SOAW-W News for October, 2002
1) October 10th News.
2) October 14th East Bay Update.
3) October 23 reminder.
4) October 27th News.
5) Special Event in November.[Readers: I urge you to read both of the first two postings; though there is some duplication, there is more information, particularly that applies to Ft. Benning. -Editor]
School of the Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
October 10, 2002San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org1) Update on travel plans for Vigil to close SOA/WHISC at Ft. Benning, GA
Extended Stay America: 17 Nonsmoking Rooms available as of 10/10.
Details below.
If you are going to GA, please contact Kathy Gehlken at kgehlkentang@hotmail.com2) From Violence To Wholeness: Nonviolence Action Training - important for all and especially for those going to Ft. Benning
Sat. Oct. 19, 10:30-5:00 pm, Unitarian Center, Franklin at Geary, San Francisco
If you will attend, please contact Laura at lauraslattery@paceebene.org3) Oakland: Nonviolent Action Training for the Catholic Community Sunday, Oct. 13, 1:00 - 5:30 pm
4) For those who will be in the Bay Area on Friday, Nov. 15: "The case against Vides Casanova and Garcia of El Salvador"
5:00 - 7:00 pm, University of San Francisco5) SOA Graduates in the news in Guatemala
A) "A Tale of Two Sisters," Murder of Myrna Mack: 2 of 3 officers charged were SOA graduates (PNS)
B) Army Colonel convicted in Guatemalan activist's death (AP)
C) Guatemalan Appeals Court grants New Trial for four men convicted of Gerardi Murder (AP)
1) 13th ANNUAL, NONVIOLENT VIGIL TO CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS
(aka Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)
Fri-Sun, Nov. 15-17, 2002
Ft. Benning Main Gate, Columbus, Georgia
Teach-in on Colombia from 12:30 to 5:00 pm on Friday, Nov. 15TRAVEL SUGGESTIONS for Bay Area Delegation
LODGING in Columbus, GA - Extended Stay America
You may request a room with 2 beds but this cannot be guaranteed until the day before.
706.654.9938 (4 AM to 8 PM, Pacific Time). Rate is $65 + 14% tax = $74.10/per night.AIR TRAVEL
The best deals are being found from web sites (Delta, Orbitz, etc.), SFO to ATL Roundtrip at $374 on 10/09/02.
Compare to what Delta Meeting Network offers to SOA Watchers with 5% discount before 10/16/02 by calling 1.800.241.6760 (5am-8pm PT). Code# 188283A.Delta flies to Atlanta from SF, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento.
Suggested Flights from SFO
On 11/14: #212 lv SFO at 10:00 pm and arr ATL 5:24 am.
On 11/15: #314 lv SFO at 7:00 am and arr ATL 2:34 pm.
#1960 lv SFO at 8:30 am and arr ATL 4:02 pm.
On 11/17: #277 lv ATL at 6:00 pm and arrive SFO at 8:10 pm.
On 11/18: #437 lv ATL at 10:10 am and arrive SFO at 12:20 pm.CAR RENTAL: Groups rent cars at the Atlanta Airport based on flight times.
Columbus is approximately 100 miles southwest of Atlanta.BAY AREA Delegation Coordinator: Kathy Gehlken
Please let Kathy know if you make plans to go to Georgia.
kgehlkentang@hotmail.com
2) From Violence to Wholeness: Nonviolence Action Training
Saturday, October 19 from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm
Unitarian Universalist Center, 1187 Franklin (at Geary), San Francisco.
Registration Fee: $10, includes lunch
A one-day nonviolence training in preparation for the annual demonstration to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, on NOVEMBER 17th.This experiential training will employ ritual, small group discussion, and hands-on exercises. It will focus on philosophical nonviolence (as a way of life), consensus process and this year's scenario at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia. Also: civil disobedience techniques, legal aspects, hopes and fears around being arrested and jail time, and participating in affinity groups.
Training Coordinator: Laura Slattery (lauraslattery@paceebene.org)
3) From Violence to Wholeness: Nonviolent Action Training for the Catholic Community
Sunday, October 13, 2002
1:00-5:30 PM
Catholic Charities of the East Bay, 433 Jefferson Street, Oakland, CA 94607
Any questions, please contact Christina at 510-517-7140 or christinaleano@paceebene.org
4) For those who will be in the Bay Area on Friday, Nov. 15:
The case against Vides Casanova and Garcia of El Salvador:
A Forum with Carlos Mauricio, Neris Gonzalez, the pro bono lawyers, and the Center for Justice and Accountability.
