"Two old ladies" ready for trial

By Linda Cooper and James Hodge

National Catholic Reporter

April 26, 1996

COLUMBUS, Ga. - Driven by the memory of a fellow Ursuline nun raped and murdered by soldiers trained at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, Sr. Claire O'Mara got arrested last November for the first time in her life at the age of 74.

She was joined in a protest at the school by another first-time offender, Mennonite volunteer Jo Anne Lingle, a 59-year-old mother of eight from Indianapolis.

The two women go on trial April 29 with 11 others before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Elliott, known for giving maximum sentences to peace activists and for his ruling, later overturned, dismissing all murder charges against Lt. William Calley in connection with the My Lai massacre.

The demonstrators face a $5,000 fine and 6 months in prison. Neither of the women are afraid.

  "I'm too old to be nervous,'' said O'Mara, believed to be the only Ursuline nun ever arrested in the U.S. for civil disobedience.

  Besides, she said, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and the other three U.S. churchwomen killed in El Salvador in 1980 showed far more courage by continuing their work there "although knowing they would probably meet the same fate as Archbishop Oscar Romero."   The women and Romero were all killed by school graduates.

         It was partly to honor the memory of Kazel, that O'Mara endured a 25-hour train ride and risked jail to add her voice to the call to close the school, which has trained hundreds of Latin American officers implicated in atrocities, including the 1989 slaughter of the six Jesuits, their cook and her daughter in San Salvador.

       The Ursuline order has been very supportive, she said, especially the communities of Kazel and Sr. Diana Ortiz, who was raped and tortured by Guatemalan soldiers while Gen. Hector Gramajo was Defense Minister. Gramajo, who was held responsible in a U.S. court for war crimes against Ortiz and others, has been a guest speaker at the school.

O'Mara, who works with AIDS patients and their families, said she finds it morally repugnant that U.S. citizens are forced to pay for a school that's known in Latin America as the "School of Assassins" and the "School of Coups'' because so many of its alumni have helped to undermine or topple constitutional governments.

Lingle has similar convictions.

Her decision to participate in the protest is rooted in her concern for the thousands of Latin American mothers whose children have been killed by U.S.-trained troops, especially a Salvadoran peasant named Rufina Amaya, whose entire family was executed in the 1981 El Mozote massacre. Amaya was the only survivor of the slaughter in which Salvadoran soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed men, women and children, some of whom were thrown into the air and bayoneted.   Ten of the 12 officers cited by the U.N. Truth Commission for the killings were graduates of the School of the Americas.

"I'm planning to say in court that I did this for Rufina and the mothers of the disappeared,'' said Lingle, who lost a son to AIDS in 1991.

That same year, Lingle quit her job as an office manager and sold her house - "to unburden myself financially'' - so that she could work full time on peace and justice issues.

Now working with death row inmates and their families, Lingle   has also found tremendous support for her action - especially from members of her church, her 80-year-old mother, and her children, who are coming to her trial.

Like O'Mara, Lingle has no fear of prison, although some friends and family are concerned about her safety.

"I'm looking at this as a chance to build community with women in prison,'' she said. "I will embrace it as another place God could put me and use me."

Lingle said she had wanted to get involved in the civil rights movement but couldn't "because I had so many babies running around. Now, with my children grown, I have the freedom to be involved.''

The protestors are charged with criminal trespassing on Ft. Benning, where the school was moved in 1984 after Panama demanded its removal from the Canal Zone, calling it the "biggest base of destabilization in Latin America.''

Their ACLU attorney, David Grindle, plans to put on a first amendment defense. The charges stem from a Ft. Benning regulation forbidding "partisan political activity on the military post without authorization,'' he said.

Thing is, he said, a group that supports the school has demonstrated on the base and never been arrested.   "So the defendants were in essence charged because their message was critical of the school.''

Among the defendants are the protest organizer, Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, two World War II veterans, a lawyer and a school psychologist.

Grindle hopes to call as witnesses Detroit Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an author of the 1983 peace pastoral, Congressman Joseph Kennedy whose third bill to close the school is awaiting action by the House National Security Committee, and US. Army Maj. Joseph Blair, a former SOA instructor who has publicly disputed the school's contention that it is "a linchpin for democracy.''

Grindle concedes he doesn't have high hopes that Elliott will allow their testimony. And Bourgeois, whom Elliott has given maximum sentences twice before for SOA protests, fully expects to be jail after a quick trial. "But even if we get sentenced to only one day,'' Bourgeois said, "we will have served more time in jail for protesting the atrocities than most SOA graduates have for committing them.''

And while no one expects the school to shut down tomorrow, O'Mara says she and Lingle - whom she refers to as "two old ladies'' - subscribe to the philosophy that Christians are called to be faithful, not effective.

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May 10 1996

Judge grants women's wish for prison

By Linda Cooper and James Hodge

COLUMBUS, Ga. -- He tried to wash his hands of the sentence, but in the end federal Judge Robert Elliott sent a 74-year-old Ursuline nun and a 59-year-old mother of eight to prison.

In a trial that U.S. Rep. George Brown, D-Calif., called a "travesty of justice," Sr. Claire O'Mara and Mennonite vol­unteer Jo Anne Lingle were convicted April 29 along with 11 others of tres­passing at Fort Benning to protest the U.S. Army's School of the Americas that has trained Latin American dictators and death-squad organizers.

U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., also flew in to support the group, say­ing the judge came down on the side of legality, not morality. Kennedy said hell consider calling for a Congressional inquiry into charges that the school has taught torture techniques.

The charges were made by former graduates of the school in an upcoming documentary film, which defense attor­neys tried to enter into evidence.

In excerpts from the film, Jose Valle, a former mem­ber of the Honduran death squad, Battalion 316, said the school showed him videos of how to torture.

Another graduate said when the school was located in Panama, homeless peo­ple were taken off the streets and tor­tured to demonstrate various techniques.

The school has repeatedly denied teaching torture.

The defendants admitted trespass­ing on the Army post, charges based on a Fort Benning regulation forbidding partisan political activity at the instal­lation.

Defense attorneys Peter Thompson and David Grindle wove a First Amend­ment argument saying the army denied the demonstrators their right to free speech while routinely giving politicians and other officials a forum to make state­ments praising the school as a linchpin for democracy and defending it from charges that it is responsible for the atrocities committed by its graduates.

In her testimony, O'Mara said she felt obliged to follow a higher law in protesting the U.S. Army's training of "young, vulnerable Latin American men" to kill.

Lingle told the judge she was moved to act by the agony of Latin American mothers who search garbage dumps to find their disappeared children.

Elliott sentenced 10 of the 11 male demonstrators -- including Jesuit Fr. Bill Bichsel of Tacoma, Wash.; lawyer Robert Holstein of Riverside, Calif., and World War II veteran Bill Corrigan, a retired Lockheed engineer -- to prison terms ranging from two to four months. He gave protest organizer Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois the maximum sentence of six months.

The judge put the two women on pro­bation and was stunned when they asked to be given the same sentences as their fellow defendants.

"I've never heard of anything like that before," said Elliott, an ultraconserva­tive who's been on the federal bench for more than 30 years. Elliott is known for giving maximum sentences to peace activists and for his-ruling, later over­turned, dismissing all murder charges against Lt. William Calley in connection with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

   But, continued Elliott, "I've always had a soft spot in my heart for women,", that he cd never say no to woman, and sentenced them each to two months in prison.

   Then, in what many supporters con­strued as a sign from above, there was a flash of lightning and a loud clap of of thunder from gathering storm.