Reflections on the School of the Americas protest weekend

Thank you to Kathy Stayton for this report on our experience in Georgia at the School of the Americas protests in Georgia. See earlier post for photos from the SOA weekend.....

It is SO quiet, I realized, though I, Gwyneth Lewis and Caroline Cargo were surrounded by about15,000 other people for the procession organized by School of Americas Watch. We were there to remember the thousands of Central and South American people who have been killed or tortured by men who had training at the U.S. Military’s School of Americas at Ft. Benning, in Columbus, GA. These were testimonies to the brutality that is exported from this training center. We were saying with our bodies,“No more!” The U.S. should not be in the extreme interrogation technique export business!

After a name of one who was killed or disappeared was called from the stage, we lifted our handmade wooden crosses with names of individuals or whole villages who had died and shouted “Presente”. That meant that named person was present with us in remembrance. They will not be forgotten. It took one hour and 45 minutes for names to be called about every 5 seconds before all of us had finally passed by the chain link fence across the road to the School, and erected by the School for this weekend, to place our crosses in it. All this in respectful quiet of thousands.

Respectful, yes, even spiritual, like a procession in a cathedral to honor a loved one, the solidarity among us was palpable. Police and military cameras were focused on us from outside the fences or police tapes that defined our area. Thirteen people chose direct action by either walking around the fence on to Ft. Benning property, or going over the fence. Why? To bring attention of the media of why they are there, to have a chance to give their case in a courtroom, and to express their outrage and their deep commitment to peace in a nonviolent manner. They ranged in age from mid20’s to late 70’s. Hundreds or thousands of Catholic high school and college students were there as were Jesuit priests and Sisters of Mercy and other orders. So was Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America!

This event was the end of a weekend of events—the Convergence of Hope & Resistance. Workshops, plenary sessions, and concerts were offered at the Columbus Trade Center and a nearby Holiday Inn, several miles from the School, now called Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. (WHINSEC) Nonviolence training, from minimal to extensive was offered. Criminal Justice issues, Indigenous values, Struggle for Civil Liberties in El Salvador, Torture Survivors speak, Film screenings, Free Trade, Immigration & US Foreign Policy, Network of Spiritual Progressives, a Theater of the Oppressed – just a taste of the choices of workshops for all of us.

An exciting presentation for us all was one by Rabbi Michael Lerner who, with Sister Joan Chittister, and Cornel West of Princeton, started Network of Spiritual Progressives, a project of the Tikkun Community. With a packed room, he challenged us all to consider their alternative to the status quo which “judges institutions and social practices as efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. The New Bottom Line, which they advocate, is that institutions and social practices should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, nonviolence and peace.” He then spun out scenarios of the possible.

“A Theater of the Oppressed” caught the attention of Caroline and me. Hector Aristizabal, a psychologist, and a victim of torture in Colombia, acted out his life in a 45 minute drama. Then he took us through some activities that led to express through body motion what torturing would be like and then what we would feel if we were tortured— heavy stuff done effectively.

Plenaries, concerts, southern foods and networking rounded out our time. Our dream is that we could have a van or busload from CBC and other nearby churches to attend next year. Hopefully it will be closed by then; only 6 more votes were needed to curtail the function of SOA in 2006. Your call to your congress people will help. Below are a number of peace organizations their websites that you can check out as you wish. I visited their tables. Check out the Columbus, GA newspaper coverage of SOAW in the church narthex. It was fair and the pictures give a sense of the street theater and the crowd.

Thanks to Caroline, whose parents live about an hour from Birmingham, she met me at the airport there and took me to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham. On the way back to Birmingham she took Gwenyth and me to Montgomery and we visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and museum at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

What a privilege for us! We knew we had many supporters back at CBC for this, our first SOAW event. For this I give thanks for us all.

