 |
| The triple Goddesses advance on Fort Benning |
It all comes down to how you react
Now you're face to face, seeing it all
Dispersal warnings, they're making the call
They got buses to pack, with people like you
When they did that in the 50's the movement grew
Now you're face to face, seeing it all
Dispersal warnings, they're making the call
They got buses to pack, with people like you
When they did that in the 50's the movement grew
--Ryan Harvey, lyrics from “See it Through”
Federal, City and State authorities were busy in Columbus, Ga., on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. Arrests of people from 17 to 90 years old included stilt walkers and puppetistas, four credentialed press, local barber Curtis Thornton, a dozen participants in a planned road blockade, priests, veterans and students, along with many others attempting simply to make it back to their cars outside the “permitted protest area” following the 2010 vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Ga.
At least five undercover police infiltrated the action.
Franciscan Friar Louis Vitale, 78, and Catholic Worker David Omandi, 24, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Georgia’s Muskogee County jail. They face six months imprisonment after sentencing by U.S. magistrate judge Stephen Hyles. Both pleaded “nolo contendre”— a plea that accepts charges without admission of guilt—on the Federal charge of trespass onto Fort Benning. This is the fourth conviction for Fr. Louis, a human rights activist who has already served prison time for acts of conscience at Fort Benning.
Omandi scaled the first of three barbed-wire topped fences at the Fort Benning gate on Sunday. Vitale walked on to the post at the I-85 entrance on Saturday accompanied by Nancy Smith from New York who pleaded "not guilty" and will return for trial on January 5, 2011. Christopher Spicer, 28, of Seattle who also scaled the barbed-wire topped fence on Sunday and pleaded “not guilty” is also scheduled for a January 5 trial.
An estimated 5,000 gathered in Columbus throughout the weekend in the 21st year of SOA Watch protests calling for the closure of the notorious U.S. Army School of Americas/WHINSEC, the counter-insurgency training school whose graduates are linked to decades of documented human rights atrocities and massacres throughout Central and South America.
Another 24 persons apprehended outside the “permitted protest zone,” were charged with city and state violations on November 20. Charged but not taken into custody were Jesuit priest Bill Brennan, 90, seated in a wheel-chair and accompanied by ordained member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Janice Sevre-Duszynska. The two took part in a city-side purposeful action with a more than a dozen others that briefly shut down the Victory Drive highway entrance to Fort Benning with a large sign that read, "Stop: This is the End of the Road for the SOA." In a special hearing before Georgia State Judge Stephen Smith on November 22 the two were found guilty and sentenced to a six-month probation. Brennan was ordered to pay $50 in fines; Sevre-Duszynska $500. Others with pending state charges will likely go to court in January, according to court officials.
The SOA Watch movement in online and printed materials distributed prior to the November gathering, invited activists to form Affinity groups and send representatives to a “spokescouncil” meeting held during the weekend in Columbus “to finalize the scenario and coordinate how and when the actions occur.” Those considering actions that might risk arrest were urged to participate in nonviolence training and to attend the “direct action preparation meetings” held at the Columbus convention Center on Friday night. At these open meetings, organizers announced the likelihood that undercover police were in the room.
Lauren Stinson, an undercover narcotics agent with the Muscogee, Ga., county sheriff’s office, was among five or more undercover agents on duty. She participated in the blockade of the southbound lanes on Victory Drive. As many as five of those taken into custody were never put in jail and never ended up in court, according to SOA Watch organizers, who viewed videos of the arrests.
Stinson testified against several defendants who were tried before Columbus Recorder’s Court Judge Michael Cielinski on Sunday afternoon. Charges included unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, and parading without a permit. The total of bonds and fines exceeded $75,000, according to SOA Watch. At the end of the hearing, held in a courtroom packed with close to 100 supporters, Judge Cielinski also issued an order banning some of the defendants from the town of Columbus, Ga., for 18 months.
Undercover agent Stinson admitted she had participated in two planning meetings prior to the street blockade. SOA Watch legal team lead Attorney Bill Quigley questioned the narcotics agent in the courtroom: “Did you advise them you were a police officer?” Stintson replied, “No. They didn’t ask.”
