NEWS FEATURE: Pastor and prison inmate: protest was `holy obedience’

c. 1998 Religion News Service ALDERSON, W. Va. _”Something about ordinary people going to jail for what they believe energizes others,”Carol Richardson, a United Methodist minister, said quietly as she sat in the visitors center at the Alderson federal prison for women where she is an inmate.”It reminds me of a sign I saw when […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

ALDERSON, W. Va. _”Something about ordinary people going to jail for what they believe energizes others,”Carol Richardson, a United Methodist minister, said quietly as she sat in the visitors center at the Alderson federal prison for women where she is an inmate.”It reminds me of a sign I saw when we were being sentenced: `You can jail the resister, but you can’t jail the resistance.'” Richardson, 53, is one of 25 people given unexpectedly severe six-month maximum sentences and $3,000 fines for civil disobedience _ she prefers the phrase”holy obedience”_ during at protest at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

Now, near the end of her term _ she is scheduled to be released July 17 _ Richardson is reflective about her life in prison and the growing protest movement she sees gathering around efforts to shut down SOA, a facility she and other critics believe trains young officers from Central and South America in the art of torture but which the U.S. military and congressional supporters insist is training for democracy.


Last November an estimated 2,000 people from 49 states and several Latin American countries gathered at Fort Benning to call for the closing of the SOA. Of those, 601″crossed the line”_ broke the law _ into the military base in a solemn funeral procession carrying white crosses and eight coffins.

The protest marked the eighth anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter by what is believed to be a Salvadoran Army unit. According to a 1993 United Nations report, 19 of the 26 people it labeled responsible for the slayings were SOA graduates.”Never in my life have I been involved in anything as powerful as this grassroots experience,”Richardson said.”I am flooded with mail and support. I answer it on Wednesdays and Thursdays, my days off, and after work. I use all 80 first-class stamps the prison lets me buy each week.” The School of the Americas, run by the U.S. Army, was founded in 1946. It was moved from the Canal Zone to Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., in 1984, under terms of the Panama Canal Treaties. SOA _ the only U.S. military school conducted in Spanish _ says it has trained about 60,000 Latin American military personnel in such skills as combat, intelligence, crowd control, and counterinsurgency. Its supporters say it has done a good job helping to prepare troops to perform professionally and with discipline in difficult situations. “The school is an integral part of our efforts to develop closer and more effective ties to the militaries of Latin America,”Defense Secretary William Cohen told Congress in January.”We have insured that the school is an effective transmitter of our values to the military leadership of the region.” Critics disagree.

A rogues gallery of graduates, they contend, tarnishes the school and the United States. The Congressional Research Service, for example, found that from 1968 to 1981, 10 graduates, including Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama and Hugo Banzer of Bolivia, took control of their governments through undemocratic means.

In addition, two of the three named by a United Nations Truth Commission in its report on the 1980 assassination of Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, including the notorious head of the Salvadoran death squads Roberto d’Abuisson, attended SOA. In March, the four low-ranking soldiers in prison for the 1980 rape and murder of three U.S. nuns and a laywoman in El Salvador told The New York Times their orders came from high-level military officers. The U.N. report said two SOA graduates _ one the Minister of Defense, the other director of the National Guard _ had organized an official coverup of the murders. Both have been granted U.S. residence and live in Florida.”One of the things we have called for is careful monitoring of the record of SOA’s graduates,”said Richardson, who directs the Washington office of the School of the Americas Watch.”Our little two-person office with almost no resources has turned up more than 500 documented human rights violators who attended the SOA,”Richardson said.”Its defense is that a few bad apples do not spoil the whole basket. But what we’ve done proves that about 1 in every 100 has gone bad. How many do you need? What would a true official investigation reveal?” From her prison correspondence and reports from Washington, Richardson said she senses growing strength in the opposition. She talks almost daily with her daughter, Heather Dean, who is holding down the office while Richardson and SOA Watch founder, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Roman Catholic priest, serve out their prison terms. “Remember, in November 1995 we had about 60 people marching at Fort Benning,”she said.”In 1996, it grew to 500 people and 60 crossed the line into the fort. Eleven men and two women went to prison. In 1997, 2,000 people marched, 601 crossed the line _ about double what we expected in both cases _ and 25, 13 of them women, went to prison.”This November, I believe 5,000 people will come to Columbus for the rally and 1,000 will cross the line. Our predictions on numbers are usually close. It’s building.” Even as Richardson sat in jail, an April rally at the White House of some 1,300 demanded President Clinton close the SOA. The New Jersey Legislature called for SOA’s closure in a bipartisan voice vote in 1997. Brazilian church groups are traveling across their country organizing a letter-writing campaign to the Brazilian president urging him to stop sending Brazilian military to the”Escola dos Assassinos”_ the School of Assassins, as critics call it.

Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., introduced legislation in 1993 to cut off funds for the SOA; the measure was defeated 256-174. In September 1997, the bill to slash funds came within 7 votes _ 217 to 210 _ of passing. A Kennedy spokesman says the congressman hopes to get a vote in the House on cutting funds again in July or September. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is expected to reintroduce similar legislation in the Senate.”Prison is difficult,”Richardson said.”It changes you. I did not seek it out. But I could not not cross the line.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)

Richardson, who works in the kitchen from 4.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. five days a week, has found prison to be”an experience in systematic depersonalization. We have no privacy. Only one prison official has ever shaken my hand. But I have met many kind and resourceful women. People here, as in Latin America,

can build community in difficult situations.” Richardson, along with several of those fined $3,000 for their protest, has refused to pay.”It’s simple,”she said.”As American citizens, we have a right to speak out. It’s outrageous we are in prison. I’ll never pay the fine voluntarily. Peaceful citizens are in prison and murderers from Central America are living free in Florida. What’s that say?” As punishment for being a”refuser,”Richardson is in the lowest security level of housing, an open dorm room with five cots and lockers. Most inmates share a small cubicle with one other person.”Still, I feel like a privileged person,”she said.”My faith sustains me. I’m only here for six months. The average sentence is five years. I have visitors. Too many do not. I get so many letters that other inmates call me the `mail queen.’ Too many don’t receive any mail at all.” Richardson said she is ready to return to her work when she’s freed. Whether she will risk returning to prison next November”will have to be sorted out once I’m back home.” In the meantime,”I, like almost everyone else, can tell you the weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds until I’m out of here.”


DEA END HOWELL

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!