wfn.org | Presbyterians arrested in School of Americas protest

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Note #6295 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

6-December-2000
00438

Presbyterians arrested in School of Americas protest

21 demonstrators face federal charges, possible imprisonment

by Evan Silverstein

COLUMBUS, GA -- At least five Presbyterians were among more than 1,700
protesters arrested here on Nov. 19 for taking part in a campaign to force
the federal government to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA)
at nearby Fort Benning.

	At least one Presbyterian is among the 21 people facing federal charges and
possible imprisonment for taking part in the peaceful demonstration. Most of
the people who were detained were merely processed and issued "ban and bar"
letters forbidding their return to the post for five years.

	For Ann Huntwork, a 69-year-old member of Westminister Presbyterian Church
in Portland, OR, and a long-time opponent of the SOA, this arrest was her
fourth in connection with protests at Fort Benning, which is about 85 miles
southwest of Atlanta. Huntwork, who served as a missionary in Iran for 12
years, faces federal charges including resisting arrest, trespassing and
destruction of federal property. She was detained after she and five others,
including her husband, Bruce, dug shallow graves on the post in which they
intended to bury dolls representing SOA victims.

	Bruce Huntwork received a "ban and bar letter," while his wife's fate is in
the hands of the judicial system.

	"I feel like it's a privilege to be able to be engaged in looking at
something that does so much damage," Ann Huntwork said, referring to the
controversial military academy. She speculated that she might be sentenced
to at least three months behind bars. "I feel very, very committed to
continue working on this," she said. "I'll probably get out (of jail) and go
back and do it again."

	An estimated 3,500 protesters, including actor Martin Sheen, ventured onto
the post during the protest. A total of 1,766 were detained and issued "ban
and bar" letters, then processed and bused to a Columbus, GA, park, where
they were released.

	Many graduates of the School of Americas have been linked to torture,
assassination and other human-rights abuses in Latin America.

	Twenty-two members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF), which has
opposed the SOA for years, braved rain and chilly weather to take part in
the demonstration, which was in its 11th year. At least two of six PPF
members who crossed onto the base were arrested, according to Marilyn White
of suburban Houston, TX, a former PPF co-moderator who helped organize the
delegation but was not arrested during the demonstration.

	"We know now that it's more than just a street festival," White said of the
Fort Benning action, which continues to grow in attendance each year. "Those
of us who want to close the school are willing to stand out there in the
freezing rain and cold, and keep coming back every year until it is closed."

	PPF officials said at least 50 Presbyterians attended the protest,
including students from Presbyterian-related colleges such as Warren Wilson
in Asheville, NC, Peace College in Raleigh, NC, and Maryville College in
Maryville, TN. The Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly has called
repeatedly for the closing of the SOA, which has trained more than 60,000
Latin American military and police in counter-insurgency warfare over the
past 50 years. PC(USA) was the first faith group to adopt an official policy
of opposing the school.

	Some protesters wore white "death masks" and carried crosses and coffins to
symbolize the victims of SOA violence in Latin America. Thirty-two activists
staged a re-enactment of a Colombian massacre, and were arrested. Others
portrayed the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests and their co-workers
by members of a paramilitary group in El Salvador, most of whom were
"graduates" of the controversial school.

	"Our family's journey to SOA is really a venture in faith for us," said
Erik Johnson, a Presbyterian minister from Maryville, TN, who was arrested
along with his 18-year-old daughter, Ingrid. "Part of coming to SOA is also
joining in the hope that ... the violence raging in peoples' lives (in
Central America) doesn't have to have the last word. We want to stand in
solidarity with the hope that is born of their struggle."

	Exact arrest figures were not available, but at least 21 people who had
been issued "ban and bar" letters before last month's protest face charges
in U.S. District Court ranging from criminal trespassing to vandalism. Of
the 3,500 who approached the base, about 1,400 stopped short of the post and
returned to the protest area.

	The demonstration was part of two days of vigils, music and mourning
sponsored by the School of the Americas Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based
organization that opposes the school. As in previous years, estimates of the
crowd differed wildly. Fort Benning officials put the number at 6,500; SOA
Watch said 10,000 people took part.

	"To be honest, I have never seen that kind of energy here, that kind of
hope," said Father Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest and Vietnam war veteran
who fueled early efforts to close the school by founding SOA Watch after the
Jesuits were killed. "What's so encouraging ... is to see everyone still
very focused. We're going to keep our hands on the plow until this school is
shut down."

	Alumni of the SOA, established in 1946 and funded by U.S. tax dollars,
include Manuel Noriega, the ex-dictator of Panama, now imprisoned in the
U.S. for drug running; Salvadoran death squad commander Roberto d'Abuisson;
the Guatemalan military officers who led the killing of more than 200,000
indigenous Mayan Indians; the assassin of Salvadoran archbishop Oscar
Romero; and 19 of the 27 soldiers identified as the killers of the six
Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador.

	Other Presbyterians arrested included Genevieve Yancey, a 79-year-old PPF
member who worships at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, and the
Rev. Allen Proctor of Raleigh, NC, a Presbyterian campus minister at North
Carolina State University who accompanied nine students to the protest from
N.C. State, Wake Technical Community College and Presbyterian-affiliated
Peace College.

	"They were upset about how our government participates in the
disappearances and murders and massacres that happen in Latin America,"
Proctor said of the students, six of whom were arrested. "They felt it was
our duty as Christians to give a Christian witness to our opposition to that
U.S. policy."

	Though recent congressional efforts to close or trim the SOA's budget have
failed to win approval on Capitol Hill, Presbyterians remain committed to
the fight to shut it down.

	"It's thrilling and also saddening to be taking part in these vigils
again," said the Rev. Leonard Bjorkman of Syracuse, NY, a co-moderator of
the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship who was not arrested at the protest. "But
yet people have suffered, and we can't forget their suffering or ignore our
(the United States') complicity in it. As Christian Americans we have to
keep on doing what we can do to change our foreign policy. We must continue
until the school is closed."

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