Maria Ramirez, 23, of Washington, D.C., was the only defendant that had all charges against her dismissed after the judge viewed several hours of video tape taken at the scene by police and press. State charges are still pending on some defendants, and four have appealed their city convictions, including Kaelyn Forde, 23, and Jonathan R. Conway, 27, of the news group Russia Today, who were found guilty of demonstrating without a permit and failure to disperse and fined $290 each. The two were also charged with “insubordination to authority.”
Cecelia Kluding, 17, of Boulder, Colo., told the judge she was covering the event for a community radio station out of Boulder. She testified that when she attempted to show her press credentials to an arresting officer, “I was told it didn’t matter that I was part of the press.” Kluding was found guilty of city violations and paid a $290 fine.
I spoke with several members of the Puppetista Collective at a neighborhood community center in Columbus on Monday morning, just a half-night’s sleep after their release on bond from Muscogee County jail. The Community Center is headquarters for the week-long planning and manufacture of puppets for the pageant that takes place at the annual gathering.
It was “a soulless conviction machine,” according to puppetista Ken Srdjak describing procedures in the Muscogee County courtroom November 23. “I would say there was pre-meditated intent. They knew who they wanted to arrest,” Srdjak asserted. One of the event organizers, and a former prisoner of conscience in the movement, Charity Ryerson, a law student, was among those arrested Saturday. Some witnesses reported that it appeared she was targeted for arrest by police as she walked along the sidewalk to her vehicle a half hour after the crowd was dispersed.
“…it is a similar mindset of the SOA graduate,” Srdjak commented, about the arrests.
Puppetistas Jake Wienstein and Lissa Mcleod of Knoxville, Tenn., are stiltwalkers who led the lively puppet pageant from the vigil stage on Saturday. I watched as they stopped at the police barricade to clarify the police orders, and then proceeded out a narrow passage in the barricade and onto the sidewalks. A large blue cardboard puppet representing the Mother Goddess followed.
Legal observer Monica Tilhou, of Asheville, N.C., standing opposite where I was, noted that the stilt walkers moved carefully through the crowd, keeping to the side walk and obeying the traffic signals as directed.
Katy Savage of Nashville Greenlands Catholic Worker Community in Nashville, Tenn., told me she had been holding the left hand of the Blue Goddess puppet “for just one minute,” as she made her way along the sidewalk behind the stilt walkers. “First thing I heard from the police was ‘Drop the Puppet’,” she said of her arrest.
In my role as a legal observer, I wore a lime green ball cap from the National Lawyers Guild, and was tasked to “observe and record.” I was standing at the end of the “permitted protest area” at Fort Benning Drive and Torch Hill Road as dozens of Columbus police gathered to line the road which was blocked off with large orange traffic cones. I observed as Saturday rally participants attempted to leave the vigil area soon after 4 p.m. They were directed through a narrow opening in the blockade and ordered to “stay on the sidewalk and go directly to your cars.” There was a good deal of confusion, particularly after the puppetistas arrived at the barricade, accompanied by the Kakalak Thunder drum corps from North Carolina. As the crowd pressed forward they began chanting at the barricade, “This is what Democracy looks like!” The police became more agitated. Each was armed and carried a belt full of plastic ties. There was general confusion among the crowd attempting to leave the vigil site.
A recorded message in both Spanish and English was played over a loud speaker from the nearby Masonic Lodge. Barely audible over the noise, the message warned the assembly of the laws they would violate if the parade crossed the orange barricades marking the protest area.
One participant, David Williams of Asheville, N.C., opted to remain inside the permitted protest zone. “I was part of the puppetistas. I was holding a sunflower and a stop sign,” he told me. “It got louder and louder…I could hear a tape, played in both Spanish and English, announcing three possible charges, but it was hard to hear with all the drumming.”
