School of the Americas: 6 Jailed for Non Violent Protest
TRIALS BEGIN IN GEORGIA FOR 32 HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
From School of the Americas Watch
COLUMBUS, GA The week after a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail an Army interrogator even after they found him guilty of negligent homicide in the torture and killing of an Iraqi detainee, a federal judge in Columbus, Georgia is sentencing nonviolent activists to federal prison.
This morning, Judge G. Mallon Faircloth sentenced six human rights advocates, including an 81-year-old retired man, to between one and three months in prison; five of those individuals were also fined $500. Twenty-six people still face charges, and trials are expected to continue for several days. Each person faces a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The 32 defendants, ranging in age from 19 to 81, are charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest of a controversial Army training school located there. Those arrested were among 19,000 who gathered in November of 2005 outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the controversial U.S. Army's School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation.
posted by leftside at
1:00 PM
7 Comments:
Off Topic:
"..I do think it would be a mistake by playing into the US' hands here.."
Ah, finally, Matthew admits Castro has made a mistake. Here it is:
http://www.babalublog.com/archives/Flagpoles10.jpg
While within their rights, why...would Castro find it necessary to block news about the Palestinian elections or other free elections taking place??
Oh, and Reuters was right. You wanna write them another note telling them you were wrong?
Ninja, I have worked the non-profit side of things crituquing things gone wrong all day, and it is depressing and pointless. At least here I am learning how power really works from the inside... and even do some good some days. As someone who believes in the power of Government, I see nothing hypocritical about it. Now if you catch me working for developers or in
real estate, then you'll have a point. The Marxist argument about bureaucracy being pawns to capitalism is true in the abstract, but I spend most my day here battling developers and speculators back and trying to get the people in neighborhoods what they want.
And I certainly will never stop criticizing unjust laws, whatever they may be. Here I am able to do it behind closed doors, or act stragically with community members - and change some things.
J.Scott - I still don't think you can say these poles will be able to "block" much at all - they are 100 yards away. And based on their location, they certainly won't block the view from the Malecon, where they are most visable and many people congregate. I'll reserve my judgement on the Cuban response until it is completed.
It is clearly designed to block it. Any fifth grader could tell you that.
J.Scott, Any 9th grader that knows about geometry can tell you these flags can do nothing to block the view from about 90% of all possible angles. So if "its clearly
designed to block it" why does it block so little?
Take a look at a more honest photo than the one you've posted:
Ninja, you must not know Marxism. We don't think the government bureaucracy is full of oppressors. The game is rigged and all we can do is tweak the knobs, and manage chaos. In my work, I can not even feel good about helping a neighborhood 'improve" as it gets overrun by speculators and flippers, pushing out renters. But what can we do? We have no mechanism to save our cities from traffic, crime, housing costs and pollution. Good people everywhere wallow in Katrina-like ineptitudedue to the worship of the Market over Government.
I understand your point about agendas, but you betray your own with your defense of the (ex) SOA. Even without their esteemed war crime graduates, the torture manuals and the anti-left bias, the SOA under the US military is an excercise in Imperialism. It's ideological assumption is that we either "have to send US soldiers" or train them to do our job is too typical - and something we have dozens of examples of in the last few decades (many very costly). It implies a right to interfere in (leftist) countries when our "interests" dictate.
I respect your friend's sacrifice. Struggles need provacatuers and theatre, along with serious analysis and strategy. Don't you support the Cuban "dissidents" who cross the line of working with the US, against all warning? All the scrutiny of the SOA, which came because all these actions, has made the place much better from what I gather. But this post was not about the SOA, it was about the notion of punishing non-violent protest versus violent compliance.
I didn't understand your last bit... is it disloyal to want to change US foeign policy?
Walking over a property line is an age-old tactic of non-violence protest. But how do you feel about no jail time for a convicted murderer? There a millions of stories of injustice in our "Justice system."
On pinning down my ideology - I like socialist (or anti-capitalist) - but I'm one who does not worry about these old descriptions. I do believe markets have some relevance. European socialism in Sweeden, Norway and other countries is pretty great.
Latin America is different - because of history and US influence. To break free of the market, one threatens powerful interests directly - oil, resources, US businesses, UN votes, etc. Those interests don't thake to it lying down, even if the impact to the elites is relatively benign, like in Venezuela, where the US "counsels" the opposition to boycott elections and issues rhetoric like yesterday from Rumsfeld (above)...
How do you suppose we deny bogus protesters "media exploitation" in a free, capitalist press; Limit what protests they can write about? The protesters aren't asking for your rendered heart, they want people to think about this school of the assassins our taxes pay for.
Yes I beleive we have to change many aspects of US system. Whether we call that a revolutionary change is just sematics. Whether it's through elections or an overthrow, depends on the desperation of the people.
State (or any) murder is retrograde, but for most of the last 100 years both sides of the "cold war" didn't care about that. I don't know what you've seen in what countries, so I can't comment further, other than saying no one has been killed by Venezuela, nor Cuba in 10 years, except for 3 ferry hijackers. The US on the other hand is at least partially responsible for murder in Haiti, Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Grenada, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatamala... victims that all had mothers too. Our disagreement is whether the US Govt. is a force for good any more, particularly in our Hemisphere.
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