Kathy Stayton

Websites of some peace and justice organizations that participated in the SOA weekend

SOA Watch www.soaw.org

Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA: www.ghrcusa.org

The SHARE Foundation: Building a New El Salvador Today: www.share-elsalvador.org

Veterans for Peace: www.veteransforpeace.org

Witness For Peace: www.witnessforpeace.org

Network of Spiritual Progressives: www.spiritualprogressives.org

Just Faith: www.justfaith.org

Center on Conscience & War: www.centeronconscience.org

War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org

The Indypendent - a free paper for free people: www.us.indymedia.org and www.indypendent.org

Latin America Solidarity Coalition: www.Lasolidarity.org

Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America: www.bpfna.org

Conversations on Dec. 9th about El Salvador partnerships

Remember to plan to stay after worship on Dec. 9th for conversations about our El Salvador relationships. We'll plan to gather from 12:15 - 2pm. A simple lunch will be provided.

The main focus will be to get input for Ron, Marcus, and Nora to take to El Salvador in January for meetings with leaders from Shekina and Shalom. We're especially interested in hearing from any CBC youth who have been talking with Salvadoran youth over these past months.

There are a number of background reports to share with you to help shape our conversations:

• Report from Alex re: land purchase for Shalom, architect plans
• Report from Ruth re: "Open Doors" program at Shekina, successful medical delegation to Atiquizaya
• Ideas about Ruth and Alex attending Alliance of Baptists mtgs in New Orleans
  
• Delegation opportunities for CBC adults and young adults -- SHARE delegations in March and SHARE Youth/Young adults in June
• Orantes Fund updates and other finances
  
• January meetings with Ruth and Alex about future partnership plans, youth connections, and more
  

If there is time, we can also do a brief report from SOA events in Georgia and think about possibilities for sharing resources we brought back for CBC.

Photos from Nov 2007 SOA protests

Kathy, Gwenyth, and Caroline returned on Monday night from the weekend events at the SOA in Columbus, GA. We were inspired by lots of great music (Holly Near and Indigo Girls, for starters), great speakers (Rabbi Michael Lerner, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, others), workshops on non-violence, theater performances. On Sunday, we carried the set of crosses made at CBC and shared several of them with others in the crowd as we all took part in the solemn procession. We'll be writing up some reflections from the experience, and we brought home resources to share at CBC.

A few things to look for in the slide show above:

• college and high school students, grandmothers and grandfathers, Salvadorans, families, friends from SHARE and the Baptist Peace Fellowship
• "non-conforming" crosses from CBC being broken down to size as required by police before we could enter the vigil area
• chain link and barbed wire fence lined with crosses and one Star of David
• military police surveying the crowd from raised platforms and police helicopter circling the events
• giant puppet of Rufina Amaya (sole survivor of the El Mozote massacre) with outstretched arms placed against the chain link fence at the very end of the day
  

The SOA Watch estimates that there were 25,000 - 30,000 people attending the protests. (The police estimate was 11,000.) Eleven people ranging in age from 25 to 76, including one man from Pennsylvania, were arrested on Sunday for acts of civil disobedience and are scheduled for federal criminal trial January 28, 2008 for trespass - punishable up to six months in federal prison. Three others were arrested at the entrance of the vigil site for refusing to relinquish crosses whose size exceeded Columbus police regulations. Read all of their stories and see photos and videos from the weekend at www.soaw.org.

Children of Atiquizaya - new video from Eduardo

You can find a number of videos on line at YouTube posted by Eduardo, a young adult member of Shekina in Santa Ana. Eduardo has traveled with the CBC Youth Delegations and is a leader among the young people at Shekina. Click on the video above and the links below to see some videos of youth activities and projects at Shekina and Shalom. Look for familiar faces!


campamento juvenil bautista

amigos por siempre

festival del maiz

trabajando in el terreno de la iglesia Shekina

Presente! Crosses for Ft. Benning protests

Tucumay Camones - Todas las más de 100 personas asesinadas en Tucumay Camones en 1980

Maria Christina Gomez - Salvadoran Baptist, community leader, friend of CBC.

Miguel Angel Portillo - Compañero de estudios en el Instituto Teológico Bautista de El Salvador, en el tiempo que nosotros eramos seminaristas. El fue desaparecido en noviembre de 1989.

Raphael Aguinada - asesinado el 26 de septiembre de 1975 al salir de una reunión sindical, fungía como secretario general de la Fundación Unitaria Sindical (FUSS) diputado del Partido Unión Democrática Nacionalista (UDN), ante la Asamble Legislativa.

