September 2002 Call to Action News

29 new SOA Prisoners of Conscience include five from CTA

It has become a summer ritual. Once again, non-violent protesters at the U.S. Army School of the Americas last November at Ft. Benning, Ga., were sent to federal prison for their civil disobedience.
Sentenced July 12 by a federal judge in Columbus, Ga., after a weeklong trial, 29 activists in the 12-year old campaign to close SOA included five CTA members: Sr. Kathleen Desautels, 64, of Chicago; Kate Fontanazza, 53, of Milwaukee; Shannon McManimon, 26, of Philadelphia; Fr. Bill O'Donnell, 72, of Berkeley, Calif.; and Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 52, of Nicholasville, Ky. According to SOA Watch and its founder, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, 71 people have already served a total of more than 40 years in jail for SOA resistance. In 2001, 23 participants in the 2000 action were jailed, including 88-year old Sr. Dorothy Hennessey and five other CTA members. Bourgeois said the stiff sentences in 2002 were designed to try to break the SOA Watch movement, but predicted it would not work.

Desautels, Fontanazza and O'Donnell were repeat offenders, and received six month sentences. Sevre-Duszynska got three months, and McManimon was placed on six months probation. The judge allowed defendants to speak during the trial. Many explained why in conscience they must oppose SOA, which trains Latin American military officers who are responsible for violence and atrocities against their own people. Sevre-Duszynska, garbed in the alb and stole she wears at protests against the Church's ban on women priests, said the suffering of the people of Latin America reminded her of the repression of her relatives in Poland under Nazi occupation. O'Donnell told the court, "I am not at home in the houses of government, but in the houses of the poor." Desautels, a human rights advocate at Chicago's Eighth Day Center for Justice, said six months in jail was nothing compared to what victims of SOA graduates have to endure.

Another action in November

SOA Watch is already planning the next vigil and non-violent protest at the gates of Ft. Benning in Georgia Nov. 15-17. Even with travel curtailments after last Sept. 11, the November 2001 action drew over 10,000 participants. Many more are expected this year - including many CTA members. Meanwhile legislative lobbying continues in Congress for H.R. 1810, the bill to close SOA - renamed last year the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but essentially unchanged. For action details and regular updates, visit www.soaw.org or call 202 234-3440