[1-30-03]

Columbus, GA- Marilyn White, 55, a retired computer programmer from IBM at NASA, and a resident of League City, Texas, resident, was found guilty on January 28 in federal court of "trespass," and was sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine. White is among 42 defendants on trial this week for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), a controversial combat training school for Latin American soldiers. The defendants were among 10,000 who gathered in Columbus, Georgia in Nov. to expose a double standard in the "war on terrorism" and call for the closure of the SOA/WHISC. The school's graduates continue to be implicated in egregious acts designed to terrorize and coerce civilian populations in Latin America. White and the other defendants peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning, site of the school.

"I reentered the base after having been warned not to," says White. She received a five-year ban and bar order after a previous act of trespass onto Ft. Benning. "I crossed the line to carry a prayer for peace onto the base, which is a place that I see as both a symbol and the reality of my own complicity in the endless series of U.S. proxy wars throughout Central and South America. It's Guatemala yesterday, Columbia today, Venezuela tomorrow."

By court's final recess yesterday, 40 defendants had been adjudicated, with sentences ranging from twelve months probation with fines and community service to six months in federal prison. The remaining two defendants will be tried today. Thirty-six other defendants are scheduled to start trial February 10.

"I'm not looking forward to prison, but compared to the cost paid by the mothers in Latin America who have lost their children to these wars, it's nothing," Marilyn declares.

The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated use of torture, extortion and execution. In a 2002 report, Amnesty International calls for a suspension of training at the SOA/WHISC, and an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the school. Amnesty refutes the claim that the WHISC is a new institution, stating it "is essentially the same school as SOA, with the same primary mission……" SOA Watch works to stand in solidarity with people of Latin America, to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy, and to close the SOA/WHISC. School of the Americas Watch www.soaw.org/newsroom

On November 17, 2002, I became one link in a long chain of witnesses calling for significant reform of U.S. policy in Latin America. My actions that day were partly motivated by an urgent letter I received earlier in the year from Alice Winters, a Presbyterian mission co-worker in Colombia.

The letter contained disturbing news of new attacks by the military forces of Colombia on rural areas, bringing the war back to a region of the country that had previously been demilitarized. She included a "call to action" from a Colombian ecumenical group, addressed to us as "friends, brothers and sisters in Christ." I found two of the requests in this call for action particularly compelling: One of them was to "pressure your government to express respect for life." The other was to "raise up prayers, organize marches, DO WHATEVER MAY BE NECESSARY to avoid a war which as usual will end up taking its toll most of all among the poor."

Last November as I approached the gate at Fort Benning to remember the victims, mourn the dead, and pray for peace, the question on my heart was this one of what was necessary to end the series of U.S. proxy wars in South and Central America -- wars that continued year after year in country after country: Guatemala yesterday, Colombia today, Venezuela tomorrow. On November 17 I understood that for me the next necessary step was to take that prayer for peace onto the base itself -- a place which I saw as both the symbol and the reality of my own complicity in these wars. As I took that step across the line, I was deeply afraid of this court and its judgment. But in that moment, my grief and my shame were stronger than my fear.