CPTnet
January 31, 1998
Chicago: New CPTer begins first assignment with CPT at Danbury Federal
Correctional Institution

CHICAGO-- Last week, Anne Herman completed the training required to become a
full-time Christian Peacemaker Corps member. On January 30, instead of going
to CPT project assignments in Hebron, Chiapas or Richmond, VA, Herman went to
the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution to begin a 6 month assignment
for trespassing at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA.

On November 16, 1997 Herman was one of 600 people arrested at the School of
the Americas for "crossing the line" when asked to leave the U.S. Army
facility. Because she and 24 others had been arrested there previously, they
received the maximum sentences allowed by law.

Graduates of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA, have been
implicated in some of the most notorious massacres, assassinations and human
rights violations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Preliminary
investigations of the recent massacre of 45 men, women and children in
Chiapas, Mexico indicate that Mexican graduates of the School of the Americas
were probably involved at some level.

CPTers Kathleen Kern and Pierre Gingerich accompanied Herman-a 64 year old
mother of six and grandmother of three- up to Danbury, CT along with Herman's
daughter and several of her friends. Herman's daughter, Kelly, will have a
baby in June and expressed deep regret that her mother would not be there to
help her and her husband out after the delivery.

Neil Golder, another of Herman's friends who was arrested in Fort Benning but
not sentenced to jail time, noted in the van on the way to Connecticut that
some of the 25 defendants fared even worse than Herman. Ed Kinane, a member
of Peace Brigades with whom CPTers have worked in Haiti, received 15 years
for changing the "School of the Americas" sign on the Fort Benning army base
to "School of the Assassins." "Maybe this means that we're being effective,"
Golder said.

People who wish to write Herman in the next six months may do so at the
following address.

Anne Herman #88104-020
FCI Danbury
Rt. 37
Danbury CT 06811-3099