PAGE 8
AN EXTREME BUT
TYPICAL STORY
BY VICTORIA STOPPIELLO
Jerry Kearns “Talking Heads" shows the personal anguish of a couple haunted by decapitated victims of a Salvadoran death squad
HOPE OF OUR COUNTRY
BY SUE SKINNER
Chani Geigle is an Oregonian and an American citizen
who is incarcerated at Dublin Federal Penitentiary in California
as a political prisoner of the United States.
Chani began serving a 6-month sentence for nonviolent
trespass on September 10, 2002 after she was arrested the
previous November for participating in the annual nonviolent
demonstration to demand closure of the U.S. Army” taxpayer
funded terrorist training school, the School of the Americas —
now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security
Cooperation. Soldiers from all over Latin America are invited to
the SOA/WHISC where they are trained in “counterinsurgency"
techniques for suppression and murder of individuals and groups
who resist the entrenched U.S. and corporate supported pluto
cracies in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Though Chani says that six months in prison is the least
she can do to help stop the killing of hundreds of thousands
of innocent people at the hands of SOA/WHISC graduates, six
months is still a long time for a young woman who will celebrate
her 20th birthday at Dublin Prison on February 15. But she isn't
complaining She is using her time in prison to learn about her
sister inmates and to witness for the victims of a flawed and
destructive United States foreign policy who cannot speak out
Chani Geigle has dedicated herself to the pursuit of
peace and justice and embodies the hope of our country.
Three of us from Oregon traveled down to the gates of
the Dublin Prison compound to honor Chani on Veterans Day,
a day we felt was appropriate because she is in prison for speak
ing truth to power. She has committed herself to the cause of
justice and freedom that we have been taught that the United
States of America supports, and for which so many of our war
veterans died Charles Liteky, a recipient of the Congressional
Medal of Honor in 1968 for bravery in Vietnam, met us at Dublin
prison for the vigil. Charlie, now 71 years old, a former Catholic
priest and U.S. Army chaplain, renounced his Medal of Honor
and left it at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1986 in protest
of U.S. foreign policy and the School of the Americas, which he
says is “a terrorist training school in our own backyard.” He is
one of only two Medal of Honor recipients known to renounce
the medal and its pension. We felt honored to be in such
company on Veterans Day
Because of prison rules we were not able to visit Chani,
and because the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) unexpectedly
malfunctioned one hour prior to our vigil time, ours was a small
group which would have been much larger. We continue to
spread the word that Chani and her hundreds of compatriots
are filling us with the hope that democracy remains possible
because there are people who are willing to work at it. The world
according to Chani has not totally sunk into a pit of cynical
despair and cruel indifference.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL
OF THE AMERICAS & SO A WATCH
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed,
tortured and raped by graduates of the SOA/WHISC. One of
the more well known victims of the SOA was Archbishop Oscar
Romero of El Salvador, shot in the back while saying mass in
1980 Among the most notorious of the 60,000+ graduates are
Manuel Noriega of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and
Bolivia's former president Hugo Banzer.
The School of the Americas opened in Panama in 1946
and was eventually ousted by the Panamanian government,
then reopened in Fort Benning, Georgia in 1984 After years of
bad publicity and threats of closure by Congress, the school
changed its name for the third time in 2001 to the 'Western
Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation.’ The U.S. govern
ment says that more “human rights" courses are offered at the
school now, but the goals of the program remain the same. The
soldiers learn “counterinsurgency" techniques from the U.S.
Army, including methods of torture, murder, interrogation and
‘psychological operations" to wage war against civilians They
return to their home countries armed with these tactics of terror
and use them against the poor and those who work with the
poor human rights and social workers, labor union organizers
and church workers
Just as the British Empire once dominated and exploited
the land and people of India and South Africa, so the USA now
subjugates the Caribbean and Latin America. The SOA/WHISC
soldiers help the U.S. government and the mega-corporations
that control it snuff out developing democratic movements in
Latin America, thereby keeping the people in servitude to the
corporations with the assistance of the U.S. military, and help
maintain the supply of bananas, oil, cheap clothing and cocaine
to the USA.
Every November for the past 13 years, on the
anniversary of the murders in El Salvador of six priests, their
housekeeper and her 15 year old daughter by SOA graduates,
people from all over the world gather at Fort Benning for a
weekend of learning, praying and picketing designed to bring
attention to the school (long known as the “School of the
Assassins"). Chani Geigle is one of the thousands who joined
in this yearly protest to demand that the United States close its
own terrorist school, and she was arrested along with hundreds
of other protesters for trespassing at the gates of Fort Benning
during a solemn procession honoring those who have been
murdered by graduates of the SOA/WHISC.
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
The offense of nonviolent trespass is a misdemeanor,
but protesters are sentenced to long prison terms which they
serve in penitentiaries all over the country. Although the punish
ment is grossly disproportionate to the “crime” (they are guilty
of telling the truth), they are able to spread the word about the
SOA/WHISC terrorist training school through their prison work
and to help in efforts to reform prisons while on “the inside."
Among those doing “hard time" right now fortheir nonviolent
witness are nuns, priests, teachers, college students, veterans,
mothers, fathers and grandparents. No one whines or complains
about mistreatment or injustice as they carry on their work year
around inside the prisons.
While on the “outside," The School of the Americas
Watch lobbies Congress to close the SOA/WHISC and to
develop programs which will foster peace and democracy in
the Americas. In 2000, the last time the SOA was voted on,
Congress was only 10 votes short of the goal of shutting down
SOA.
