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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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MKE: Dianna Ortiz Speaks Truth To Power |
Current rating: 0 |
by marco
(No verified email address) |
03 Dec 2002
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November second, nineteen eighty nine.
2nov89 in european terminology, or
891102nnnn hours in military terms.
This date defines Dianna Ortiz' life like
so many other dates might define an entire
generation. You know, like "where were you
when Kennedy died," "Apollo 11 went up," or
"WTC building 7 went down?"
Ortiz spoke at Mount Mary college yesterday
afternoon and read some from her book which
was just published. Well, she read as much
as she could until she broke down. I got
a strange feeling that publicly she'd gotten
farther along in that one passage than she'd
ever been before. After a long excruciating
silence, she rose from the chair behind her
lecturn, regrouped her composure and gave a
vibrant heartfelt ending to the rest of her
enthralling visit.
Three hundred of us or so, we were on the
edge of our seats. Many of us held our
mouths in our hands, covered an eye or two
with a few fingers, or just stroked our cheeks
as if we ourselves were in the interrogation
room in her stead.
Her story is horrid. But her telling of it
is so very beautiful. How do I say this? She
gives a shit. She cares about victims, which
is easy, right? But it's clear she gives a shit
about any of us who torture, too. And all who
SUPPORT torture. Woah! She seeks a change of
heart rather than revenge it seems.
There is beauty!
Her words pierce right through the social
programming I'd underwent from 1988-1991 in
the army signal corps in Colorado Springs.
The brainwashing that would not only leave me
vulerable to being capable of torturing someone
were I commanded, but turning a blind eye to
another who might do the same.
Colorado Springs. Wow. Dianna was born there.
She says she hasn't returned since childhood.
I told her the west side of the city is still
very beautiful; but the east side has a very
dark, and dreary feel to it because of how much
army and air force commands it. Anyone there
who isn't military is likely to support it. Yes
knowingly, or perhaps indirectly. Do you buy
gas there? Food?
Both of us can go back there in our minds
and our hearts without setting foot there.
I'll never forget sitting in the post library
during my off hours (and sometimes while I was
"shamming" - a military term used to describe
telling your superiors you're one place while
you're really somewhere else) learning about
Ita Ford and the three other church women killed
brutally by SOA graduates.
HOLY SHIT. AS I REREAD THIS BEFORE PUBLICATION
I WONDER OUT LOUD -- WERE THESE SOLDIERS WHO RAPED
AND ALMOST MURDERED DIANNA ORTIZ SHAMMING RIGHT
UP TO THE POINT WHERE SOMEONE SAID "STOP IT, SHE'S
NORTH AMERICAN???" Were they "just doing their job?"
Were they perhaps taking their jobs too seriously?
Not seriously enough??? I'll get back to you when
I'm done vomiting!
I remember becoming a pacifist in Colorado. I
remember learning more and more about "guilt-by-
foreign-policy," but something set there in my
heart which I never could articulate. Something
scarey. Something disturbing. Something just
sitting there waiting to come gushing out. Well,
some of it did just yesterday afternoon.
The more I learned about U.S. tax-payer dollars'
conspiracy in exporting torture throughout the world,
the more I was demanding of myself to learn more.
If there's something I still don't know, I'm guilty.
Responsible. Complicitous.
I don't once claim this is rational or logical
in any way. It's straight from the heart which is
a language one cannot express in words. At least
I cannot express it well. It was waiting there to
be said somehow. It came out in my art, it flowed
out through my music. But it seldom seeped out in
any ways I could understand.
Yesterday it occurred to me. I was guilty of not
knowing that Dianna Ortiz was being tortured while
I was sleeping. OK, so I wasn't in the cell next
to her, or stationed at her clandestine prison. OK,
so this sounds silly. I'm overreacting, you might
try to say. I was a million miles away.
No, I was not door when it happened. I was inside
Fort Carson, Colorado in a second floor barracks room
earlier built to house the interned German-American
prisoners during World War II when they were changing
the name from Camp Carson to Fort Carson. It's clean
and it's structurally sound but if you're sensitive
enough you can hear all the screams in the middle
of the night just peeling off the walls. Just ask
my Chaplain. Ask my First Sergent who divorced
five times. Twice to young recruits under him in
our same unit. Can you say fraternization? Can you
say sexual harrassment? Ask some of his all too many
young ex-girlfriends; two of which I dated. Have
you ever heard someone next to you really screaming
in the night? In her dreams? It's hard to stay with
someone like that, isn't it?? Is it any easier to
stay with yourself? I don't think so. So I've heard
some of that in person, but I've heard a LOT of it
in the walls. How do I articulate that in terms you
might understand and relate to.
OK, so they've changed the name from Camp Carson
to Kit Carson. Should I share some of their other
history? Training MP dogs? Everything from Pit Bulls
to Rottweilers to Schnauzers? Nah, just leave it at
that. They changed the name.
Hmmm. Kind of like how SOA was changed in name
to WHISC. It's still SchoolOfAssassins. You can
call the thorn on a rose a "prickly protuberence
periodically poking people," or anything else you
want it to "be," but it's still damned "thorny."
Call Fort Carson anything you want but it still
historically honors an army colonel or left-tenant
who killed almost as many native americans as
Abe Lincoln. More, depending on which sources you
consult. More or less depending whether you count
only people with sword holes driven through them,
or how many were forced to road-march from Arizona
toward Oklahoma. So what does all of this have to
do with someone forcing a machete into a young
Dianna's hand guiding her wrists and the war-tool
into the body of someone else until they expire?