5:00 - 7:00 pm, University of San Francisco
The forum is timed to remember the six Jesuits and their two housekeepers killed in 1989.
5)
A) A Tale of Two Sisters by Mary Jo McConahay
Pacific News Service (copyright), Oct. 4, 2002On Sept. 11, l990, Myrna Mack Chang, anthropologist and mother, was killed by 27 knife blows to her slight body as she left a research institute in downtown Guatemala City. Since then I have watched Myrna's bespectacled sister Helen go after the murderers.
World supporters joined the cause, but in Guatemala the buck always stopped with Helen. I would see her slip away from friends at lunch to sit alone with her laptop, intent on learning the law. Overcoming shyness, she spoke into television cameras. Once Helen told me she relied for strength on her religious faith -- she is a devout Catholic -- but she often looked ragged and pale, frequenting one bare hearing room after another as frightened judges procrastinated, resigned, or bounced the case around as if it were on fire.
"I asked Helen what country she thought she was living in," a colleague of Myrna's said, amazed, when he first told me that the self-effacing older sister was pursuing a police investigation. She was a middle-class business office manager uninvolved in politics. The hit men of a brutal military still operated at will. When a police inspector filed a report that called Myrna's murder political, committed by a member of the presidential security department, he was assassinated in broad daylight. The message was clear: the case should go no further. But it did, because of Helen.
One witness was assassinated, another fled into exile. Peace accords ending the 36-year civil war in l996 made little difference. This June, Helen and 10 others received faxed death threats calling them "enemies of the state." They would taste "the steel of bullets."
Since Sept. 3, however, when the trial began of Gen. Edgar Augusto Godoy Gaitan, Col. Juan Valencia Osorio and Col. Guillermo Oliva Carrera for plotting and ordering Myrna's murder, I have been able to go to my computer in San Francisco and pull up a photo of Helen in a large and somber Guatemala court, sitting across from the officers. "Face To Face At Last" reads the caption.
Myrna Mack's crime was using professional social research methods, interviewing subjects in the field, to document the harrowing lives of thousands of displaced families crowded into refugee camps, or hiding in mountains and reduced to eating grass, fleeing the army's scorched earth juggernaut. They were not guerrillas. Myrna gave them a human face. Two hundred thousand died in the war, most of them unarmed Maya Indians. The army did not want the truth out.
Selective assassination is effective in the short term. Like a rock thrown into a pond, its ripples disturb a wide circle. Months after
Myrna's death, in the northern jungles, a Guatemalan archaeologist became nervous as I asked what I considered innocuous questions about the government's role in preserving ancient Maya ruins. Wordlessly, he pulled from his back pocket a frayed clipping about Myrna's murder. The gesture said, "Let's not talk about anything that might get me noticed."Beyond politics, Myrna's murder was a crime against a family -- immigrants from China in her father's generation. One night in the early l990s, the judge, police, lawyers, the accused knifeman and others gathered at the crime scene for a legally required "reconstruction of events." A new witness appeared, a neighborhood man who said he could no longer hold back what he had seen. Lawyers grilled him about point of view and precise times, but Myrna's young daughter Lucrecia finally asked about her mother's end with an intensity that hushed all others, "What words did my mother say?"
Americans should know this is not a drama far away and unconnected to us. Myrna's murder was planned and executed by a military unit called the "Archivo," an intelligence-gathering and command center dedicated to political repression. The Archivo (it means "the file") is a direct descendant of the U.S. intelligence system set up in Guatemala when the CIA overthrew the country's democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz in l954 and installed a military dictatorship.
The CIA never left. In a Cold War where dissenters and communists were considered terrorist threats, the CIA helped create a list of some 70,000 "suspects." Some were assassinated. In l964, the U.S. Office of Public Safety provided money and technical support for an executive civil-military intelligence unit that became a death squad coordination center.
Two of the three officers in the Mack docket -- Godoy Gaitan and Oliva Carrera -- graduated from the U.S. School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Ga. Another officer who trained there, Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, once headed the Archivo and participated in the murders of Michael Devine, a U.S. innkeeper, and Efrain Bamaca, a captured combatant and husband of U.S. activist-lawyer Jennifer Harbury. In l995, Rep. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) revealed Alpirez had been a paid CIA operative at the time. Helen's work has forced testimony about the secret Archivo into the public arena.
