Nun and two priests sent to prison after peaceful protests
-01/02/06
A federal judge in
Nun and two priests sent to prison after peaceful protests
-01/02/06
A federal judge in the US has sentenced three Roman Catholics to six months in prison after their peaceful protest.
The three, Sr. Mary Dennis (Elizabeth Ann) Lentsch, 69, and Franciscan Frs. Louis Vitale, 73, and Jerry Zawada, 68, were part of a group of 32 defendants charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest at a controversial Army training school located there, as reported by Ekklesia.
They were Arrested as they called for the Closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) a combat training facility for Latin American security personnel.
Formerly the School Of the Americas (SOA), WHINSEC is located at Fort Benning where over 60,000 personnel have been trained in courses including counterinsurgency, psychological warfare and interrogation techniques.
Graduates of the school have been consistently linked to human rights violations and to the suppression of popular movements in Central and South America.
Each of the three credits their faith as a catalyst in their choice to participate in an action that earned them time in jail.
One of the three, Fr. Louis Vitale of San Francisco, California, is already serving his sentence in the Muscogee County Jail in Columbus, Georgia.
Sr. Mary Dennis (Elizabeth Ann) Lentsch of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Fr. Jerry Zawada of Cedar Lake, Indiana will “self-report” to federal prison in the next six to eight weeks when notified by the Bureau of Prisons.
“My faith teaches me that it’s important to both honour and trespass against lines in our lives, as love and justice demand,” said Sr. Lentsch after her sentencing yesterday. “It’s because of this belief – and the belief that the School of the Americas must be closed once and for all – that I have been sentenced to six months in prison.”
The three clergy arrested were among 19,000 – including many religious congregations and organizations – who gathered in November outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC). The demonstration was the 16th annual organized by School of the Americas Watch, a faith- and conscience-based organization working to close the school that was founded by Maryknoll priest Rev. Roy Bourgeois.
The SOA/ WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. New research confirms that the school continues to support known human rights abusers. Despite being investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA/ WHINSEC in 2003.
Judge Faircloth is known for handing down stiff sentences to opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC. Since protests against the school began more than a decade ago, 183 people have served a total of over 81 years in prison for engaging in nonviolent resistance in a broad-based campaign to close the school.
The movement to close the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to grow. In 2005, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced HR 1217, a bill to suspend operations at WHINSEC and to investigate the development and use of the “torture manuals.” With a new Representative added yesterday, the bill currently has 124 bipartisan co-sponsors.
“People speaking out for justice and accountability have been sentenced to prison this week,” said Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, “while the SOA and its graduates continue to operate outside a system of real accountability.”
Nun and two priests sent to prison after peaceful protests
-01/02/06
A federal judge in the US has sentenced three Roman Catholics to six months in prison after their peaceful protest.
The three, Sr. Mary Dennis (Elizabeth Ann) Lentsch, 69, and Franciscan Frs. Louis Vitale, 73, and Jerry Zawada, 68, were part of a group of 32 defendants charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest at a controversial Army training school located there, as reported by Ekklesia.
They were Arrested as they called for the Closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) a combat training facility for Latin American security personnel.
Formerly the School Of the Americas (SOA), WHINSEC is located at Fort Benning where over 60,000 personnel have been trained in courses including counterinsurgency, psychological warfare and interrogation techniques.
Graduates of the school have been consistently linked to human rights violations and to the suppression of popular movements in Central and South America.
Each of the three credits their faith as a catalyst in their choice to participate in an action that earned them time in jail.
One of the three, Fr. Louis Vitale of San Francisco, California, is already serving his sentence in the Muscogee County Jail in Columbus, Georgia.
Sr. Mary Dennis (Elizabeth Ann) Lentsch of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Fr. Jerry Zawada of Cedar Lake, Indiana will “self-report” to federal prison in the next six to eight weeks when notified by the Bureau of Prisons.
“My faith teaches me that it’s important to both honour and trespass against lines in our lives, as love and justice demand,” said Sr. Lentsch after her sentencing yesterday. “It’s because of this belief – and the belief that the School of the Americas must be closed once and for all – that I have been sentenced to six months in prison.”
The three clergy arrested were among 19,000 – including many religious congregations and organizations – who gathered in November outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC). The demonstration was the 16th annual organized by School of the Americas Watch, a faith- and conscience-based organization working to close the school that was founded by Maryknoll priest Rev. Roy Bourgeois.
The SOA/ WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. New research confirms that the school continues to support known human rights abusers. Despite being investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA/ WHINSEC in 2003.
Judge Faircloth is known for handing down stiff sentences to opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC. Since protests against the school began more than a decade ago, 183 people have served a total of over 81 years in prison for engaging in nonviolent resistance in a broad-based campaign to close the school.
The movement to close the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to grow. In 2005, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced HR 1217, a bill to suspend operations at WHINSEC and to investigate the development and use of the “torture manuals.” With a new Representative added yesterday, the bill currently has 124 bipartisan co-sponsors.
“People speaking out for justice and accountability have been sentenced to prison this week,” said Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, “while the SOA and its graduates continue to operate outside a system of real accountability.”