I hope you're alert enough to notice the
immense parallels here. If you don't, allow me
to simply say it this way. Kit Carson represents
some of the roots of US torture exportation,
education and social programming. Much worse
than anything you'll ever see on the silver
screen. Rambo and Terminator have nothing on
Kit Carson. In fact, if you look it over with
a world view instead of neo-washington eyes,
you might say Adolf Hitler had nothing on Kit
Carson.
Why do you think he studied Kit Carson so
heavily? Can I say mentor?
Why did Guatemalan and American paramilitary
soldiers torture Dianna Ortiz? Can you say
Kissinger? Can you say Asa Hutchinson? Can you
say Edwin Meese? Can you say Jimmy Carter?
OK, maybe you can't and maybe you shouldn't
but I will. Someone must. Who sat back allowing
it? We all did. Who trained these people? Each
and every one of us. Let's see, I started paying
income taxes in 1980. You could say that was the
first moment I supported torture. I signed up
for the army in 1988. That's the moment I can
recognize someone or something torturing me.
Can an entire nation be complicitous?
Conspiracy to commit torture on a nun.
And what for? Because she's on the side of
Liberation Theology? Because she lives among the
people without judging them? Because I fear
compassion? OR BECAUSE I FEAR THE TRUTH?
Yes, I said it. The truth is, if you count up
all the subtleties, and complicities, my government
is perhaps the worst empire that ever took hold
of planet earth.
Personally, I blame the violent overthrow of England.
It established something very horrid in what I name
the Untied States. If we'd waited to build a non-violent
overthrow... but I digress. I'm not writing about me
really, and I'm not writing about the Untied States.
At least not as much as I'm talking about Dianna Ortiz.
She personalized something for me which takes me
farther along in my non-violence vow than almost
any other event, person, or experience.
For that I am thankful. For her I'm grateful
beyond sentences. Happy knowing a Dianna Ortiz
ever even existed. The only other event I can
think of which etches on my heart as profoundly
is when Cal Roberts handed me a copy of George
Mizo's poem. The one I still have in my wallet
which falls apart more each time I read it out
loud.
I think I'll break it out and type it in here
for historical purposes. It's somewhat related,
but first let me type in a couple paragraphs from
the TASSC newsletter that circulated at the college
during her speech.
Dear Friend,
In this season of darkness and light, we send you
greetings from the members of TASSC International.
This season has a special meaning for our members,
each of whom is a survivor of torture. For so many
of us, the place of our torture was, in a very
important sense, the place of our death as well.
Yet, it was more than that for it was also the
site of our rebirth as evidenced by our efforts
to bring about a world where what happened to us
will never happen to anyone else ever again.
For our friends who are familiar with TASSC,
this mini-newsletter is to let you know some of
our recent activities. For those of you, whom
we have not met, we hope this will serve as an
introduction to TASSC and our work and that soon,
we may count you as friends as well.
A George Mizo Poem
You, my church, told me it was wrong to kill...
except in war.
You, my teachers, told me it was wrong to kill...
except in war.
You, my father and mother, told me it was wrong to kill...
except in war.
You, my friends, told me it was wrong to kill...
except in war.
You, my country, told me it was wrong to kill...
except in war.
You sent me to war to kill...
And when I had no choice...
You told me I was wrong.
But now I know, you were wrong.
And now I will tell you...
My church,
My teachers,
My father and mother,
My friends,
My country...
It is not wrong to kill in war...
It is wrong to kill... Period.
And this you have to learn...
Just as I did.
Next, I ought to read you a line entry from
my DD214 here.
(my medical, honorable discharge)
I was made 10% disabled after two knee
operations. One right before the Panama
invasion, and one right before the ground
war began after they changed the name of
IRAQWAR from Desert Shield to Desert Storm.
The war that has clearly become "Vietnam II."
Ooh, did I say that? Yes I did. OK. Line
Entry:
"Morally and/or physically unfit for duty."
I wear that as a badge of honor, if you must
know my most candid truths. Knowing that after
three years service, the army is not right for
me, and I'm not right for the army, makes me
joyous beyond words.
OK, enough about me, how about you? What year
did you begin supporting torture? I mean, working
taxable jobs in the Untied States? When did your
work career begin -- Will you retire or quit? Can
you continue paying your taxes like blind sheep?
I know I can't. Can you? Please don't answer this,
it's rhetorical. Ask yourself someday when you're
in a quiet comfortable space. Or never ask it.
That's fine. All I ask really is that you read
these words I'm writing here. Try to sit with them.
Let them live with you.
This is less about Dianna's new book, less about me,
and less about the US Government. It's about violence.
It's about non-violence. Conflict resolution. Recovery.
Traumatic stress and terrorism. Taxes, movie tickets
and the nightly news. Did I say terrorism? The nightly
news.
It's about torture. But then I already said that when
I said "violence," didn't I? Name it what you want, but
it still keeps resurfacing the same.
"Name of God! When will the bloodshed end?"
[Oscar Romero paraphrased]
June 19th, 1991.
That is the day the army finally let me go.
November 2, 1988 was the day I went in. By
Thanksgiving day, I'd quit the army in my heart.
The rest of my time in service was emotional
terrorism. I was waiting for release.
How about you?
[ref]=[http://www.torture-free-world.org]
[ref]=[http://www.tassc.org]
[ref]=[http://www.freespeech.org/kokopeli/latuff/violence.html]
[ref]=[http://www.staaamp.org] |
