| Subject: FT. BENNING, GA: CPT at SOA |
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Date Posted: 17:02:27 12/03/01 Mon
CPTNet FT. BENNING, GA: CPT at SOA November 19, 2001
Five CPTers and supporters were among 85 people arrested for trespassing on Sunday during a solemn funeral procession at Fort Benning, home of the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). In addition, thirty people maintaining a sit-in through the evening outside the gates of the base were arrested by Columbus police around 10:00pm.
CPT-Colombia team member Scott Kerr (Downers Grove, IL) and intern Ben Horst (Evanston, IL) are currently awaiting trial in the Muscogee County jail. Corps member Sara Reschly (Chicago, IL), Reservist Esther Ho (Hayward, CA), and seventeen-year-old CPT supporter, Helena Graham from Plough Creek Fellowship in Tiskilwa, IL were all given five-year "Ban and Bar" letters and released from the base at 4:30pm Sunday.
More than forty-five people joined the CPT action group, walking together in an 8000-person funeral procession which transformed the closed gates of Ft. Benning into a memorial wall with crosses, flowers, banners and other symbols calling for closure of the SOA.
Upon reaching the gates of the base, the CPT group knelt in a large circle and began a ceremony of washing the U.S. and Canadian flags. Another fifty people joined the circle as the group read prayerfully in unison a brief statement explaining their action:
"...We recognize that the teaching of terror here at the SOA desecrates the very values of democracy and truth and respect for human rights that our countries claim to uphold. The flag, as a symbol of those values, is stained with the blood of our brothers and sisters in Latin America, Afghanistan and many places around the world...Through the washing of these flags, we express our desire to cleanse the wounds caused by war-making and to clean the stains of shame from our nations..."
The group read a Litany of Resistance that has been used by CPT teams at military installations in both Chiapas and Colombia. CPTers then poured streams of water over the U.S. flag and placed it gently in a basin. As the group sang "Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying," participants washed their own hands in the flag-draped basin to acknowledge their complicity in the violence produced by the SOA and to signify their commitment to work for the transformation of such institutions.
Still singing, the team of five proceeded to deliver the basin and flag to the SOA, located deep inside the base. They reached an area of the chainlink and barbed-wire fence (erected at Ft. Benning after the attacks of September 11) where they were able to crawl under onto Ft. Benning property. All five were immediately taken into custody by Military Police.
The SOA, which provides counterinsurgency training for Latin American soldiers including terror tactics targeting civilian populations, was officially closed last year. It was re-opened the next day under a new name (Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation -- WHISC) but with the same shameful curriculum. Colombia has the highest enrollment in the School today.
A growing, nonviolent movement has gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning for twelve years on the anniversary of the November 16, 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador at the hands of SOA graduates to commemorate all victims U.S.-sponsored terrorism.
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Full text of CPT's statement:
We are here today to remember those who have lost their lives as a result of acts of terror.
We recognize that the teaching of terror on our own soil here at the SOA desecrates the very values of democracy and truth and respect for human rights that our country claims to uphold. The flag, as a symbol of those values, is stained with the blood of our brothers and sisters in Latin America, Afghanistan and many places around the world.
As citizens of the United States and Canada, we confess our own complicity in the terror experienced by many in the human family. Our over-consumption of the world's resources creates the demand for violent "defense" of "our way of life" and our tax dollars support this violence.
Our prayer is one of repentance. Through the washing of these flags, we express our desire to cleanse the wounds caused by war-making and to clean the stains of shame from our nations. We commit ourselves to this work of transformation. We call on the SOA (WHISC) to turn away from inflicting terror and participate in the healing of the nations.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is a program of Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches. CPT P. O. Box 6508 Chicago, IL 60680 tel. 312-455-1199 FAX 312-432-1213, E-Mail cpt@igc.org WEB www.prairienet.org/cpt
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