Continuing as an observer, I caught up with the stilt walkers outside the barricades. They were face down on a grassy area in front of the Circle K gas station. I kept to the sidewalks and heeded the warnings from various individual officers to keep moving. When I reached what seemed a safe vantage point at the Circle K. station I stood observing from the concrete area around the gas pumps. SOA Watch founder Roy Bourgeois stood there with me watching the arrests.
“It’s just like the good old days,” he said with a smile, as people were loaded into the bus with the sign on front, “Have a nice day.”
I
n years past, thousands of persons have crossed over the white line that marked the boundary of Fort Benning and were loaded onto buses for either arrest or release. Since 1990, there have been close to 300 convictions of human rights activists who have served nearly 100 years of collective jail and prison time. After the fall of the twin towers in 2001, fences and barbed wire and increasingly harsh enforcement for trespass have been part of the SOA experience.
I watched as Eric Johnson, an ordained Presbyterian minister from Maryville, Tenn., and a former prisoner of conscience in the movement, was arrested and handcuffed. He and his wife, Libby, had accompanied the stilt walkers out of the permitted protest zone and were preparing to help them dismount in a grassy area.
“I believe strongly in the power of nonviolent civil disobedience,” Johnson, who is hearing impaired, told the judge on Sunday. “I was accompanying some stilt walkers, but I had no intention of being arrested. I intended to obey all commands.”
Libby Johnson, called as a witness, told the court, “I was in the exact same place as my spouse. I was not arrested.” She added, “The policeman grabbed his holster, pointed at his gun and said ‘back off.’
“We were not breaking any laws. There was no warning. I obey when I hear the order ‘move or you will be arrested.’”
At the Circle K station, it wasn’t long before police officers turned their attention to the folks “loitering” on the premises. They began herding people off the private property with orders “Go to your cars.” The arrests seemed haphazard. We moved on order. At one point I asked an officer, “How do you choose who to arrest?” he replied, “Anybody walking in a large group.” “How many is large?” I asked. “Whatever my supervisor says,” he replied.
In recent years, many have questioned the effectiveness of the yearly ritual and litany of the dead held at the gates of Fort Benning, and there is talk within the movement to move the event to Washington, D.C. The addition of fences along the sides of the road and three layers of chain link topped with barbed wire at the entrance to the base, has effectively corralled participants into a crowded “protest zone.” Attendance at this November’s vigil dropped from 20,000 at its peak to an estimated 5,000. The Jesuit order no longer subsidizes travel to the SOA Watch event for thousands of students from its high schools and colleges, which may have contributed to the loss in numbers.
Other stresses on the movement include withdrawal of $17,000 in annual funding from the Maryknoll religious order due to SOA Watch founder and Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois’ open support for the ordination of women to the priesthood. According to the Catholic News Service, Bourgeois was excommunicated “latae sententiae” — automatically— in 2008 for not recanting his public statements supporting the ordination of women.
Still, the vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, headquarters of the U.S. Army School of America’s, moves many to tears and is a profound experience for newcomers. The weekend is filled with workshops and trainings, films and speakers, and tables and tables of activist groups selling t-shirts and buttons, and passing out information of their many efforts to bring about change. And for many it is a reunion and much needed dose of solidarity with activists who gather from throughout the country
The puppetista pageantry is larger than life. This year they depicted the three -headed beast of Global Corporate, Uncle Sam, and the Military devouring the people. Then the triple Goddesses burst on the scene swirling around and around, bringing power and hope and support to the resistance until the blue Mother Goddess burst out of the collapsing beast to the applause of the crowd.
“I believe the puppetistas with their creativity in visually depicting the story has a deep value for our understanding and for our ability to experience the truth,” Asheville gardener David Williams said. “It offers a sense of hope—a symbolic meaning that gives us a greater sense of what is possible.”
Will it be this feminine face of God that will finally shake the evil of the SOA? Or will it be the more mundane media focus that this year’s arrests of stilt walkers and puppetistas, of journalists, passersby and a local barber will bring. Or maybe it will be the stubborn willingness of a Franciscan Friar to return again and again to prison as a protest against this school of terror?
As the song goes, just maybe “it all comes down to how you react.”
