"Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout" - SCHOOL OF AMERICA PROTESTORS ENTER McHENRY COUNTY JAIL

Protestors at the annual School of the Americas protest last November pile up crosses representing victims of U.S. trained military and police in Latin America.  More pictures and video on the blog Further Up and Farther In.

Gus Rhoddy and Le Anne Clausen, both from Chicago, will be spending one month in McHenry County Jail for misdemeanor trespass.  Ms. Clausen is a seminary student at Chicago Theological Seminary.  Mr. Rhoddy is a long-time peace activist. The sentence stems from a nonviolent civil disobedience action at Fort Benning Georgia to try to bring the protest directly to the School of the Americas (now called Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation).

There will be a send-off for Rhoddy and Clausen at 10:00 AM at Foster Avenue Beach (5200 N at the Lake) on April 3.  Supporters will greet and pray with them at the McHenry County Complex  Russell Court near Rt. 47  between 12:30 and 1 PM.

“On this the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., our friends are truly trying to live out his call for nonviolent civil disobedience and pay the price,” stated Sr. Dorothy Pagosa.  “I only wish our government could be as accountable for atrocities committed in our name and close the school.”

Legislation is pending in Congress that would call for closure of the school until an independent study can be done of all U.S. training of foreign soldiers and police forces.  It would not be able to open again unless it followed strict protocol.

The SOA/ WHINSEC has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in courses such as commando tactics, military intelligence, psychological operations and counter-insurgency warfare. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. In 2000 Congress authorized the WHINSEC to replace the SOA. The renaming was widely viewed as the Pentagon’s attempt to diffuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation at a time when SOA opponents were poised to win a senate vote on legislation that would have dismantled the school.