The "SOA 6" go on trial tomorrow.

[roody]

Support the "SOA 6," who will put the School of the Americas on trial on January 26, 2009."

On Monday, January 26, 2009, six human rights advocates will begin federal trials for carrying the protest against the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC) onto the Fort Benning military base in Georgia. Each person faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine for this act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

The 6 were among the thousands who gathered on November 22-23 outside the gates of Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia to demand a change in U.S.-Latin America foreign policy and the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC. The group peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning, site of the school, at the culmination of a symbolic funeral procession in memory of those killed by graduates of the institution.

The "SOA 6" are:
Father Luis Barrios, 56, from North Bergen, New Jersey
Theresa Cusimano, 40 Denver, Colorado
Kristin Holm, from Chicago, Illinois
Sr. Diane Pinchot, OSU, 63, from Cleveland, Ohio
Al Simmons, 64, from Richmond, Virginia
Louis Wolf, 68, from Washington, DC

Fr. Luis Barrios

Father Luis Barrios is the Chairperson of the Department of Latin American & Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice-City University of New York and a Board Certified Forensic Examiner with the American College of Forensic Examiners. He is also an Associate Priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Manhattan, New York City. Fr. Barrios, as well is a Board Member of Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing-Pastor for Peace. Professor Barrios is a columnist with El Diario La Prensa and has been honored with the Media Award-2006-GLAAD as an Outstanding Spanish Language Newspaper Columnist and was nominated again in the year 2008. He teaches courses on gangs, criminal justice, cultural criminology, forensic psychology, US foreign policy in Latin America, Puerto Rican Studies, race and ethnicity, and Latina/os Studies.


On November 23rd, 2008, Kristin Holm, a first year student at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), along with five others, entered the base of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation’s (WHINSEC), which is a

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The article has great photos of the 6.

www.soaw.org

I was in Cuba with Luis! We defied the embargo with around 70 other people.

[ConsAreLiars]

1. Thanks. The US has sponsored and committed torture for far longer

than many here at DU realize. The SOA has been training torturers for decades, and the CIA's record in Indochina, Latin America, and elsewhere matched or exceeded anything done by the KGB.

[roody]

2. k