“The School of the Americas is part of a corporate-
highjacked foreign policy that’s making us a lot of enemies,"
says Father Roy Bourgeois, Maryknoll priest and former Naval
officer and Purple Heart recipient who is the founder of School
of the Americas Watch. “If we want lasting peace and security
we need we need a foreign policy that reflects our values of
justice, democracy and dignity."
The struggle continues. The U.S. government is plotting
“regime change" in Venezuela, working hard to oust President
Hugo Chavez from office though he has been democratically
elected by the Venezuelan people twice —86 people were
arrested and held for two nights in the unheated Columbus
Stockade after their nonviolent protest at the SOA/WHISC in
November. They will all likely be sentenced to 6-month prison
terms after their bench trial in January.
So let us honor the hardworking people of El Salvador,
Equador, Guatamala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Argentina and
Colombia who continue to pursue the promise of democracy
despite so many years of torture, rape and “disappearance" at
the hands of the U.S trained counterinsurgency forces. And let
us be humbled by the sacrifice of 19 year old Chani Geigle and
other American patriots who love their country enough to
sacrifice their bodies for it, and who have the courage to say,
“NO MAS” to terrorism, “NO MAS" to injustice, “NO MAS" to
oppression
Thank you Chani!
Chani's address until March 10, 2003
Chantilly Geigle 90968-020, Federal Prison Camp
Dublin, 5675 8th St Camp Park, Dublin, California 94568
Sue Skinner is a registered nurse and lives in Astoria
The internet address of SOA is www.soaw.orQ
The October 25, 2002, front-page section of The
Oregonian was almost totally devoted to articles about the
capture of two suspects in the Washington, D C. area sniper
attacks. At the very back, on the next to last page, a headline
read, “Sniper suspect might have face chemical weapons
in Iraq." The opening paragraph said the 41 year old suspect
is a Gulf War veteran and may be suffering from “Gulf War
Syndrome, an illness which experts said can result in
unexplained bouts of intense violence." When I heard that a
nursing student who killed several people and then himself
was also a Gulf War veteran, it only added to my concern.
My mind went back to the stereotype that emerged
about Vietnam vets: edgy, drugged up, and quick to inapprop
riate violent responses. For a lot of us, that stereotype had its
ultimate portrayal in the 1976 film, Taxi Driver, where Robert
DeNiro plays a New York City cab driver who takes revenge on
a pimp played by Harvey Keitel, after failing to execute his first
target, a political candidate. Some viewers probably thought
the DeNiro character was just plain crazy and the killing at the
climax of the film a senseless event. I had mixed feelings, but
the one that stayed with me was “What do we expect?" We train
men to kill under specified circumstances without using much
introspection or judgment. The Vietnam conflict was basically
a guerrilla war, and if soldiers didn’t use a slightly paranoid
approach to battlefield conditions, they wouldn’t last very long.
It would be hard to leave those reactions behind.
Unfortunately, we may have a new stereotype in the
making, this time of Gulf War veterans. What I noticed about
the recent news article was a few facts: “Out of the roughly
540,000 U.S. troops who served in ‘Desert Storm’, 175,000
are thought to have some form of the neurological and neuro-
immune illnesses that have been documented so far.” That
is slightly over 32%. There are more people involved than I
realized.
More light was shed on the problem by Dr. William
Baumzweiger, a neurologist and psychiatrist who specializes
In treating Gulf War Syndrome patients: “Once it came out that
he (referring to the suspect of the D.C. killings) had a military
background, I said this must be a Gulf War veteran...This kind
of bizarre story, where he is on the one hand killing people and
on the other hand writing notes to the government basically
pleading for help, that’s a typical story you see in Gulf War
veterans."
While the headline stated chemical weapons might be
the problem, the article mentions that Oregon researchers just
published a study saying there is no link between exposure to
chemical weapons and Gulf War syndrome: “Soldiers exposed
to chemical weapons are no sicker than other veterans of the
war.” Some other factor could be involved. More study is
needed.
It took a long time for Agent Orange to be implicated in
Vietnam veterans' health problems. Agent Orange, a 50/50 mix
of 2,4,D and 2,4,57, was one of many herbicides used by U.S.
forces. However, it was dioxin that contaminated the herbicide
which caused the health problems. Because soldiers cannot
legally sue the government for injuries caused during their
service, they sued the herbicide manufacturers (Dow, Monsanto
and several other chemical companies) and won out of court
settlements.*
We older civilians know a little about the Vietnam War
because it was televised; it was headline news complete with
photos. The Gulf War, by comparison, had the news coverage
and immediacy of a video game. As a society, we know very
little about battlefield conditions during Desert Storm, what we
did to Iraqi soldiers and civilians or what our troops experienced.
The Oregonian article says:
“For five years following the Gulf War, the Pentagon
refused to acknowledge that some troops might have been
suffering medical problems...Under increasingly severe
pressure from Congress and the public, the Pentagon finally
admitted it knew of some chemical contamination and acknow
ledged the veterans really were sick."
While our administration once again considers going to
war, it is important to remember the people who have already
served and face up to our responsibility as a society to assist
them. Unfortunately, too often veterans and their service related
problems are brushed aside. Too bad it takes an extreme
example, headline news and so many deaths to bring the Gulf
War Syndrome to the average person’s attention.
Victoria Stoppiello is a freelance writer from Ilwaco.
"Vietnam vets involved in the suit rather sarcastically
claim the settlement amounted to $5 per vet.
1287 COMMERCIAL ST.
ASTORIA 325-5221