We all know that the School of Americas, SOA, is a US government organisation for the export of torture and repression. It functions for the purpose of training forces of repressive regimes around the world in brutal methods of supressing political and public dissent. It is part of the US foreign policy of propping up repressive puppet governments that are compliant to the aims of American foreign policy. All this from the country that preaches democracy, but it is democracy at the end of a gun and only if it suits the American corporate empire.
For years groups of people have organised to try to shut the place down, they have faced brutallity, and imprisonment but still they come back. They see it as a cancer on the land, it has no place in any civilised country, it is the bedrock of government repression. One such case of over the top sentencing is that of Theresa Cusimano who has been sentenced to six months in Federal prison for peacably crossing the line to speak out against the SOA.
Those words adorn the wall inside the courtroom of Judge Stephen Hyles at the Columbus courthouse. And there they remain, strong words that ring hollow in face of injustice, merely adornments. For her act of peacefully crossing the line at Fort Benning, Georgia - a misdemeanor offense - a 6-month sentence was imposed on Theresa Cusimano. Those who train men with guns at the SOA/WHINSEC, those who created those torture manuals, have never had to defend their actions, yet Theresa is being sentenced to six months in prison for nonviolently calling attention to the US military's role in the violence carried out against her sisters and brothers in the Americas.
Theresa Cusimano wrote the following statement to Judge Stephen Hyles before her sentencing, telling him that his complicity goes on record today as obstructing international justice and U.S. Rule of Law, and that she wished that he had the courage of Father Roy and the honor of being a subversive.:
Read the full speech HERE.
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