Salvador Rodriguez - pastor bautista, asesinado a principio de los años 80 en Chapeltique, San Miguel. Pastor joven que mostró en vida su conciencia social y política a través de su practica y de su predica.

Raphael Aguinada Deras - asesinado el 26 de septiembre de 1975 al salir de una reunión sindical, fungía como secretario general de la Fundación Unitaria Sindical (FUSS) diputado del Partido Unión Democrática Nacionalista (UDN), ante la Asamble Legislativa.

Salvador Sanchez - joven periodista quien trabajaba con YSUCA, Maya Visión y Radio cadena Mi Gente. Identificado con el Movimiento Social y con la Verdad. Asesinado

Miguel Angel Orantes - fue asesinado en 1974 por la Guardia Nacional. Era maestro organizado en ANDES 21 de Junio y en la Unión Nacional Opositora (UNO). El es parte de la inmensa lista de personas anonimas que lucharon y por la vida y la justicia fueron asesinadas. Padre de Alex.

Galia Deras - hija también de Rafael Aguiñada, asesinada en enero de 1990 en Guazapa. Era combatiente. Ellos entregaron su vida por luchar por la justicia.













From the "Mothers in Arms" book project:

Sonia / Hermano de Marisol Galindo / Mujeres del Frente / Samuel / La Quesera - 600 to 800 innocent people, mostly women, children, and elders / Companeros de Claudia / El Mozote

Transforming Community: Using Theater to Restore Historic Memory with Survivors of La Quesera Massacre in El Salvador

La Quesera was a brutal attack in October 1981 by the Salvadoran Army which took the lives of 600 to 800 people, mostly women, children, and elders.

Two groups from Central Baptist have met with survivors of the massacre to learn about their journey toward healing. In May 2006, several women from CBC visited the site of the massacre with Julia, one of the survivors and a leader of the survivors group. And in June 2007, the CBC youth delegation met with three young people whose families were among the survivors of the massacre to learn about ways that the people are organizing activities to remember and to honor loved ones who died, and also transforming the community with a vision of hope.

Aryeh Shell spent time in the La Quesera survivors community as an Art Corps volunteer. She writes about a powerful experience of using theater to restore historic memory...

I came to El Salvador as a volunteer with Art Corps, an organization that places artists in residence with Central American communities. Art Corps’ mission is to share art as a tool to engage participation and raise awareness of social and environmental issues. Using theater to restore historic memory affirms the dignity of personal experience, enables people to view their lives in new ways, demonstrates compassion and social nurturing, and draws people closer as they witness their common humanity. It is a model for building empathy and peace in a fractured world. For the survivors at Quesera, their families, and their supporters, popular theater opened a space for the community to remember together, to heal and commit to creating a world where this would never happen again.

Read her full on-line article entitled "Popular Theater takes on La Quesera Massacre in El Salvador" to learn more about her experience and the transformative power of theater and the arts in community.

Updates about SOA and meeting plans for December 9th

We had well over 34 people attend the video presentation about the School of the Americas last Sunday. Let me know if there is interest in continuing some of the education about the SOA. We have two other brief videos that could be used at some point in time.

After the video, several youth and adults stayed to make two sets of crosses with names of friends and family members of Alex and Ruth who died in the El Salvador war. Another group met on Monday afternoon to prepare additional crosses with names of communities and individuals, especially women and children, that we learned about through the interviews with women in El Salvador that several of us participated in back in May 2006. One set of crosses will travel to Georgia for the procession and protests at Ft. Benning (Nov 16 - 18). We'll plan to take photos to share from the Georgia events. This Sunday, Nov 11, the duplicate set will be presented in worship at the time of Celebrations and Concerns. After worship, maybe some of us will place the crosses around the Peace Pole on Lancaster Avenue as a witness to the Wayne community?

Our next meeting will be held on Sunday, Dec 9th, following worship. (Note - This is a revised date.) The congregation is invited to join us for conversations to help shape the agenda for a meeting in El Salvador in January with our partners at Shekina and Shalom. More information to follow.

