford a $1,000 bond and requested that the judge lower their bonds or release them on their own recognizance. Faircloth refused almost everyone. He set a $100 bond for Jerome Zawada, a Franciscan priest from Burlington, Wis., who needed blood pressure medication not available to him inside the jail. Faircloth also released on his own recognizance Alexander White, 21, of Long Island, N.Y., after White said he was brought to the Fort Benning gate by Columbus police officers, then forced onto post by military police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melvin Hyde said White may have defaced the Fort Benning sign and could face additional charges. Quigley replied that the only charge pending against White was trespassing, an act White did not commit.Kathleen Kelly, 50, of Chicago, also could face an additional charge, obstruction of a law enforcement agent, Hyde said. The prosecutor told Faircloth that Kelly resisted arrest. Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, alleged that soldiers on post were shouting insults at her. She said she asked them to stop, and when they
refused, she told them she could not cooperate during her arrest. "I then found myself face down on the floor and was hog tied," Kelly said. A soldier allegedly pressed a knee into Kelly's back until she cried that she could not breathe, then warned that one of her lungs had collapsed several times in the past, Kelly said. She said she believed her ribs were bruised during the incident.Faircloth frowned, then set Kelly's bond at $1,000.
Quigley, director of Loyola University's law clinic, said he was frustrated that Faircloth set $1,000 bonds for so many protesters, including several members of religious sects who took vows of poverty. "We see the high bonds as attempt to punish people for engaging in dissent," Quigley said.
THOUSANDS DEMAND CLOSING OF CONTROVERSIAL FORT BENNING SCHOOL
By Elliott Minor, Associated Press Writer, 11/23/03Ted Sexauer attended airborne school at Fort Benning in 1967 before serving two tours as a medic in Vietnam, where he experienced the carnage of war. Now the 57-year-old disabled veteran is concerned the United States is mired in another divisive conflict in Iraq that will leave Americans wondering if the cost in young soldiers' lives was worth the price.
"It is obvious that this is as wrong a war as Vietnam," he said. "I feel for the soldiers who are there."
On Sunday, Sexauer sat in a lawn chair wearing an olive-green Vietnam-era field jacket with his airborne and medic badges while an estimated 10,000 demonstrators, ranging from teenagers to senior citizens, marched at
the main gate of Fort Benning.They gather there every November to demand the closing of a military school they blame for atrocities committed against the poor in Latin America. "We are here to speak for them," said the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll
priest who founded School of the Americas Watch and has been leading the demonstrations for 14 years. "We oppose the violence generated by this school and Fort Benning soldiers. Our way is the way of love with our brothers and sisters who are victims of violence," he said.Bourgeois vowed to return every year until the school is shut down.
The school moved to Fort Benning in 1984 and was known as the Army's School of the Americas. Now it is under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department with a new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
SOA Watch prides itself on holdng peaceful demonstrations, but some protesters engage in acts of civil disobedience.
Brig. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, the post commander, said seven protesters were arrested for trespassing Saturday and one person was arrested for damaging government property after he spray painted Fort Benning's main gate. William Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and legal adviser to SOA Watch, said another 30-40 protesters were arrested on trespassing charges Sunday after crossing onto military property.Those convicted of trespassing face sentences ranging from probation to six months in a federal prison and a $5,000 fine.
While SOA Watch has a single focus - the closing of the school - it was evident from the banners and signs on Sunday that many of the protesters, such as Sexauer, are concerned about the war in Iraq and the deaths of U.S. soldiers who are trying to stabilize the country. "Life in a war zone is dehumanizing," said Sexauer, a member of a group known as Veterans for Peace. He said the troops went to Iraq thinking they would be treated as liberators." Instead, they're roughing people up," he said. "So my heart goes out to our younger brothers. I wish them luck with their healing."
Eric LeCompte, the protest's organizing coordinator, said it was the largest protest ever. "We believe our nonviolent action was effective," he said.
Freakley, speaking at a news conference Sunday morning with institute commandant Col. Richard Downie and Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff, said he was obligated to arrest those who trespass on the post. Downie said he was encouraged that almost 600 protesters had attended the school's open house on Saturday. "I find it somewhat frustrating that this group is trying to close an institution that is working for the same principals they are," he said. He added that the school strengthens democracy and teaches soldiers and police officers their role in a democratic society.
