Human Rights Advocates Given Maximum Federal Prison Sentences

Speaking Truth to Power

Human Rights Advocates Given Maximum Federal Prison Sentences of Six Months for Direct Action Opposing the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC)

Judge Finds SOA Watch Activists Guilty for Carrying Protest against the SOA/WHINSEC onto Fort Benning, Issues Arrest Warrant for Michael Walli for Refusing to Appear for the Trial. Father Louie in Georgia Jail.

On Monday, January 25, 2010, U.S. Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth sentenced three human rights advocates to six months in federal prison for carrying a protest against the School of the Americas onto the Fort Benning military base in Georgia. This school, re-named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is a controversial U.S. Army training school for Latin American soldiers.

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Roman Catholic priest and the founder of SOA Watch, the organization that works to close the School of the Americas said "Judge Faircloth has sentenced our sister and brothers to 6 months in federal prison for speaking the truth about the SOA/WHINSEC. We are saddened by the court's continued blindness and hardness of heart, but we are stronger than ever in solidarity. These sentences are symbolic of our nation's misdirection, but they are also great steps forward for our resistance movement. It is truer today, than ever before, that although they jail the resisters they have not, and cannot, jail the resistance!"

The "SOA 4" are:

Nancy Gwin, long-time activist from Syracuse, New York - sentenced to six months in prison

Father Louie Vitale, veteran and priest from Oakland, CA - sentenced to six months in prison

Ken Hayes, SOA Watch Council member from Austin, TX - sentenced to six months in prison

Michael Walli, a member of the Catholic Worker movement from Washington, DC refused to appear for the trial in Georgia. Walli had told the court during his November arraignment that he would not pay any bail and that he would not voluntarily return for the trial. "I walk out and it's goodbye" Walli told Judge Mallon Faircloth. Michael Walli made good on his promise and on Monday, Judge Mallon Faircloth issued a warrant for Michael Walli's arrest.

The "SOA 4" were among the tens of thousands who gathered on November 20-22, 2009 outside the gates of Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia to demand a change in U.S. policy in Latin America and the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC. The group peacefully crossed onto Fort Benning while thousands stood vigil at the gates of the base in memory of those killed by graduates of the institution.

The SOA/WHINSEC, a military training facility for Latin American security personnel, made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution.

Nancy Gwin's trial statement

(Nancy is on trial for her work to close the School of the Americas along with Louie Vitale and others.)

Your Honor, I’ve brought a woven fabric, a tapestry from Guatemala, with me today to remind those in the courtroom of the beauty of the people of Latin America, of their gifts. And, this weaving is also a reminder of what violence does to beauty.

Your Honor, my name is Nancy Gwin. I was born in Nebraska, growing up in a small town there. My home is now Syracuse, New York. I wish to speak to you of my journey to the prayer vigil to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC on Sunday, November 22, 2009.

I am a war orphan---my father, Boyd Gwin is MIA/Missing in Action in North Korea, an Air Force/National Air Guard Pilot whose plane was shot down in January, 1953. I am a peace activist in my father’s honor. As a young woman I committed to do what I could in my lifetime to make the strong statement, “No more war orphans, no more widows or Gold Star mothers.”

Many veterans are working to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. I like to think I stand with them and understand their indignity of knowing such a training school exists within the United States Armed Forces.

I have been to El Mozote in the Morazan Department of El Salvador, walked on the grounds where people were massacred and visited the small museum there. Graduates of the School of the Americas, Salvadoran armed forces trained by U.S. military, killed at least 1000 civilians at El Mozote. It is estimated that 130 were children under the age of twelve. I have a granddaughter who will turn twelve this week.

Your Honor, I am a person of faith, a church woman. My faith tradition is the United Church of Christ, although I have great respect for other religious traditions. Whenever I have been able, I have journeyed to other countries in Latin America to interface with the people, to witness the impact of the economic and foreign policies of the United States first hand.

The United Church of Christ has adopted a Resolution “Calling for the Close of the U.S. Army School of the Americas” which I have attached to my statement. I quote:

“Whereas it has been established that people of faith, working in solidarity with people of Central America, have been murdered by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas, namely those responsible for the assassinations of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the four North American church women, the six Jesuit priests, their Housekeeper and her daughter, all in El Salvador; . . .

“Be it further resolved that the Twenty-first General Synod endorses continued efforts by the School of the Americas Watch in Fort Benning, Georgia, Washington, D.C. and local Central American solidarity organizations across the country, to push for closing the School of the Americas; . . .”

I visited Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico where forty-five Catholic indigenous people, including fifteen children, gathered at a prayer meeting were massacred on December 27, 1997. They were members of the pacifist group, “Las Abejas”. Mexican graduates of the School of the Americas/WHINSEC have played an active role in the civilian-targeted warfare in their country.

