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News :: Miscellaneous |
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A Crime Without a Criminal |
Current rating: 0 |
by David Corcoran
(No verified email address) |
09 Aug 2001
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Sentences for SOA Protesters Begin
Fyodor Dostoyevsky spent four years in prison for his political beliefs, escaping death itself only by the Tsar's commutation. |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky spent four years in prison for his political beliefs, escaping death itself only by the Tsar\'s commutation. In his book House of the Dead,
http://www.russia.phri.org/banner/scream1.htm
he talks about his prison existence, the pain of lost liberty among his fellow inmates. He describes them as human outcasts. This surely rings true today as we see the trend toward privatizing prisons, turning them into garbage dumps for human beings with no effort toward rehabilitation, while society refuses to confront its own social ills.
On July 17, I will enter Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wis., joining the suffering of those incarcerated for whatever their so-called crimes. My notification letter, which arrived July 10, says I must \"surrender for service\" no later than 2 p.m. I am 67 years old.
I must show my driver\'s license and social security card when I arrive, but I cannot keep them at the prison. I can bring some money to be put into a commissary account, but I cannot carry it with me. I must provide a list of addresses of the people who will want to visit me. (The Bureau of Prisons
http://www.bop.gov/
sends each of them a form to fill out and return before they are approved, and when they do come to visit, they have to show their ID). I can wear a plain ring. I can bring my medicine but only for the prison officials to see; anything I may need is ordered through the commissary. Even the clothes I wear to the prison will be shipped back home and I will wear what they issue me.
I am now preparing to leave my life behind, albeit temporarily. I am a chaplain at Loyola University Medical Center, in Maywood, Ill., where I help some patients and their families learn to live with their cancer, and some to die with their cancer. I myself am scared of the unknown, of becoming a \"human outcast.\" I feel a little numb, or stunned. I do not feel like a criminal. I am afraid of being separated from those who love me, of being assigned a number and treated as a non-person. I am concerned about my wife and children who not only have their responsibilities to take care of, but also have to take care of mine. I am concerned about my wife\'s health deteriorating.
So what is my crime that makes me dangerous to society and the common good? Last year, in November, I walked into Ft. Benning, Ga., where the School of the Americas
http://www-benning.army.mil/whisc/
(recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) is located. It was a solemn funeral procession of about 3,400 people, commemorating the 1989 assassination of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador.
http://www.spc.edu/library/jesuit2.html
All were killed by graduates of the School of the Americas.
I was carrying a small wooden cross on which was painted the name of one of the thousands of poor people of Central and South America -- people who were intimidated, threatened, raped, kidnapped, murdered and massacred by some of the more than 62,000 graduates of the School of the Americas. These violent crimes have been documented, authenticated and consistently traced to the graduates of the SOA.
About 2,000 of us were arrested that day, including 65 people who had been arrested during a similar peaceful protest the previous year and had received a five-year ban-and-bar letter prohibiting us from re-entering. Of those 65, more than two dozen of us were selectively prosecuted, charged with illegal re-entry onto a United States Military Reservation, a class B misdemeanor. We initially pleaded not guilty so that we could present our reasons for \"crossing the line\" and to put the spotlight on the SOA.
In May, our cases were heard before a judge in Columbus, Ga., who found all of us guilty. One by one, the judge called us to the bench to deliver the sentences.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0523-06.htm
Most of us received six-month prison terms and fines ranging from $150 to $3,000 (I must pay $1,000). So much for the right to peaceful assembly and nonviolent protest.
Should this be defined as a crime? The judge begged not to be blamed for his part, saying he was only enforcing the law. He admitted feeling like a pawn in a game between the government and the people: If he let us off, he said Ft. Benning would become a laughing stock. And if he gave us sentences, he would make us martyrs for \"our cause.\"
These 26 so-called martyrs/criminals (click here for a complete list)
http://www.soaw.org/Articles/current%2520info/new/soa_26_indicted.html
include a 19-year-old college student and a 88-year-old Catholic nun, both of whom are going to prison. The group also includes three other nuns; a NASA scientist; three active teachers plus three retired teachers/professors; a union organizer; two freelance writers/artists; a folk singer, a veteran and a baker, all of whom are volunteer Catholic Workers; three homemakers; three social justice/environmental activists; and a retired corporate executive who is now a Habitat for Humanity volunteer. Not your ordinary criminal element.
I would call the \"SOA26\" patriotic and revolutionary just as our founding fathers/mothers were. A patriot is a person who loves and loyally supports his or her own country and doesn\'t want it sold to the highest bidder. Our backgrounds are varied, but we are united in our disdain of a military-industrial complex running our country. We do not like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We do not believe in sanctions to protect \"our interests\" whatever and wherever they are. We do not like government-sponsored violence and killing. We do not want a government or a people that destroys the environment for succeeding generations. We do not want fair trade agreements that are unfair to the poor or laborers. We do not want billions of dollars poured into a rat hole of a missile defense system when the poor of the world are starving and without adequate health care. In other words, we want a country of the people, by the people and for the people, not against them.
I have only stood up for the poor in South and Central America who are being killed in my name and with my tax dollars. I have tried to be a voice for the voiceless. It is my hope that what I have done will not be in vain -- that others will write their congressional representatives to ask them to vote for House Bill 1810,
http://www.soaw.org/Articles/legislative/HR1810.htm
which effectively shuts down the SOA. In place of this \"school of assassins,\" funds could better be used to establish peace academies equal in standing and financial backing as are war academies.
In his book Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky talks about the spiritual glow that illuminates the darkest recesses of the criminal mind. In other words, humans are holy and sacred no matter what crime they have committed. They are always worthy of redemption and always redeemable if we take the time and effort. It is our responsibility and our challenge as a human community to care for our own.
I don’t believe that God makes bad people. People sometimes do bad things but it is our challenge to bring that \"spiritual glow\" out again. That, at least, is my challenge for the next six months.
*Related Sites*
School of the Americas Watch is inviting protesters to Ft. Benning for another march in November.
http://www.soaw.org/presente.html
Independent Media Center is a good resource for activist information and news coverage. http://www.indymedia.org/
From Human Rights Watch, here\'s a look at prison conditions http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/prisons/americas.htm
in Latin America and the Caribbean, including El Salvador. http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/prisons/americas2.htm#El Salvador
The Federal Bureau of Prisons maintains a weekly population report. http://www.bop.gov/weekly.html |
See also:
http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/printerfriendly/2001-07-15-prison.shtml
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