U.S. Government Has Criminalized Dissent

4.02.06

by Joe DeRaymond (Freemansburg, PA, USA)
Prisoner of Conscience against the School of the Americas

Today, in the United States, we are informed of torture by US personnel, and debate its justification. The United States detains people beyond the bounds of international law at Guantanamo and in other sites around the world. We hear reports of civilian deaths daily from Iraq. We learn that we were led to a war of aggression in Iraq on false pretenses. We read of citizen wiretapping in violation of statutory law by the executive branch of our government. We watch a Congress riddled with scandal, unable to meet its constitutional mandate to balance the power of the executive.

In Columbus, Georgia, at the military base Fort Benning, still exists the School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), where Latin America militaries have been trained for decades. Torture has been taught at this school. Dictators such as Hugo Banzer of Bolivia and Manuel Noriega of Panama attended the SOA. The assassins of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Juan Gerardi of Guatemala attended the SOA. WHISC exists to serve the anti-democratic forces of repression in the Americas, and is a school that supports terror, sponsored by a nation committed to a violent war against terror.

In February of 2005, I was present in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó when 8 unarmed civilians, including children, were massacred, quartered with machetes. All eyewitness and informed testimony point to the guilt of the military-paramilitary forces of Colombia in this crime. The investigation to date has yielded no answers, and none should be expected, for over 150 civilians of this community have been disappeared or assassinated in the past 8 years, and not one of these crimes has been solved. The Colombian government’s 17th Brigade patrols the region, and its commander General Héctor Jaime Fandiño Rincón is a graduate of the School of the Americas.

As United States citizens, we are complicit in these crimes, as we support with our consumption and our tax dollars policies and governments that are responsible for crimes against humanity. I believe our responsibility as citizens transcends our obligations to obey laws that limit our dissent. For example, it is widely recognized that the demonstrators in the Tianamen Square protests of 1989 were justified in their nonviolent resistance to tyranny, despite the reality that they were violating a Chinese law against assembling in the Square. It is widely recognized that Ghandi was morally justified in violating the salt laws of the British in India in the name of achieving independence from the Empire. It is widely recognized that Martin Luther King’s courageous stand against segregation and bigotry was justified, despite his nonviolent violation of numerous local laws during his campaign for equality.

In the summer of 2005, a group of people loosely affiliated with the anti-war movement United for Peace and Justice, petitioned to meet with President Bush or his delegate during the anti-war rally scheduled for the weekend of September 24-26. The meeting was requested for September 26, at a march and demonstration at the White House. The executive branch of our government made immediate plans to arrest this group as we presented our petition that asked for the justifications for continuing the Iraq War. 371 people were arrested on the White House sidewalk on September 26, including eight from the Lehigh Valley, all of whom were judged guilty of “Demonstrating Without a Permit” during trials in November and December.

Every year since 1990, people have gathered at Fort Benning, Georgia, in November, to commemorate the deaths of 6 Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, killed by SOA graduates. We protest the SOA/WHISC, and urge Congress to close this institution of terror. How can we fight a war against terror, when we are training soldiers that commit acts of terror in the Americas? Since 1990, more than 180 people have served over 81 years of prison time for their non-violent protest at the School. This year, as 19,000 marched in solemn protest, I joined the group that “crossed the line”, and face trial on January 30 for trespass on a military base.

As the Iraq War grinds on, Congressman Dent of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania has backed the Bush administration every step of the way. He refuses to give credence to fellow Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha in his call to bring the troops home now. When a group of 9 LEPOCO members, including myself, sat in his office, reading the names of US troops and Iraqi civilians who have sacrificed their lives to this war, he had us arrested at the close of office hours. We await our citations and trials.

These are difficult choices to make in a critical moment in history. I believe our government has criminalized dissent, and has itself crossed the line in its violation of national and international law. The government wants to narrow the issue to “demonstrating without a permit’, or “trespass”. I am encouraged by those with whom I act, those who support our actions, and by a belief in the essential democratic impulse of the American people. Let the Congress, the Courts and the press do their job, let the truth out, let justice be done.

-Joe DeRaymond, Freemansburg

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