On Oct. 3, the Internet pictures changed. Valencia Osorio: guilty, the first time in Guatemala a military leader has been found criminally culpable for murder carried out by underlings. The other two (Godoy Gaitan and Oliva Carrera): acquitted for "insufficient evidence." It is a partial victory.
When I first met Helen people used to say she and Myrna looked alike. Myrna's smiling face graces posters, forever young. Helen's face has grown older.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Behind the landmark conviction of a Guatemalan officer for ordering the murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang is the valiant work of her sister Helen. Mary Jo McConahay watched the self-effacing office manager emerge to battle death threats and confront a paralyzed judiciary in her struggle for justice for her sister.
McConahay (mcconahay@pacificnews.org or 415.503.4170) is a writer and filmmaker who lived in Guatemala for over a decade.
B) Army colonel convicted in Guatemalan activist's death, two others cleared.
Sergio De Leon, Associated Press story printed in San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 4, 2002A Guatemalan army colonel was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering a fellow member of the presidential guard to kill human rights activist Myrna Mack in 1990. But two other military officials were cleared of involvement in the killing.
Mack, a 39-year-old anthropologist, was stabbed 27 times outside her downtown Guatemala City office on Sept. 11, 1990. Col. Juan Valencia, an assistant director of Guatemala's presidential guard, was convicted Thursday of ordering the killing. But retired Gen. Edgar Godoy -- who once headed the presidential guard -- and army Col. Juan Oliva were found innocent. (Godoy and Oliva are SOA Graduates.)
"It is unfair because I am innocent and I didn't participate in this act," Valencia said after his sentencing. His attorney said he would appeal. Noel Beteta, a former member of Guatemala's presidential guard, is serving 25 years in prison for carrying out the murder. In taped confessions to another prisoner, he said Valencia gave the order to kill Mack. The tapes did not directly link the other two military officials to the killing. Mack's sister, Helen, asked the court to give the three suspects the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. She said she was satisfied with Thursday's decision.
"I believe Guatemala has had an opportunity to discuss its past within the courts," she said. "I have made an effort to represent with dignity the history of many Guatemalans, and I hope that a new era has begun in the country."
The presidential guard originally was created to protect the president but allegedly grew into a squad of spies and assassins responsible for some of Guatemala's most high-profile atrocities. Governments long have promised to abolish the guard, but so far none has been able or willing to. Prosecutors say corrupt army generals and presidents long used the guard and its slayings to protect their secrets. Mack's case is one of many in which the army is accused of trying to hide its role in the country's 1960-1996
civil war by silencing those investigating it.Last year, former guard member Jose Obdulio Villanueva and guard member Capt. Byron Lima were convicted of murdering Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi, the head of the church's local human rights office. Gerardi was killed after releasing a report blaming the military for human rights abuses. Two other men also were convicted. The presidential guard also was implicated in a fatal 1990 machine-gun attack on journalist Humberto Gonzalez and in the 1996 disappearance of guerrilla leader Juan Jose Cabrera.
Prosecutors say Mack angered the military with a groundbreaking 1990 report blaming state anti-insurgency campaigns for killing hundreds of Mayan Indians.
Three days before the trial began last month, assailants shot at the home of Roberto Romero, head lawyer for a human rights group founded by Mack's sister. Police assigned to protect Romero's home disappeared before the attack, and activists suspect official involvement.
C) Appeals court grants new trial for four men convicted in slaying of Guatemalan bishop
Associated Press story as printed in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 8, 2002An appeals court granted a new trial Tuesday to three military officials and a priest convicted of killing a Roman Catholic bishop, saying a key witness's testimony was flawed.
In June 2001, a three-judge panel convicted retired Col. Byron Lima Estrada (SOA Graduate), his son, Capt. Byron Lima Oliva, and Sgt. Obdulio Villanueva of the bludgeoning death of Bishop Juan Gerardi and sentenced them to 30 years in prison. The Rev. Mario Orantes, Gerardi's assistant, was sentenced to 25 years in prison as an accomplice in the killing.
On Tuesday, the appeals tribunal said the lower court had issued its verdict without adequately verifying the testimony of Ruben Chanax, whose statements were key to the defendants' convictions. Gerardi was bludgeoned to death with a concrete block in the garage of his Guatemala City seminary in April 1998, days after presenting a lengthy report blaming the military for 80 percent of the deaths during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.
