14 Arrested Resisting Torture & Assasination Training at SOA, Ft. Benning, USA

by Arizona Mon Nov 19, 2007 07:44 Arizona, USA

More than three hundred people rallied against torture today
outside the gates of Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, home of the U.S. Army
Intelligence Center and school for interrogation.

Three people were arrested during the rally as they tried to enter
the base and meet with enlisted personnel and officers to continue a dialogue begun three days earlier about the interrogation techniques taught there.

Betsy Lamb, Mary Burton Riseley, and Franciscan Fr. Jerry
Zawada were taken into custody at the main gate about 1 p.m., and
charged with criminal trespass on a military installation (18 USC
1382), conspiracy (18 USC 371), and failure to comply with a police
officer (Arizona Revised Statutes 28-622, as assimilated by the
Federal Assimilative Crimes Act 18 USC 13 & 7). They were released a few hours later with a summons to appear in federal court in Tucson on December 4 for their arraignment.

Last Thursday, Riseley and Zawada met with officers at the
base and began the dialogue they sought to continue today. Before
the three entered the Fort, Betsy Lamb explained the concern for the
soldiers that she shares with Riseley and Zawada:
"Torture is inhuman. It is too 'up close and personal' for either
victim or perpetrator to escape unharmed. For me, it represents an
ultimate hardening of its perpetrators, leaving little left they
couldn't be talked into doing. It is a morally bereft act capable of
creating morally bereft people."

Today's demonstration at Ft. Huachuca took place in
conjunction with the annual vigil at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where
25,000 people vigiled today and 11 were arrested as they called for
closing the infamous School of the Americas (now named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Dozens of Latin American military leaders who trained at the "School of Assassins" have since been convicted of torture, murder, and other heinous crimes in their own countries.

Fr. Louie Vitale and Fr. Steve Kelly, two priests who were arrested at last year's demonstration at Ft. Huachuca, are currently serving a five month prison sentence. For more information
see http://tortureontrial.org.

BIOGRAPHIES OF RESISATERS
Mary Burton Riseley, 65 years olD.
Mary is a fourth generation New Mexican, a Quaker and a war
tax resister. She has been active in peace and anti-nuclear issues
since 1970. She was the co-founder of the Los Alamos Study Group in 1990, and spent five weeks in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness in the winter of 2003. She's a member of an agricultural land trust
community on the Gila River in Cliff, New Mexico. She has one
wonderful daughter who does community garden support work in New York City.

Betsy Lamb, 69 years old.
Extensive travel in Latin America made Betsy aware of the
violence - including torture - being perpetrated on the people there
in support of U.S. interests. In 1989, Betsy first risked arrest in
nonviolent direct action when six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her
daughter were ruthlessly massacred in El Salvador by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas.

With a M.A. in Theology, Betsy then worked for many years
developing small parish-based Catholic communities for putting faith into action. In 2004, she completed a six-month prison sentence for her nonviolent action to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC at Ft. Benning, Georgia. "Retired," she is currently involved in the peace community in Bend, Oregon, serves on the Witness for Peace Northwest board of directors, and is a war tax resister.

Jerry Zawada, 70 years old.
A Franciscan priest currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada.
His first years in the priesthood were spent in the Philippine
Islands. From the 1980's through to the present, he has joined
others in acting to end torture, the nuclear threat and the wars in
the Middle East and other forms of violence both locally and abroad.
Among his involvements were the sanctuary movement, joining Voices in the Wilderness for several months in Iraq, and working to close the U.S. Army's School of the Americas. His activities have earned him 4 and 1/2 years in federal and county prisons and jails.

by Atheist Mon Nov 19, 2007 09:31

It's a bit rich for Jesuit priests, theologians and other religious people to be protesting against US torture academies when the Catholic Church tortured and burned heretics for centuries and systematically sexually abused children around the world. The Catholic Church is the most repressive organization of earth indoctrinating the young with ridiculous misanthropic propaganda of sexual sin and guilt, opposes contraception, homosexual rights, a woman's right to choose, does not recognise the right of people to remarry, opposes stem cell research etc and glorifies the sadistic crucifiction of the supposed Son of God.
The human rights abuses that result from torture training in Fort Benning are bad enough without Catholic and other Christian religious zealots using the good will of progressive movement to promote their own repressive world view

by Oik! Mon Nov 19, 2007 09:50

I do not think radical catholics want the throne of the America's, in fact most of them are
probably excommunicable at this point. now one of the principles of equality is recognition
of differences and equal respect for point of view. you cannot blame people for holding a dogmatic
code of obedience to capital (RC empire) without investigating how it was achieved, keepin
religion outa politics means just that- not rejecting individual action (which was brave) cos
of a catch all hatred and disregard for individualism. true catholics are possibly not attracted
to power given that its a poison chalice of corruption.

Leave them alone.

by HH Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:40

“Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 .
Bring it on!

by Olympia Mon Nov 19, 2007 20:03 Port of Olympia, Washington State, USA

More than four hundred antiwar demonstrators marched through Olympia, Washington Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the police brutality aimed at demonstrators in the past two weeks. Since November 7th, at least 66 people have been arrested and 150 others injured for trying to prevent military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia.

More than four hundred antiwar demonstrators marched through Olympia, Washington Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the police brutality aimed at demonstrators in the past two weeks. Police beat back and repeatedly used pepper spray on peaceful demonstrators who were trying to stop outgoing military shipments to Iraq from the port of Olympia. At least 66 people have been arrested and 150 others injured since the protests began November 7th.

