18 Fort Benning protesters leave prison;
Bourgeois vows return until SOA closes
By NCR STAFF
Just two days back from camp, Mary Early was already
missing the other women.
Dan and Doris Sage, meanwhile, were facing the cleanup from the
wicked storms that had just clobbered the Syracuse, N.Y., area.
Early of North Palm Beach, Fla., and the Sages were among 18
persons released the weekend of Sept. 18 after serving six-month sentences for
protests last November at the site of the U.S. Armys School of the
Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. The school trains military personnel for Latin
American countries and has graduated some of the areas most notorious
human rights abusers.
For Early, the six months in Floridas Coleman Prison
provided a chance to be in solidarity with other women there,
nonviolent offenders that, Early said, were being treated as violent
criminals.
For the Sages, members of the Unitarian church (she was imprisoned
at Danbury, Conn., he in Allenwood, Pa.) the experience was eye-opening for the
amount of support shown to the prisoners by those on the outside, including
hundreds of letters from strangers.
The retired couple -- Dan, 70, taught at Syracuse University, and
Doris, 68, taught special education in the public schools -- said their first
stint in jail was worthwhile as a way to raise awareness about the School of
the Americas.
The 18 protesters were arrested along with nearly 600 others who
marched in a funeral procession last Nov. 16 at Fort Benning.
Twenty five repeat offenders were convicted of trespass and
sentenced to the maximum six months in prison and a $3,000 fine. Those arrested
for the first time do not receive prison sentences.
The repeat offenders included ministers, nuns, college professors,
nurses, students and grandparents. The oldest in the group is the Rev. Nicholas
Cardell, 72, a Unitarian minister. Sr. Rita Steinhagen, a Sister of St. Joseph
who works with the homeless and victims of torture, is 70 years old. Most were
in their 50s and 60s, and the youngest was 23-year-old Christopher Jones of
Portland, Ore.
Of the remaining seven arrested and given jail sentences last
November, two were released earlier, according to SOA Watch, an organization
working to close the facility. One person was able to postpone beginning a
sentence because of illness in the family, and four who also were charged with
a felony for defacing a sign at Fort Benning will soon begin serving 12-to
18-month sentences.
The school has trained 60,000 Latin American soldiers in combat
skills, commando tactics and military intelligence, according to SOA Watch,
which was founded by Fr. Roy Bourgeois shortly after the killing of six Jesuit
priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador in 1969.
Bourgeois, one of those recently released, has vowed to continue
returning to jail until the school is closed down. The most recent attempt to
shut down the facility was turned back when the House of Representatives voted
212-201 to refuse to entertain a proposal to cut $750,000 from the
schools budget for next year.
Those who recently served sentences were released in time to
return to the facility again this Nov. 21 and 22 for another mass protest.
Some, like Early, are considering trespassing at the fort again, an action that
almost certainly would bring another prison term.
National Catholic Reporter, October 2,
1998
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