SOAW–W East Bay Update
October 14, 2002Hello Friends-In this update from the East Bay School of the Americas Watch, you will find lots of good stuff:
A) Next SOAW-EAST BAY meeting information
B) From Violence to Wholeness: Be Prepared for Fort Benning Actions by Training in Nonviolent Action/Civil Disobedience -- October 26th, 10:30-5 S.F.
C) Help Bay Area Musicians Get to the SOA Vigil!! Fundraising Concert with: Francisco Herrera & Jon Fromer October 26th
8 pm, S.F.D) Travel Suggestions for Bay Area Activists going to Fort Benning Nov. 15-17th
E) Tentative Schedule of Events at Fort Benning: Nov. 15-17
F) Write the Prisoners of Conscience!! Prison Addresses for Bay Area Activists
G) Inspiring Quote :)
We hope to see you in Georgia!!!
Paz-
School of the Americas Watch- East Bay
A) NEXT SOAW-EAST BAY MEETING:
WEDNEDAY, OCTOBER 16th
7:00-9:00 P.M.
World Ground Cafe
3726 MacArthur Blvd (2 blocks south of 35th)
OAKLAND(for more info, contact: Rachel Montgomery 510-205-3956 or catsdogs@mindspring.com)
AGENDA:
1) Brief review of September 28th event with Father Roy - what went well, what could be improved for next time
2) Brief update on Prisoners of Conscience, and what we can do to support them
3) PLANS FOR TRIP TO FORT BENNING DEMONSTRATION AND VIGIL (NOVEMBER 15-17):
-get a count of who is going
-information on coordinating transportation, lodging, etc.
-information on preparations leading up to the demonstration (nonviolence and civil disobedience training, invitation from Contra Costa SOAW to come to a commissioning/blessing of the travellers to Georgia,etc.)
-information on getting the word out before and after the vigil ... what can we do as a group to get the message out?? (finding
speaking engagements, talking with the media, politicians, friends, neighbors, family members, co-workers, etc)
B) From Violence to Wholeness: Nonviolence Action Training
Saturday, October 19 from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm
Unitarian Universalist Center, 1187 Franklin (at Geary), San Francisco.
Registration Fee: $10, includes lunch
A one-day nonviolence training in preparation for the annual demonstration to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, on NOVEMBER 17th.This experiential training will employ ritual, small group discussion, and hands-on exercises. It will focus on philosophical nonviolence (as a way of life), consensus process and this year's scenario at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia. Also: civil disobedience techniques, legal aspects, hopes and fears around being arrested and jail time, and participating in affinity groups.
Training Coordinator: Laura Slattery 510-567-8560 or lauraslattery@paceebene.org
C) Help Bay Area Musicians Get to the SOA Vigil/Protest!
Fundraising concert with Francisco Herrera & Jon Fromer performing Saturday, October 26th 8:00 P.M.
Mission Pesbyterian Church 23rd Street & Capp in S.F.
(1 block from the 24th Street BART)
$5-15 sliding scale
D) 13th ANNUAL, NONVIOLENT VIGIL TO CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (aka Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)
Fri-Sun, Nov. 15-17, 2002
Ft. Benning Main Gate, Columbus, Georgia
Teach-in on Colombia from 12:30 to 5:00 pm on Friday, Nov. 15TRAVEL SUGGESTIONS for Bay Area Delegation
LODGING in Columbus, GA - Extended Stay America
You may request a room with 2 beds but this cannot be guaranteed until the day before.
706.654.9938 (4 AM to 8 PM, Pacific Time). Rate is $65 + 14% tax = $74.10/per night.AIR TRAVEL
The best deals are being found from web sites (Delta, Orbitz, etc.), SFO to ATL Roundtrip at $374 on 10/09/02.
Compare to what Delta Meeting Network offers to SOA Watchers with 5% discount before 10/16/02 by calling 1.800.241.6760 (5am-8pm PT). Code# 188283A.Delta flies to Atlanta from SF, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento.
Suggested Flights from SFO
On 11/14: #212 lv SFO at 10:00 pm and arr ATL 5:24 am.
On 11/15: #314 lv SFO at 7:00 am and arr ATL 2:34 pm.
#1960 lv SFO at 8:30 am and arr ATL 4:02 pm.
