WHINSEC

A group of college students from the PCUSA’s College of Wooster need financial help to attend the national November Vigil to Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas) in Georgia. Two PCUSA General Assemblies have called for the closing of the school because of its sad history of training officers who have led military coups, death squads, assassination of religious leaders and other human rights abuses. The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) has established a fund to assist these college students’ travel and lodging expenses to participate in this peacemaking action.

By Le Anne Clausen

I spent spring term of seminary in prison serving a 30-day sentence for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas.

by Sarah Henken, PPF Colombia Accompaniment Coordinator

On March 6, 2008 I was privileged to participate along with a number of other PPFers in a demonstration in Washington DC that remembered the victims of the violence in Colombia—the many thousands who have lost their lives, those who have been disappeared, as well as the millions who have been forcibly displaced from their lands and those who continue to face harassment, persecution, and assassination for their insistence in standing up for human rights.

As a result of their acts of civil disobedience in protest of the SOA/WHINSEC last Novemeber, our two Presbyterian prisoners of conscience reported to begin serving their sentences on April 3. LeAnne Clausen will be in a county jail for 30 days and Chris Lieberman was assigned to a federal prison for 60 days.

Please take a moment to send them a letter of support:

Join the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and thousands of others this November 21-23, 2008 in Ft. Benning, GA, for the Vigil and Direct Action to Close the SOA/WHINSEC.

Join Presbyterians for a breakfast on Saturday at 7am ($10; $5 for student). Reservations are required.

March with PPF during Sunday's vigil.

PPF's presence at the School of Americas (WHINSEC) Protest was recently featured in an article by Evan Silverstein of the Presbyterian News Service.

Sixteen people who crossed the line last November at the annual protest of the School of Americas stood trial and were sentenced today. Complete details are available at www.soaw.org.