(Used by permission from Mennonite Weekly Review, Dec. 10, 1998. Kathleen
Kern writes a monthly column, "World Neighbors," in MWR. A one-year
subscription to MWR can be ordered for $15.50. This half-price offer
expires Dec. 31, 1998. Call 1-800-424-0178 or write Mennonite Weekly
Review, Box 568, Newton, KS 67114.)

MWR Column, December 1998

I never met Angelina Manuel Jeronimo. I do not know whether she was a baby,
adolescent, mother or grandmother when she died. I only know that she died in
Guatemala at the hands of a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas
(SOA.) On November 22, 1998 I carried a white cross bearing her name on to
the base of Fort Benning, Georgia along with more than 2300 other people
carrying crosses with the names of other victims.

The School of the Americas was founded in 1946 in Panama. It soon became known
in Latin America as the "School of the Assassins," because so many of its
graduates became notorious human rights abusers. In 1984, the school moved
to Fort Benning, GA, because Panama wanted it out.

Tens of thousands of Latin Americans and residents of the Caribbean have been
intimidated, tortured, raped, and slaughtered by graduates of the school.

In the last several years, opponents of the school have organized an annual
November vigil outside of Fort Benning. The vigils have culminated in a
worship service, during which people wishing to commit civil disobedience have
crossed the line on to Fort Benning property.

Last year, more than 600 people trespassed on to Fort Benning with their
white crosses to protest the U.S. government's complicity in these human
rights abuses. People crossing for the second and third times received the
stiffest sentences possible in Federal court.

One of the people arrested last year for "destruction of government property
with malicious intent" was Ed Kinane, whom I met in Haiti. He was sentenced
to 15 months for stenciling "Home of the School of the Americas, School of
Shame" and "SOA=torture" on the sign at the entrance to Fort Benning.

At his sentencing in Federal court, Kinane referred to the photos of the six
massacred Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in San Salvador
that he and several other co-defendants had placed by the sign. He described
how the brains of one of the priests lay in the grass separate from his body,
how the 15 year old daughter of the housekeeper lay clutching her mother even
in death.

Kinane then noted that nineteen of the 26 soldiers who planned and executed
the slaughter were graduates of the School of the Americas.

"xContrast their violence with what we did to the sign at Benning's main
gate," Kinane said.

"We _blemished_ it. The sign was readily repaired and repainted. It felt no
pain. It felt no terror. It did not bleed, nor did it die. No one mourns
the sign. It has no loved ones to be consoled. No other sign fears it may be
nextx

"Judge, you may be troubled by what we did to that sign. Are you also
troubled-proportionately troubled- by the many massacres perpetrated by
graduates of the School of the Americas?"

The organizers of this year's vigil outside of Fort Benning were worried that
the harsh sentences imposed on Kinane and his co-defendants would keep other
people from participating in the vigil this year. As a best case scenario,
they hoped that a thousand people might consider committing civil
disobedience. More than twice that number picked up their crosses and crossed
the line. (In the end, there were too many people for the Army to process, so
they loaded us on to buses, drove us about a mile and a half out of town and
told us to walk back. No one, not even those crossing for the second and third
times, was arrested.)

As we crossed on to the base, the leaders of the vigil chanted the names of
the thousands of babies, children, men and women who had been killed by SOA
graduates. After each name was sung, the participants in the vigil raised
their white crosses and sang back, "Presente."

And you know, I felt that Angelina, Archbishop Romero, the priests, their
housekeeper, her daughter, and the thousands of other murdered men, women and
children _were_ present, along with Ed and others now in jail for speaking
out against these murders.

And the white crosses reminded me that the One who died on a cross for
challenging the status quo was there with us also.

People wishing to send letters of support and encouragement to Ed Kinane, may
do so at the following address:

Ed Kinane
Unit A-5
#86279-020
FPC Allenwood
P.O. 1000
Montgomery, PA 17752