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Retired minister arrested for trespassing
03517
November 26, 2003

Retired minister arrested for trespassing

Beisswenger is among 40 jailed during protest at Fort Benning

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - A retired Presbyterian minister was among 40 demonstrators
arrested during a Nov. 23 protest at a U.S. Army base in Georgia.

The Rev. Donald F. Beisswenger, 73, of Nashville, TN, was charged with
trespassing after he crossed onto the property of Fort Benning in Columbus,
GA, during an annual protest of a controversial U.S. Army facility that
trains Latin American officers.

Beisswenger, a professor emeritus of church and community in the divinity
school at Vanderbilt University, could be imprisoned for six months and fined
$5,000. His trial is scheduled for Jan. 26.

"I came down (to Fort Benning) with the understanding that I wanted to make a
witness, and was willing to bear the consequences of that," Beisswenger said
after being released from the Muscogee County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

About 60 Presbyterians are believed to have taken part in the nonviolent
protest, one of the largest gatherings in the 14-year history of the annual
demonstrations demanding the closing of the combat school long known as the
School of the Americas (SOA). It has been renamed the Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).

The number of arrests was down by half from last year. The demonstrations are
held to mark the anniversary of the Nov. 19, 1989, deaths of six Jesuit
priests in El Salvador. Opponents of the school claim that some of the people
responsible for the priests' killings had been trained at the Fort Benning
institute, which in the past has offered instruction in practices such as
extortion, execution and torture. The Department of Defense says the
curriculum no longer includes such training.

"I wanted to do it in solidarity with the people who have been victims for so
long," Beisswenger said.

Police estimated the number of demonstrators at 7,500 to 8,000. School of the
Americas Watch (SOAW), the group that organizes the protests, said about
10,000 people were involved. Last year, more than 6,000 people turned out and
88 were arrested.

Beisswenger said he was one of about 35 participants from the Presbyterian
Peace Fellowship (PPF), which has long opposed WHISC. The protesters also
included a number of students from Presbyterian-related Warren Wilson College
in Asheville, NC.

Two Presbyterians arrested during the 2002 protest - Marilyn White, of
suburban Houston, TX, and Ann Huntwork, of Portland, OR - served six-month
prison sentences for trespassing and were released in October.

 The Rev. Clifford W. Frasier, the United Church of Christ minister who is
coordinator of Presbyterian Welcome, the New York City regional affiliate of
That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS), also was arrested last year. He also got a
six-month sentence. He was to be released on Nov. 25.

The Ledger-Enquirer, a Columbus newspaper, has reported that SOA Watch plans
to sue Fort Benning officials for trying to "quell dissent" by playing
patriotic music through speakers trained on the stage where demonstrators
were speaking.

Brig. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, Fort Benning's commander, said the music was
played to boost the morale of those of his troops who were on duty instead of
being at home with their families for Thanksgiving. He said the sound system
was installed to ensure that would-be trespassers could hear authorities
warning that they would be arrested if they came onto federal property.

The Rev. Leonard Bjorkman, of Owego, NY, a PPF co-moderator, said those who
trespassed were "making a witness on behalf of justice in Central and South
America, trying to live up to the highest ideals of American democracy ...
(and) the highest of what Jesus talked about when he said, 'Love your
neighbor,' and ... 'Love your enemy.'"

The PPF is an affinity group of the PC(USA) that promotes peace and
non-violence. It receives no funding from the Presbyterian Church (USA) but
sometimes works with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

The 1994 General Assembly called for the closing of WHISC.

Beisswinger taught at Vanderbilt from 1968 until his retirement in 1996. He
also has served PC(USA) congregations in Arkansas, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa,
and was involved in a Presbyterian business-and-industry ministry in Chicago.
He is now a parish associate at Hillsboro Presbyterian Church in Nashville
and a member of the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee.

He has taken part in the WHISC protests several times before, and once was
banned from Fort Benning for five years.

The Army acknowledges that some graduates of the school - a few hundred, it
says, out of more than 60,000 who have attended over more than 50 years -
have been guilty of abuses. It says all WHISC students now receive
instruction in human rights. And it claims that the institute is largely
responsible for the spread of democracy in Latin America.

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