Twenty-six SOA Watch human rights protesters sentenced

Dwight Lawton served a six month sentence in federal prison for participating in earlier protests at the School of the Americas. He is a member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship National Committee.

You're invited to join the next Presbyterian Peace Fellowship delegation to Fort Benning, Nov. 16 - 18.

On Monday May 21^st I left St. Petersburg with two Quaker friends and drove to Columbus, Georgia for the May 22^nd trial of 26 School of the Americas Watch protesters. This was to be my fifth visit to this courthouse; the first two were mandatory. We arrived in time to attend a reception and rally for the 26 who had been indicted and to meet their supporters. This was a wonderful, inspirational way to hear from these highly motivated people, ranging in age from 19 to 88, who had decided that enough was enough and they could speak for the voiceless.

As they were speaking at this reception and at their trial the next day, I remembered the cold, wet, funeral procession into Fort Benning on Sunday, November 20. The solemn and indescribably moving procession commemorated the November 16, 1989 murder, in El Salvador, of the six Jesuit Priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter. Of the 26 soldiers implicated in the deaths, 19 were graduates of this school.

I was pleased to meet John Ewers, a Presbyterian elder from Ohio, and now a member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. At his trial he spoke of his professional management experience and stated that the SOA/WHISC is poorly managed in that the organization does not have clearly stated objectives and does not follow up on the progress of its graduates.

Fort Benning is home to the notorious School of the Americas. It was recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) as a direct result of the eleven years of protest and lobbying to close this School of the Assassins. The school was founded in 1946 in Panama and moved to Ft. Benning in 1984. Over 60,000 Latin American soldiers trained at this school have left a trail of blood and suffering in countries throughout Latin America.

Several defendants at the trial spoke of the importance of speaking out against the horrible human rights abuses taught at the SOA and that any penalty the federal magistrate might impose would not deter them from continuing their efforts to close the school. Many of those on trial expressed their awareness of the increase in Pentagon activities throughout Latin America. They are aware of the United States' new Forward Operating Locations at bases in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Honduras, the Dutch West Indies, Costa Rica and Colombia. They understand the Pentagon has trained some of the hemisphere's worst human rights abusers.

U.S. military influence in this region - indeed in the world - is extensive and largely unexamined. Instead of the word 'globalization,' the more operative description seems to be 'imperialism.'

Even as the 26 were being sentenced, 11 other people were engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience actions on the base and were arrested. Three people walked onto the base, including Lana Jacobs, wife of Steve Jacobs, who was sentenced to a year in prison. Three activists removed the white line at the entrance to Fort Benning. Five other protesters delivered a letter to Col. Richard Downie, director of the SOA/WHISC, "banning and barring" the school from further counterinsurgency training, training at odds with a respect for human rights.

Join the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship delegation to Fort Benning. We have booked a block of rooms in Columbus, Georgia for 3 nights, November 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th. We will arrange transportation from the Atlanta airport on Friday, November 16, and from Columbus back to Atlanta on Monday, November 19^th.

For information, please contact Marilyn White, (281) 332-1761 or marwhite@igc.org

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219^th General Assembly have now been acted upon by the presbyteries, confirming most of them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We provided resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

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