A new bill to close the School of the Americas — under its new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) — was introduced in Congress May 10 by Rep. Joe Moakley (D-MA) and five legislators from both parties. Labeled H.R. 1810, the bill appears just in time for the May 22 federal trial in Columbus, Ga., of 26 SOA Watch protesters who committed civil disobedience during last November's vigil and action at Fort Benning, Ga.
CTAers face prison
All 26 defendants had been arrested in previous demonstrations, and chose to violate a court order banning them from Fort Benning premises for five years. Several are longtime CTA members, including Franciscan Sr. Dorothy Hennessey of Dubuque, Ia., and David Corcoran of Des Plaines, Ill. They face penalties of up to six months in prison and $5,000 fines. At age 88, Sr. Dorothy is the oldest defendant. She and her sister, Sr. Gwen Hennessey, 68, have a personal connection with the Latin American people who suffer violence at the hands of SOA graduates. Their late brother, Maryknoll Fr. Ron Hennessey, worked for 35 years in Central America. Sr. Dorothy told CTA News they both expect to go to prison, probably at a federal facility in Pekin, Ill. “It won’t kill me,” she said. “It's nothing compared to what the people of Latin American suffer at the hands of soldiers trained at SOA.” Link to Colombia violence David Corcoran, a married priest who has been a chaplain at Loyola University Medical Center for 20 years, has been in Latin America several times, gaining first-hand knowledge of the violence wrought by SOA graduates. This March he traveled to Colombia with Witness For Peace. He told CTA News their group visited a town burned by army and paramilitary forces, and talked to survivors who lost loved ones in a recent massacre. “We were surrounded by military forces several times,” he said. Colombia has sent over 10,000 military personnel for training at SOA, more than any other country in Latin America. SOA Watch founder, Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, and Cecilia Zárate-Laun, Colombian-born founder of the Colombia Support Network, will analyze the U.S.-backed militarization of Colombia at the CTA East Coast National Conference Sept. 14-16 in Philadelphia. The Colombian situation will also be addressed at the Los Angeles Conference Aug. 3-5 by Luis Murillo, former governor of Chocó, the poorest state in Colombia. SOA Watch and Witness for Peace continue to co-sponsor delegations to Colombia. The next is July 6-19. For information, and for the latest updates from SOA Watch on ways to help pass H.R. 1810 and its companion Senate bill, check www.soaw.org or call 202 234-3440.
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| Sr. Dorothy Hennessey with her brother, Maryknoll Fr. Ron Hennessey, In Guatemala in 1998. |