On 11/17: #277 lv ATL at 6:00 pm and arrive SFO at 8:10 pm.
On 11/18: #437 lv ATL at 10:10 am and arrive SFO at 12:20 pm.CAR RENTAL: Groups rent cars at the Atlanta Airport based on flight times.
Columbus is approximately 100 miles southwest of Atlanta.BAY AREA Delegation Coordinator: Kathy Gehlken
Please let Kathy know if you make plans to go to Georgia.
kgehlkentang@hotmail.com
E) TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS FOR FORT BENNING NOV.15-17:
Friday, November 15
12:30--5:00 pm: Colombia Teach-in (Howard Johnson)Saturday, November 16
6:00--8:00 pm: Witness for Peace Reunion/Open House (Heritage Inn)
7:00--9:00 pm: United Church of Christ gathering (Methodist Church)
7:30--9:30 pm: The SOA and the War on Terrorism--Pax Christi (Howard Johnson)8:30--10:30 am: Peacekeeper Orientation and Training (Howard Johnson, Presidential Room)
9:00--10:30 am: Student Caucus (Days Inn, Victory Drive)
9:00--10:30 am: Catholic Worker Gathering (Howard Johnson)
9:00--10:15 am: Orientation and Logistics Session (Bradley Theater)11:00 am5:00 pm: Rally at the Gates of Fort Benning
THE RALLY WILL BE SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETED4:30--6:00pm: Men's Caucus (Howard Johnson)
5:00 pm: Maryknoll Community Gathering (Heritage Inn)
5:30--7:30 pm: Organized Labor Caucus (Days Inn)
6:007:15 pm: Orientation and Logistics Session (Bradley Theater)
6:30-8:15 pm: Affinity group orientation and formation (Howard Johnson)
8:30 pm: Women's Caucus (Days Inn)
7:00--9:00 pm: Church of the Brethren and Friends gathering (Marriot)
7:00 pm: Veterans for Peace gathering (Howard Johnson)
7:45-9:00 pm: Orientation and Logistics Session (Bradley Theater)
9:00 pm: Spokescouncil meeting for affinity group representatives (Howard Johnson)
9:30 pm: BENEFIT CONCERT (Bradley Theater)Times and Places TBA:
Women¹s Religious Caucus
Anti-oppression training
Sunday, November 178:30 am-4:00pm: Vigil at the Gates of Fort Benning--featuring the Indigo Girls
VIGIL WILL BE SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETED
The schedule of events is a work in progress! We will be updating this page with additions to the schedule.
(for updates, go to: www.soaw.org)
F) The following people are Bay Area activists currently serving prison time for nonviolent protest/witness at the School of the
Americas/WHISC vigil and protest last year in Columbus, Georgia. If you would like a full list of the 26 people serving prison time for their nonviolent actions, please go to www.soaw.org* Father Bill O'Donnell is the pastor at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley and co-founder of the San Carlos Foundation with Dr. Davida Cody and Martin Sheen. He was given a sentence of six months, and began his time on September 10th, 2002. His projected release date is March 10, 2003
Father Bill O'Donnell
#85713-011
Atwater, USP
P.O. Box 01900
Atwater, CA 95301* Father Louis Vitale is the pastor at St. Boniface Church in San Francisco, as well as co-founder of Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, which created From Violence to Wholeness, a nonviolent action training program. He was sentenced to three months in prison, with his sentence to begin on October 16th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our thoughts and prayers are with him as he begins his time this Wednesday, and we will be sending out his prison address as soon as it becomes available.
* Toni Flynn is from Valyermo, CA and is a High Desert Catholic Worker member and a Benedictine Oblate at St. Andrew's Abbey, also in Valyermo. Mother of four grown children and expecting first grandchild in October. She was sentenced to six months in federal prison, but has been serving her time in a County jail in Georgia under rather difficult circumstances. (see www.soaw.org) She began her sentence on July 12, 2002 and her projected release date is January 1st, 2003.
Toni Flynn
#90960-020
Crisp County Jail
196 South Highway 300
Cordele, GA 31015*Chani Geigle-Teller is an activist and student from Salem, OR. She works with Oregon Peace Works mobilizing youth for social
justice work in their communities. She was sentenced to six months. She has been placed in a women's prison in Dublin, CA, and since it may be difficult for her family and friends to visit her there, it would be great if the Bay Area could show their solidarity and support by getting in contact with her through letters and possibly visit her in prison. She began her sentence on September 10th, 2002, and her projected release date is March 10, 2003.Chantilly Geigle
FPC Dublin
#90968-020
5775 8th St.