On Saturday, demonstrators used non-violent direct action to block
military equipment for 17 hours and force a convoy back into the port.

Olympia Port Militarization Resistance is a group formed in 2006 by
community peace activists. They wanted to "end their participation in
the illegal occupation of Iraq by stopping the military use of the
port of Olympia."

by Bill Quigley Tue Nov 20, 2007 06:45

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/19/5324/

by SOAW Wed Nov 21, 2007 07:05

http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/ledger-enquirer/KR....html

by Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition Sat Nov 24, 2007 01:39

Video of the three people arrested because they refused to put down their crosses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9HoDyrY8a0

by SOAW Wed Nov 28, 2007 14:11

http://www.counterpunch.org/deraymond11272007.html

by 2 more jailed Wed Dec 05, 2007 05:20 Arizona, USA

A Tucson magistrate has jailed an Oregon peace activist and a
Franciscan priest from Nevada following their arrest at Fort
Huachuca on November 18 for acting against the torture of military
detainees. This afternoon at their arraignment in federal court,
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Marshall ruled that because Frances Elizabeth "Betsy" Lamb and Fr. Jerry Zawada had each failed to heed court orders in pending cases in other jurisdictions, they should each be held in custody pending trial. Magistrate Marshall set a detention hearing for both defendants before Magistrate Hector Estrada at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 6, when bail will likely be set.

Lamb and Zawada, together with a third defendant, Mary Burton
Riseley of Cliff, New Mexico, entered pleas of not guilty to charges
of trespass, conspiracy, and failure to obey an officer. Their
November arrest came while 300 people demonstrated outside Fort
Huachuca, Arizona, home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and
School where all Army interrogators are trained. (Fr. Louie Vitale
and Fr. Steve Kelly were arrested during a similar November, 2006
protest at Fort Huachuca, and are currently serving five months in
prison for trespass and failure to obey.)

Military prosecutor Capt. Evan Seamone informed the court
that at the time of the Fort Huachuca arrests, Betsy Lamb was
awaiting trial for a September anti-war protest outside the office of
Rep. Greg Walden, in Bend, Oregon. As a standard condition of
release on her own recognizance, Lamb had agreed not to commit any other crime while awaiting trial.

Seamone also told the court that among Fr. Zawada's decades'
long record of resistance to nuclear weapons and war was an
outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court for an anti-war
arrest in Washington, D.C.

Seamone repeatedly declared that these records of protest and
defiance created a "danger to the community" that Lamb and Zawada would again return to Fort Huachuca. Ignoring the fact that police had barricaded the main gate on November 18 and that a second, nearby gate remained open for the duration of the protest, Seamone said such actions would keep families out of their homes, and ailing veterans from medical care. Significantly, Seamone said that more protest threatened to "disable the ability to train" interrogators at Fort Huachuca.

These incidents provided sufficient reason for Magistrate Marshall to grant Seamone's motion for pretrial detention of defendants Lamb and Zawada. Because Ms. Riseley's record of nonviolent protest did not include any outstanding obligations, she remains free on her own recognizance.

Supporter Jack Cohen-Joppa said, "Today confirms that there
is indeed a price to be paid to preserve whatever virtue this country
has in the world. People with less of a criminal record than Jerry
and Betsy have been held in isolation at Guantanamo under the control of military intelligence for almost six years now. The three
defendants were called by their conscience to speak out against
torture. Although they do not desire to spend time in prison, they
feel that it is a necessary risk to try to stop brutal and inhumane
treatment of detainees in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan."

Lamb and Zawada were represented in court by Dan Gregor.
Meredith Little represented Mary Burton Riseley.

Fr. Jerry Zawada's statement follows. For more information,
visit www.tortureontrial.org

Fr. Jerry Zawada prepared the following statement today, but
was not permitted to read it in court.

"Judge Marshall, Prosecutor Evan Seamone, all of this courtroom and beyond:
"I stand in awe and gratitude to so many who showed me how to live
and act in these days - courageous people, some who have already
moved on to the other side of this life, who continue to bring to
this earth a powerful message of what is needed to be done at this
ominous juncture in human history -- a thorough commitment to
nonviolence, to a world where people of all backgrounds, nations and ways of life are respected and cherished, people who say NO,
absolutely NO, to all forms of torture, all forms of dehumanizing
practices, NO to warfare of any kind, certainly to one which is
unprovoked and based on falsehood, NO to sanctions which bring about the deaths of thousands of innocents... and YES to the reality that we are to live as one family on this planet.
"It is on account of the example of these courageous people that I
have acted with others to draw attention to what is happening at Ft.
Huachuca and its participation in bringing about a regime that
condones unmitigated abuse of truth and opens the door to physical
and psychological torture and warfare.
"For this reason, at this time, I refuse to promise that I would
refrain from acting (in a nonviolent manner) to take whatever risks
needed to stop the warfare and abuse carried on in our name in Iraq
and other places of the Middle East and, if the financial means were
provided, I would go anywhere to join other people of conscience to
change the downward course our nation and its leaders have taken.
"As a follower of Francis and Clare of Assisi, I long to spread
peace, justice and care for all creatures in our earth-home. At the
sacred season of ADVENT, it is HOPE that looms large in many a heart
-- a good time to spend in or out of prison, if the message of this
season becomes reality for a world sickened by violence. Thank you."