Your Honor, I treasure the ideal of a truly democratic process where a person may decide to run for elected office, cast an unfettered vote for the candidate of his or her choice. I have served as an International Election Observer, trained and certified, in elections in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Haiti and witnessed people there working hard to assure fair and free elections; to revitalize democracy.

I was not surprised to learn that the general, Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, who led the coup in Honduras on June 28, 2009 which overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya is a two-time graduate of the School of the Americas. This institution, funded by our tax dollars, has trained thousands of coup leaders and human rights abusers. This coup has happened only seven short months ago. Thousands of people in Honduras have been resisting while the SOA/WHINSEC is continues to train Honduran officers.

The School of the Americas/WHINSEC has in the past and continues to train in low-intensity conflict; in counter-insurgency warfare against the poor, the laborers, the teachers, union-organizers. The School of the Americas/WHINSEC continues to send military officers from Latin America back to their homelands to use tactics and policies which result in war orphans, widows and Gold Star mothers.

I have always loved, been intrigued by the Spanish verb ”esperar”. It translates both “to hope” and “to wait”. In English, we use different verbs and distinguish between the meanings---sometimes, I think, because waiting and hoping are so separate in our impatient culture---not as intertwined.

Your Honor, I have worked hard to educate my elected officials on the urgency of closing the School of the Americas/WHINSEC, investigating its operations, and changing the foreign policies which underpin it. It is past time to send a message to our brothers and sisters in Latin America that we are ready for change, for right relation, for new beginnings. Sometimes waiting and hoping are not enough.

Links:

http://www.unobserver.com/layout4.php?id=7141&blz=1

http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d26-US--human-rights-defenders-get-maximum-prison-sentence-for-truth

Military Industrial Complex

AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8

Iraq Veterans Against the War

http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier/testimony/racism-and-war-dehumanization-enemy-part-2/mike-prysner/video

Rumsfeld 2.3 Trillion Dollars missing Pentagon 1 DAY b4/9-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpWqdPMjmo

Eisenhower on the Military Industrial Complex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdrGKwkmxAU

Documentary – “Why we fight?”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9219858826421983682#

"Somebody Like Me" by Jason Crabb

"Somebody Like Me" by Jason Crabb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC-MyglVbCc

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Homeless Memorial Candlelight Vigil 2009

List of homeless who didn't survive the streets totals 42

By Lynnette Curtis
Las Vegas Review-Journal

http://www.lvrj.com/news/list-of-homeless-who-didnt-survive-the-streets-totals-42-79392997.html

Modern Day Slavery in America

You may remember Feminists for Life speaker Joyce McCauley-Benner's powerful speech, “Victory Over Violence."

http://www.feministsforlife.org/video/victory-over-violence-frame.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6jtE3mrls

Today this survivor of sexual assault assists victims of sex trafficking.

Please be aware that information contained within the following op-ed may be disturbing to some adults. And although children are sadly experiencing the abuse she writes about, parents are the best judge of whether their child is prepared to read Joyce's revealing article.

If you are interested in hosting Joyce as a speaker, http://www.feministsforlife.org/cop/speakers.htm please contact FFL’s College Outreach Program Coordinator at coordinator@ffloncampus.org .

Because women deserve better,

Serrin M. Foster
President

The Face of Modern Day Slavery

While browsing the internet one day, I came across an unsettling advertisement for a t-shirt which read “I went to Thailand and all I got was this kidnapped prostitute.”

It sold for $16.99 and, The Onion’s website noted, the “prostitute [was] not included.”

I would imagine the creators of the shirt found the statement amusing. They are, after all, working for a website that satirizes politics and the media. Some readers may gloss over it completely. Some may not understand the reference. And then there are those of us that are outraged.

“Kidnapped prostitutes” are victims of sex trafficking, a form of modern day slavery. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, championed by Rep. Christopher Smith, defines severe forms of trafficking in persons as ’’sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”

Sex trafficking is more common than you think. While it certainly occurs internationally, in places like Thailand (driven largely by men “vacationing” or “on business” from America), it is also perhaps America's dirtiest little secret.

I have been working as an advocate for domestic (American) sex trafficking victims for the past year and a half. What have I learned?

- Slavery has been reinvented in America. Today, in 2009, children (both boys and girls) and adults are used for the purposes of commercial sex and forced labor—and most of America is completely unaware of their plight.

- Trafficking victims are vulnerable. They are most often victims of abuse, assault, and neglect before being trafficked.

- Trafficking victims are made vulnerable by other social injustices: poverty, racism, and the over-sexualization and objectification of women in our culture.

