Georgia activists sentenced to prison

A federal judge in Columbus, GA, has sentenced 31 human rights activists to prison. Two of these individuals are over 80 years old, one is 19. The sentences come less than a week after a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail an Army interrogator even though they found him guilty of negligent homicide in the torture and killing of an Iraqi detainee. The 31 defendants were charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest of a controversial Army training school located there, and each person faced a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Those arrested were among 19,000 who gathered in November outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in US foreign policy and the closure of the US Army's School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC.) The demonstration was the 16th annual one organized by School of the Americas (SOA) Watch, a faith- and conscience-based organization working to close the school. "For eight years, I have been studying this issue and listening to the stories of those most affected by the School of the Americas," said Delmar Schwaller, an 81-year-old World War II veteran and active community volunteer sentenced to two months in prison. "My prison sentence doesn't change my feelings about my action. I know this was the right thing to do." The SOA/WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocate 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 having been investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA/WHINSEC in 2003. Judge Mallon G. Faircloth is known for handing down stiff sentences to opponents of the SOA/WHINSEC. Since protests 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 co-sponsor added on Jan. 31, the bill currently has 124 bipartisan co-sponsors. "People speaking out for justice and accountability will most likely be sent to prison this week," said Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, "while the SOA and its graduates continue to operate outside a system of real accountability." Source: SOA Watch