A federal judge in the United States found six members of the Center of the School of the Americas (School of the Americas Watch, or SOAW, in English) guilty. The activists were caught last November after entering Fort Benning, GA in protest of the school.
On Monday, January 26, 2009, six human rights activists appeared before United States Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth, in a federal court in Columbus, Georgia.
The “6 SOAW” were found guilty and sentenced for entering the Fort Benning military base while protesting against the School of the Americas. That school, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperative (WHINSEC), is a controversial training program where the United States military trains Latin American soldiers.
The accused six participated, together with tens of thousands of people, in protests on the 22nd and 23rd of November 2008, in front of the gates of Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia. They demanded a change in the U.S.’s foreign policy towards Latin America and the closing of the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC).
The group walked peacefully towards the entrance of Fort Benning, while thousands of demonstrators carried out a vigil in front of the doors, in memory of those assassinated at the hands of graduates of this institution.
The SOA/WHINSEC hit the headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released manuals from the school that apparently promoted the use of torture, extortion, and extrajudicial executions.
Despite the aggressive international campaign and all the effort on the part of SOA/WHINSEC, the support for the institute has continued to decline. Given that more than 35 representatives of Congress that voted to continue funding SOA/WHINSEC in November 2008 have lost their seats, the advocates of human rights are pressuring the new Congress to close the school permanently in 2009. The last vote to withdraw the funds to SOA/WHINSEC, which took place in 2007, lost by only a margin of six votes.
The accused and their sentences are as follows:
Pedro Luis Barrios, 56 years old, from North Bergen, New Jersey: sentenced to two months in a federal prison and fined $250.
Theresa Cusimano, 40 years old, from Denver, Colorado, sentenced to two months in a federal prison and fined $500.
Kristin Holm, 21 years old, from Chicago, Illinois, sentenced to two months in a federal prison and fined $250.
Sor Diane Pinchot, OSU, 63 years old, from Cleveland, Ohio, sentenced to two months in a federal prison.
Al Simmons, 64 years old, from Richmond, Virginia, sentenced to two months in a federal prison.
Louis Wolf, 68 years old, from Washington D.C, sentenced to six months of house arrest and fined $1,000.
The six people, arrested and tried in court this year, participated in a public drama of crime and punishment. The small view of the news is that their crime was trespassing on an American military base. The larger view is the news that Americans can live up to our noble ideals of truth and justice.
For too long, WHINSEC has represented the military, economic, and political oppression that destroys people’s bodies and threatens people’s souls. The good news is that those who trespassed onto WHINSEC property believe change is possible. Americans, capable of great good and terrible destruction, can live into our better selves. We should not try to silence or ignore such messengers.
Those who participated in this nonviolent action of conscience and civil disobedience remind us all that there is a better way. The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation can be held accountable. Yes it can. Those who strive for peace, justice, love and community become messengers of good news. They nurture the hope that injustice, exploitation, greed and fear will not determine our actions towards other people.