"The New Patriots" Video and Lunch on Sunday, Nov 4th

All are invited next Sunday, Nov 4th, from 12:30pm to 1pm. Come enjoy lunch provided by the CBC Peacemakers and Salvador Partners while we watch "The New Patriots," a brief documentary about the School of the Americas.

After the 9/11 tragedy the U.S. government called for the eradication of terrorist training camps. Not mentioned by officials was the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), located at Ft. Benning, GA, described by the veterans as a school for terrorism. "The New Patriots" is an 18-minute video that includes footage of the civil disobedience actions at the military base in Ft. Benning, Georgia, and highlights on-going efforts to shut down the military training school for Latin American death squad leaders and military dictators.

Newsprint leaflets about the School of the Americas and the annual protests at Ft. Benning, Georgia, are available in King Commons. Kathy S, Caroline C, and Gwenyth L will be representing CBC this year at the gates of Ft. Benning as part of an anticipated crowd of over 20,000 protesters!

There is a tradition that people at the protests bring crosses with names of Salvadorans who were killed in the war written on them, and the crosses are placed by protestors at the fence that surrounds Fort Benning.

We will have materials ready to make simple wooden crosses that Kathy, Caroline, and Gwenyth will take to Georgia. Ruth and Alex Orantes and other friends from Shekina and Shalom in El Salvador are giving us a list of a few names for us to add to the crosses -- friends and family members who were killed in the war. So after the video, if you want to stay and make a cross, you can do that, too.

November plans - video about SOA and protests at Ft. Benning, GA

A few updates about plans for November...

• Mark your calendars for Sunday, Nov 4th 12:30pm - 1pm for a video about the SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS. "School of Assassins" is a hard hitting documentary about the United States Army School of the Americas, the human rights abuses carried out by some of its graduates, and continuing efforts by human rights activists to shut it down. (This is different from the one the youth delegation watched at the "Boot Camp") We'll begin PROMPTLY at 12:30pm with the video because some of us have to leave at 1pm to attend other meetings. Peacemakers Mission Group is co-sponsoring the video presentation, and we're publicizing this for anyone interested to come and learn about the SOA. For more information about the award-winning documentary video, see "School of Assassins."

• Speaking of the protests in Georgia -- Kathy and Caroline have bought their plane tickets and will be representing CBC at the gates of Ft Benning this year! (Gwenyth may be going, too.) We'll be attending a number of workshops on Saturday, Nov 18th, and participating in the huge procession, memorial service, and "festival of resistance" on Sunday, Nov 18th. (see the schedule of events ) We would love to have a CBC banner to take with us to carry in the big procession! We can talk on Nov 4th about that and see if anyone has creative ideas to share. Anyone interested in making the banner? Designing a banner? Also, it is customary for folks in the procession to carry wooden crosses with names of people. You might remember that back in 2000 we made crosses with the names of people from Las Anonas who had died in the war, and those were sent to Ft. Benning for the procession. Is there any interest in making a few crosses this year for Kathy and Caroline to take? Maybe we could ask Ruth and Alex to suggest names of friends of theirs who were killed, and we could certainly carry a cross with Maria Christina Gomez. Anyone interested in thinking about that?

• Our friend Tara Carr-Lemke (SHARE Director in Washington) will be visiting CBC in worship on Sunday, Nov 4th. Say hello and be friendly to her and husband Kevin.
  

"Faces of Fair Trade" Event

Thanks to Katy F-N and Kathleen B for sending this info!

Farmers from Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Georgia, along with local farmers from New England will tell their stories.

Date: Tuesday, October 30th
Time: 6:00 pm - Local food tasting provided by the Fair Food Project
6:30 pm - Panel Discussion with farmers and our own Ann Karlen, founding director of the Fair Food Project
Place: Tabernacle United Church, 3700 Chestnut St., Philadelphia
Cost: Free. Food will be provided by Fair Food. Fair Trade Coffee and chocolate fondue courtesy of Equal Exchange
Please RSVP : (215) 386-5211 x101, ann@whitedog.com
More info: www.equalexchange.coop/faces-of-fair-trade