Camp Parks
Dublin, CA 94568
God is no white knight who charges into the world to pluck us
like distressed damsels from the jaws of dragons, or disease.
God chooses to become present to and through us. It is up to us
to rescue one another.--Nancy Mairs
School of the Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
October 23, 2002San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org
1) Saturday, October 26, MARCH to Stop the War Against Iraq
11:00 AM Rally & March Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART)
1:00 PM Rally Civic Center (Grove & Larkin)For more information go to: http://www.internationalanswer.org/
SOA Watch West activists are invited to walk together.
Look for the SOAWW Banner near the Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza.
The banner will be on poles so it should show over the crowd.2) CONCERT with Francisco Herrera and Jon Frommer to raise funds for them to sing at the Vigil at the SOA in GA
Sat. Oct. 26, 8:00 PM, Mission Presbyterian Church, 23rd St. & Capp, San Francisco
Donation: $5-15, sliding scale3) TRAVEL PLANS for Vigil to close SOA/WHISC at Ft. Benning, GA:
There are more than 130 people from the Bay Area with reservations so they can participate on Nov. 16-17 in GA.
WOW! This is more people than ever from our area!
If you are going, please contact Kathy Gehlken at kgehlkentang@hotmail.com.4) FUNDS to help people young and old with the expenses of travel to Ft. Benning
Contributions received now will assist others wanting to vigil in GA.
Make checks to SOAWW.
Mail to: SOAWW, c/o Judy Liteky, 167 Staples Ave. San Francisco, CA 94112Kathy Gehlken at kgehlkentang@hotmail.com.
School of the Americas Watch–West ~ SOAW–W
October 27, 2002San Jose Website - http://teachers.bcp.org/llauro
Los Angeles Website - www.soaw-la.org
National Website - www.soaw.org1) Halloween Party/Fundraiser for USF students going to Georgia
Thurs. Oct. 31, Dinner at 6:30 PM
McLaren complex, University of San Francisco.
Costumes are encouraged.
Music by Francisco Herrera.
Proceeds go to helping 27 USF students and staff go to GA.
Tickets are $15 students and $25 nonstudents.
Groups of ten are discounted by $5 per ticket.
Contact: Sarah Silva, SOAW USF2) Letters to Louie:
Louis John Vitale, #25803-048
FPC Nellis C.S. 4500
North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-4500On Tuesday, 10/15/02, Fr. Louie left San Francisco and traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada. He arrived at the Federal Prison Camp at Nellis Air Force Base on Wednesday, 10/16, to start serving his three month sentence.
The following is an excerpt from his good-bye letter to the St. Boniface parishioners:
"As you are aware I shall be leaving on Tuesday for my "sabbatical" at the Federal Prison Camp at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. I will be there for three months. I was sentenced by a federal judge in Georgia for participating in a funeral procession last November at Ft. Benning that called for closing the School of the Americas which trains officers and soldiers from Latin America who engage in torture and killing of innocent peoples. It is a long time to be away from the parish (though I do need a break), but I feel it is worth it to witness to a desire for compassion for those who suffer.I will keep you all in my prayers, please keep me in yours. I will see you in mid-January."
Contact Person: Jenny Wiley at (415)255-60133) Mark your calendars!-- A Panel Discussion --
A Glimmer of Justice for El Salvador:
Torture Survivors' Successful Lawsuit Against Salvadoran former Top Ranking Generals"Friday, November 15, 2002
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
University of San Francisco
Lone Mountain 148, Pacific Rim RoomPanelists:
Carlos Mauricio, Plaintiff-Torture survivor
Neris Gonzalez, Plaintiff-Torture survivor
Sandra Coliver, Executive Director, Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA)
Terry Karl, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Joshua Sondheimer, Litigation Director, Center for Justice and Accountability
Shawn Roberts, Human Rights Lawyer
Beth Van Schaack, Former Associate, Morrison & Foerster; Assistant Professor, University of Santa Clara, School of Law; and Member, CJA's Advisory CouncilThis event, which is sponsored by the University of San Francisco and St. Ignatius Church, is free and open to the public. The event marks the 13th anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuits and their two co-workers at the University of Central America in San Salvador.
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