- Trafficking victims do not engage in “sex work.” They are manipulated into a life of prostitution, drugs, torture, and disempowerment.

- Trafficking victims do not have free choices; their actions are compelled by circumstances or by force, fraud, or coercion. Abortion, adoption, or parenting is a decision made and forced by another person, an abuser.

Victims of sex trafficking can come, when there is no intervention, from a generational or familial life of prostitution. It is not uncommon to see daughters of traffickers groomed to become future prostitutes and sons become future traffickers. In international trafficking, forced adoption or child abduction is also very common as children and women are considered products of a business rather than free human beings. Forced abortion is often performed with methods unsafe to women. A trafficked woman’s body is never her own.

As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I know the pain and turmoil having your sexuality hijacked. I also know how common sexual assault is in our society. But I found that the victimization I experienced was nothing in comparison to what these women experience as slaves, what these children experience as chattel.

Sex trafficking occurs in truck stops, hotels, suburban homes, rural fields, and cities across the US. Ever drive by a strip club assuming it employs adults? Would you be surprised to find children? I have met several young teens (14-16) who were coerced or manipulated into stripping and then prostituting after hours. Often the girls have fake papers given to them to protect the owner of the club. MySpace and other social web sites are prime recruiting ground to lure teens into these types of situations.

Shared Hope International’s “National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children” reveals that 13 is the average age children in the United States are forced into prostitution, and at least 100,000 American children are used in domestic prostitution every year.

Minor victims of domestic sex trafficking fill our detention facilities. We pay for that, but they pay much more. “Tonya,” a survivor of domestic sex trafficking put it this way. “I always felt like a criminal. I never felt like a victim at all. Victims don’t do time in jail, they work on the healing process. I was a criminal because I spent time in jail. I definitely felt like nothing more than a criminal.” But these children really are victims, not criminals. While they suffer, true criminals who buy sex from minors remain free, and the traffickers, watchers, recruiters, and groomers (many of whom were abused or exposed to trafficking by family members when they were young) who traffic children frequently escape detection.

Pornography contributes to this global injustice against women and children. Trafficking flourishes where pornography objectifies women and children and stimulates economic demand for even more pornography and prostitution. Ignorance or willful disbelief on the part of customers allows traffickers to fill that demand with their victims, who appear in seemingly legal porn.

Ideas to combat trafficking in the U.S. have included the formation of Rescue and Restore coalitions throughout the country. The US Department of Health and Human Services sponsors an awareness and educational campaign in addition to developing the coalitions and building awareness about the national human trafficking hotline. In June 2003, the FBI in conjunction with the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children launched the Innocence Lost National Initiative. Their combined efforts were aimed at addressing the growing problem of domestic sex trafficking of children in the United States. As of September 2009, 818 children have been recovered, over $3 million has been seized, there have been 510 convictions, and 34 task force and working groups in targeted areas have been formed. Passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act is also integral to the fight to end human trafficking.

These strides are a good beginning. Yet, we must continue to dig deeper to fight the root causes of this issue. Trafficking victims are often missed because you have to look under the surface to find the truth of her circumstances. You may see them on the side of your milk carton while you enjoy your morning cereal. They are our missing children and the adults we missed as children. We have to ask more questions and assume less. We have to know that this is America's shameful secret too.

These crimes against women and children are a new wave of slavery. It deserves our full attention—and should not be callously displayed on a t-shirt.

Joyce Ann McCauley-Benner was raped at 20 while working her way through college and chose not to abort, not knowing if her unborn son was the result of rape or of her relationship. She says, “I know what it's like to want to run as far away as possible from a problem, how it feels to hang on to 'if I wasn't pregnant anymore, it would all be OK again.'“ Ms. McCauley-Benner, who graduated from college while raising her son, worked on a racial justice task force and currently works with victims of sex trafficking. Today she presents her speech, “Victory Over Violence” on college campuses and at Capitol Hill briefings. In addition to her lecture, she moderates FFL Pregnancy Resource Forums. A mother of two sons, Ms. McCauley-Benner lives in the Midwest.

Feminists for Life was a charter member of the Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking and was the only pro-life organization who actively worked towards the successful passage of the Violence Against Women Act. More information may be found on FFL’s website, as in The American Feminist issues “Victory Over Violence” http://www.feministsforlife.org/taf/1998/fall/Fall98.pdf and “Crimes Against Women Around the World.” http://www.feministsforlife.org/taf/2002/SpringSummer2002/SpringSummer2002.pdf

©2009, Feminists for Life of America. Permission to reprint this article in its entirety with attribution to Joyce McCauley-Benner and Feminists for Life is granted. Please send a copy of or link to any reprints to Feminists for Life at info@feministsforlife.org .

