Two Presbyterian pastors sentenced
for protest against School of the Americas
Peace protesters get prison terms for trespassing
on Army base
[7-19-02]
Update on
9-21-02: The two pastors have begun serving their prison
terms, and would welcome letters of support. Here are their
addresses.
Update on
8-23-02: The two PC(USA) ministers will be going to prison
Sept. 10
Note: PresbyWeb has posted a very
different view of this situation. Click
here for a summary, and some of the debate following. You
may want to join in the discussion.
by Alexa Smith, Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE -- July 16, 2002 -- Two Presbyterian
ministers have been sentenced to serve time in a federal penitentiary
for participating in a non-violent demonstration at a Georgia military
base last November.
The Rev. Chuck Booker-Hirsch, 41, of Ann Arbor, MI,
was sentenced to three months in prison and fined $500. The Rev. Erik
Johnson, 58, of Maryville, TN, got a six-month sentence and a $1,000
fine.
The sentences are to begin in six to eight weeks.
They were charged with trespassing after they entered
Fort Benning, near Columbus, GA, during an annual demonstration against
a combat training facility there long known as the School of the
Americas, but now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation (WHISC). The facility, which offers training to Latin
American military officers, is accused of offering instruction in such
techniques as extortion and torture.
Training manuals discovered in the early 1990s proved
that allegation; since then, the government insists that the school's
curriculum has been changed.
More than 10,000 people took part in the protest last
Nov. 16-18, which marked the anniversary of the 1989 slaughter of six
Jesuit priests in El Salvador. More than 100 entered federal property,
inviting arrest. Forty-three were later indicted, and 37 were tried last
week in Columbus.
Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth of the U.S. District
Court handed down three-to-six-month sentences for 29 protesters on July
12. One was found not guilty and seven were put on probation.
Booker-Hirsch was a first-time offender, a category
that has not been prosecuted in the past.
"The penalties are severe …… when the maximum
penalty is six months in prison and-or a $5,000 fine," said
Booker-Hirsch, who added that activists are interpreting the decision to
prosecute first-time offenders as an attempt to deter future protests.
"I'm almost certain it will have a backlash effect," he said.
He added: "I am thankful that the prosecution
brought the 37 of us together for this time of intense
community-building and testimony-sharing."
Booker-Hirsch said the case dramatized the hypocrisy
of the United States in making war on terrorism abroad while refusing to
acknowledge its own involvement in terrorism. "It's the
log-and-speck analogy all over again," he said.
The prosecutor's office did not return calls from the
Presbyterian News Service.
Both Presbyterian ministers are longtime activists for
peace in Latin America and for aid to refugees in the United States who
fled violence there.
Johnson told the judge that, when he became a baptized
Christian, "the whole world became my family through faith in the
One who is life," and that, during his 33 years as an ordained
PC(USA) minister, he has taught his parishioners to respect the
"sanctity of all life" and to expose "injustices, in the
hope of making them just."
"I have consistently advocated peacefully against
violence and injustices on behalf of the sacred lives of the poor and
oppressed in the human family, including my sisters and brothers in
Latin America, whose lives have been brutalized and shortened by the
violence directed toward them by graduates of the School of the
Americas," he said. "These members of my extended family are
not obscure and nameless. I see their faces in my heart."
Johnson said his congregation has extended "an
outpouring of love" in support him and his family.
"I'm feeling very good about my choice," he
said. "I'm living day by day with the knowledge that all of us …
have to give some account of ourselves and how we live non-violently in
a massively violent world. That's both a comfort and challenge to me.
… The One I serve is a crucified Lord."
Johnson, co-chair of the Peacemaking Committee of the
Presbytery of East Tennessee, is interim pastor of the Church of the
Savior, a United Church of Christ congregation in Knoxville, TN.
Johnson said his time in jail will give him the
opportunity to develop deeper spiritual habits and to reflect on
alternative ways of living.
Booker-Hirsch is pastor of Northside Presbyterian
Church in Ann Arbor. Several ministers in his presbytery have offered to
fill his pulpit pro bono during his absence. His wife, Amy, is also a
Disciples of Christ minister.
"Ninety days is a small expense to pay,"
said Booker-Hirsch, given the issues involved. "Our biggest concern
is our five-year-old, Drew, being away from his daddy that long."
He said that his indictment has prompted some
acquaintances who had little knowledge of the school to begin raising
some hard questions. "That's what we want," he said.
Defenders of the school argue that its curriculum no
longer includes instruction in abusive practices and that each class
includes a human rights component. But the School of the Americas Watch,
the organization that stages the annual protest, contends that those
changes are only cosmetic.
PresbyWeb defends SOA
PresbyWeb offers a very different "report"
on this event by citing a variety of defenses taken directly from
the web site of the former School of the Americas (now renamed the
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation ). As one might
expect, the SOA web site would lead us to believe that there was really
no need for protests such as the one for which the two pastors are being
sentenced to prison.
The Presbyterian perspective
It may be worth noting that the Presbyterian General
Assembly in 1994 adopted a resolution calling on the U.S. government to
"eliminate any and all funding for the School of the Americas, and
close the school." That position was reaffirmed in 1995 and remains
the Assembly's position today.
The Presbyterian Washington Office in July, 1998,
issued a
helpful paper on the School of the Americas.
Letters to PresbyWeb
The PresbyWeb defense of SOA has generated a few
letters. You might want to look at them and add your own comments.
Here are the summaries provided by PresbyWeb; you can
link directly to each of the letters.