The mayor said he found it repulsive for a group to hold a demonstration outside Fort Benning at a time when people have died in the war in Iraq. Fort Benning's 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, helped lead the charge
into Iraq and Freakley served there during the war. "I don't deny them their right to demonstrate but don't do it when people at Fort Benning have died and are recovering from their wounds," the mayor said.During SOA Watch's traditional funeral march outside the gates, the names of thousands of alleged victims of violence in South America were read as protesters raised their crosses to honor them.
Demonstrators faced about 60 civilian officers in blue uniforms and military police wearing camouflage uniforms.
The heavy police presence was partly due to concerns among fort officials that those protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Miami may have joined the peaceful demonstration. Gas masks were slung over officers' legs, and people entering the area had to pass through a metal detector.Medea Benjamin, a San Francisco peace activist, said she was pepper-sprayed in Miami and then joined the protest in Georgia. "This is very special to me," she said. "It's so beautiful, so spiritual, you'll be touched for life."
PROTEST DURING WARTIME STIRS MIXED EMOTIONS
By Tony Adams, Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, GA, 11/24/03Soaking up the scene of thousands of protesters sprawled near the main gate to Fort Benning Sunday afternoon, Columbus City Manager Carmen Cavezza had mixed feelings about the gathering. After all, he wore a U.S. Army uniform for 34 years before retiring in 1994 with three stars on his shoulder. And Cavezza was commander of Fort Benning in 1990 and 1991 just as the demonstrations began, with a few dozen people. "It's democracy in action," Cavezza said. "What goes through your mind is you understand the right to protest peacefully, and you accept it because that's why we have a military, to give us that right."
But still, he conceded, there is a prickly rub to seeing people criticize the military with our nation's troops deployed in hot spots around the globe. "It kind of eats at you when you know that you've got people over in Iraq and in Afghanistan and all over the world doing what I think is the right thing to do," he said. "So it's a major contradiction. But that's the beauty of our country, people have a right to protest."
'Peace' on the fence
On the chain-link fence separating protesters from Fort Benning property Sunday, two images were juxtaposed.
Below a large official sign proclaiming, "U.S. Property. No Trespassing," were small green cards placed by protesters. On one side were the words, "End War," and a quote, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way."
On the other side of the card was the slogan, "Bombs Won't Bring Peace," with the Internet address of a New York-based group called War Resisters League.The address was www.warresisters.org.
Loving the soldiers
Love was in the air Sunday. At least that's the message -- the vibes, actually -- Emily Chaffee and Ryan Ericksen were trying to send to Fort Benning soldiers waiting to grab trespassers on the other side of the fence.Holding her hands at shoulder level, palms facing toward the troops wearing battle dress uniforms, Chaffee, 25, really felt she was getting her message across -- even if the soldiers did laugh and point at her occasionally.
"That's just because they're afraid of it," said Chaffee, a self-described "nomad" whose home town is Cape Cod, Mass. "But the longer I stay here, the more connection there is, I think, maybe."
Chaffee had been standing by the fence for an hour, while Ericksen, 16, from Danville, Calif., had only been gazing at the Fort Benning personnel a few minutes. "After a while some of them start to respond," Ericksen said.
Uniform creates a stir
Amid the hundreds of crosses, photos and posters affixed by protesters to the main gate at Fort Benning Sunday was a piece of clothing drawing plenty of attention and photographs from demonstrators. The item was a U.S. Army dress green jacket with a chest full of medals and Airborne School jump wings on the front, a Ranger tab on the left upper sleeve, and lieutenant colonel pins on the shoulders. A letter attached to it and signed by retired Lt. Col. Byrne Sherwood Jr. explained its appearance on a fence that served as a barrier between the military and protesters this weekend."It is with regret and sorrow that I return my uniform to you," the letter read in part. "Fort Benning, the infantryman's home, is where I learned the art and science of war. It is where I became a Ranger and a paratrooper .... After I retired and was freed from the narrow focus of a soldier I began to see a systematic pattern of U.S. foreign policy that sponsors and supports repressive right-wing regimes around the world .... Now all I can say is 'Not in my name.' Not in my name will these things be done."
Sherwood, a high school teacher from Richmond, Calif., brought a group of students to the protest to film a documentary titled, "Crossing the Line: The Making of an Activist."
New approach
Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff did not spend all day at the SOA Watch protest Sunday. He attended a Fort Benning news conference in the morning, checked in with police commanders, then left the protest site.The mayor is the city's public safety director.
"We have a professional public safety organization and they don't need me hanging around," Poydasheff. "If we need him, we can get him," said City Manager Carmen Cavezza said.
Poydasheff did attend the God Bless Fort Benning Rally about two miles from the protest site.
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