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"Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion."

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What Does Love Mean?

Received this in my e-mail today. Thought it was cute and thought I would share it with you.

Power of God

If people were to hate me that is their load to carry, I have no room for hate in my heart because it is filled with love from God. Butch (Lou) Mathews

Slow down for three minutes to read this. It is so worth it.. Touching words from the mouth of babes.

What does Love mean?

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.

So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss." Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." Nikka - age 6

(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine - age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." (what an image) Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.

The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

When there is nothing left but God, that is when you find out that God is all you need. Take 60 seconds and give this a shot! All you do is simply say the following small prayer for the person who sent you this.

Father, God bless all my friends in whatever it is that You know they may be needing this day! And may their life be full of your peace, prosperity and power as he/she seeks to have a closer relationship with you. Amen.

Then send it on to five other people, including the one who sent it to you. Within hours you caused a multitude of people to pray for other people. Then sit back and watch the power of God work in your life.

P. S. Five is good, but more is even gooder!

Chomsky on Obama Speech

News Release

Chomsky on Obama Speech

June 4, 2009

NOAM CHOMSKY
Chomsky, whose recent books include Interventions and The Essential Chomsky, sent the following to the Institute for Public Accuracy this morning: "A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

"Keeping just to Israel-Palestine -- there was nothing substantive about anything else -- Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to 'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one side or the other.' There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.

"Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.

"Obama once again praised the Arab Peace Initiative, saying only that Arabs should see it as 'an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.' How should the Obama administration see it? Obama and his advisers are surely aware that the Initiative reiterates the long-standing international consensus calling for a two-state settlement on the international (pre-June '67) border, perhaps with 'minor and mutual modifications,' to borrow U.S. government usage before it departed sharply from world opinion in the 1970s, vetoing a Security Council resolution backed by the Arab 'confrontation states' (Egypt, Iran, Syria), and tacitly by the PLO, with the same essential content as the Arab Peace Initiative except that the latter goes beyond by calling on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel in the context of this political settlement. Obama has called on the Arab states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however, the crucial political settlement that is its precondition. The Initiative cannot be a 'beginning' if the U.S. continues to refuse to accept its core principles, even to acknowledge them.

"In the background is the Obama administration's goal, enunciated most clearly by Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to forge an alliance of Israel and the 'moderate' Arab states against Iran. The term 'moderate' has nothing to do with the character of the state, but rather signals its willingness to conform to U.S. demands.

"What is Israel to do in return for Arab steps to normalize relations? The strongest position so far enunciated by the Obama administration is that Israel should conform to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, which states: 'Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).' All sides claim to accept the Road Map, overlooking the fact that Israel instantly added 14 reservations that render it inoperable.

"Overlooked in the debate over settlements is that even if Israel were to accept Phase I of the Road Map, that would leave in place the entire settlement project that has already been developed, with decisive U.S. support, to ensure that Israel will take over the valuable land within the illegal 'separation wall' (including the primary water supplies of the region) as well as the Jordan Valley, thus imprisoning what is left, which is being broken up into cantons by settlement/infrastructure salients extending far to the East. Unmentioned as well is that Israel is taking over Greater Jerusalem, the site of its major current development programs, displacing many Arabs, so that what remains to Palestinians will be separated from the center of their cultural, economic, and sociopolitical life. Also unmentioned is that all of this is in violation of international law, as conceded by the government of Israel after the 1967 conquest, and reaffirmed by Security Council resolutions and the International Court of Justice. Also unmentioned are Israel's successful operations since 1991 to separate the West Bank from Gaza, since turned into a prison where survival is barely possible, further undermining the hopes for a viable Palestinian state.

"It is worth remembering that there has been one break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. President Clinton recognized that the terms he had offered at the failed 2000 Camp David meetings were not acceptable to any Palestinians, and in December, proposed his 'parameters,' vague but more forthcoming. He then announced that both sides had accepted the parameters, though both had reservations. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt to iron out the differences, and made considerable progress. A full resolution could have been reached in a few more days, they announced in their final joint press conference. But Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, and they have not been formally resumed. The single exception indicates that if an American president is willing to tolerate a meaningful diplomatic settlement, it can very likely be reached.

"It is also worth remembering that the Bush I administration went a bit beyond words in objecting to illegal Israeli settlement projects, namely, by withholding U.S. economic support for them. In contrast, Obama administration officials stated that such measures are 'not under discussion' and that any pressures on Israel to conform to the Road Map will be 'largely symbolic,' so the New York Times reported (Helene Cooper, June 1).

"There is more to say, but it does not relieve the grim picture that Obama has been painting, with a few extra touches in his widely-heralded address to the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4."


For more information, contact at the
Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020;
or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167