Presente! - A weekend with Witness for Peace

Taking a break from lesson planning & grades, I made my way to the YMCA South Mountain Camp just outside Wernersville, PA. this past weekend. The weekend revolved around Fr. Roy Bourgeois who started the SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas which is a part of Ft. Benning, Georgia. Below is a summary of comments Fr. Roy made. I was truly touched by who he is & what he shared. I hope you will read on as I feel we all have a responsiblity to be informed. Of course do check out the SOA Watch site as well as other points of view. Fr. Roy from Louisana began his college work working in the field of geology. This was the time of the Vietnam War so being a patriotic American he signed up. In Vietnam, he earned a Purple Heart. Vietnam service was a turning point - While in Vietnam, he helped out at a local orphanage where the priest in charge lived what he taught. This experience and that of killing ("Killing a person changes you.") led him to re-evaluate his stance. Returning home, he decided to enter the Maryknoll order & study for the priesthood. Upon ordination, he was posted to Bolivia. As he said, the poor became his teachers. (Though I can in no way compare my experience to his, I can validate from persoanl experience that those who do not have & are suffering much teach us much about life. This is especially true when we have it so good.) These poor had no running water, no electricity, no health care, living life'on the edge.' Bolivia at the time was ruled by a brutal dictator. Standing up for one's rights was a fearsome propostion. Six years into his assignment, Fr. Roy & others were eventually arrested; he was deported. In Bolivia he learned that for the system to keep on going, it needs guns and we, the U.S. supply them. Systematically labor leaders were assasinated. People are forced to stop demanding any change. Imprisonment, torture, death are the order of the day. El Salvador - Around the time of his return to the states, Archbishop Oscar Romero (a real saint) was assasinated for demanding that the soldiers stop killing innocent men, women and children. Speak up & expect to die. Later 4 American nuns were rapped & killed by soldiers trained at SOA. Jesuits teaching at a University in El Salvador were warned to shut up or else. Soldiers came & took them outside - including their cook & their 15 year old daughter - all were shot dead. Their bodies desecrated. Many Congressmen at the time knew these Jesuits & were horrified at their fate. Traveling to El Salvador, they found what a later UN Report stated: 18 of the 29 soldiers responsible for the killlings were trained at SOA. Sadly this has turned out time & again not to be an exception. At home Fr. Roy learned that 500 Salvadoran soldiers had arrive at SOA for training. He had to act. He & several others went to Goergia, climbed the fence & a tree & outside the barracks. They played the famous Romero speech: "Stop the killing. Stop the repression. Lay down your weapons. Stop killing your fellow Salvadorans" To Fr. Roy this was truly a 'sacred moment.' The soldiers saw it differently! They poured out of their barracks M16s a ready & demanded they climb down or be shot - such terrorists! This was 20 years ago! Maximum Bob as he came to be called was the local judge. Having no patience with their reasons, he sentences them to 6 months in jail. As Fr. Roy pointed out this has never worked. Gandi, Dr. King, Dorothy Day among others would not be silenced. (I think it's accurate that soeaking out to authority is what got Christ crucified.) What began as a protest by a handful has grown - in some years - to 20,000 people. (I myself have been there. It is stunning. Power determined to dimiss any protest - PEACEFUL PROTEST! ) What would Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Henry, Franklin say? There is much more to the SOA Watch. Do check it out. It is not an issue about liberal vs. conservative, right vs. left. It is simply democracy & the question: Do we act as we say we are? And if no, then what is to be done? Fr. Roy is clearly a good man, humble yet determined. The phrase 'an inconvenient truth' came to mind as I listened. Dare we look, ask quesitons? Will we speak up? An email or letter to your Congressman can make quite a difference. Thanks for listening. Check them out: http://www.soaw.org/ AND - I did not mean to slight Witness for Peace. http://www.witnessforpace.org/