California (Sacramento) Report
Vol. 2, No. 2--March 19, 2005
Well, at least ONE of our local newspapers is bothering to cover the substantive issues in the 5th District Congressional campaign... and no, it's not the Bee. Below is a good piece that ran today in our campus paper, the State Hornet.
At a press conference last Wednesday at Sac State, Julie joined with SOA Watch founder and possible Nobel Peace Prize nominee Father Roy Bourgeois and Campus Peace Action President Leisa Faulkner to declare her support for a House bill to close the infamous "School of Assassins" in Ft. Benning, Georgia.
Julie's consistent support for human rights in Latin America and her principled opposition to the School of Americas earned her the endorsement last week of Janice Freeman, a local human rights leader and President of the Sacramento chapter of School of Americas Watch.
Consistent with her cautious positions on most issues, Doris Matsui has avoided taking a position on the use of taxpayer money to support the teaching of torture and other forms of terrorism associated with the school.
The progressive community in Sacramento is unified behind Progressive Democrat Julie Padilla. Because of her principled support for peace and social justice at home and abroad, Julie has been endorsed by Sacramento for Democracy, Progressive Democrats of Sacramento, Campus Peace Action, and a long list of local progressive activists and educators. Even Green Party candidate Pat Driscoll announced last week that he was "extremely impressed with the candidacy of Julie Padilla" and that he was urging his supporters to work for Julie's election. You can check out Julie's complete list of endorsements.
Julie Padilla has mobilized and unified Sacramento's progressive community by running a principled, courageous, and dignified campaign. It has been an incredible honor for me to serve on Julie's "rainbow coalition" campaign team, and I will proudly cast my vote for Julie Padilla today. I urge you all to do the same.
Peace,
Paul Burke
Speakers shed light on school for 'militiamen'
By Rebecca Adler
State Hornet
March 07, 2005
Democratic congressional candidate Julie Padilla joined the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, and Leisa Faulkner Barnes, a Sacramento State graduate student, in informing students about a school now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The speakers said that the school is known for training Latin American militiamen and dictators like Manuel Noriega.
Padilla, who holds a degree in Latin American Studies, announced at the event that, should she be elected, she would support legislation introduced by James McGovern
D-MA asking Congress to close the school.
The school is located in Fort Benning, Ga., and according to its Web site, its purpose is to provide "professional education and training for civilian, military and law enforcement students from nations throughout the Western Hemisphere."
Bourgeois has devoted his life to trying to have the school closed down because, he said, the students often go home to become terrorists or dictators in their own countries.
Bourgeois founded the School of the Americas Watch, an activist group that has been working to shut down the school since 1990 by informing Congress and the media about how the school operates.
The event was Padilla's third visit to the Sac State campus during her campaign for the congressional seat made available by the death of Rep. Robert Matsui.
Padilla said the issue is important to her because "countries with the worst human rights violations are the countries who send people to be trained at the school."
A training manual from the school, released by the Pentagon in 1996, recommended blackmail, execution, kidnapping, and torture as interrogation techniques; techniques that violate basic human rights and the Army's rules of procedure.
The school's Web site says that human rights became an important part of the curriculum when Congress closed the school for restructuring and a name change in 2001.
"[The school] fulfills the congressionally-mandated mission of promoting understanding and respect for democratic values and institutions, human rights, the rule of law and civilian control of a nation's armed forces," the school's Web site said.
Bourgeois said the only change has been the name. He said the congressional mandate did not change the way business is conducted at the school and that his goal is to have the school permanently closed.
Each year thousands of protestors gather in front of the school to raise awareness about the injustices brought about by graduates of the school, Bourgeois said. He has served four years in federal prison for civil disobedience at such protests.
Barnes served four months of her own at a federal prison in Dublin, California last year. Her crime was civil disobedience in the form of stepping over the white line that divides public property and government property in front of the school.
She told students about her experience and how it has lead her to participate in other humanitarian efforts.
Professor Paul Burke, co-chairman of the Sacramento chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America and a member of Faculty For Peace and Justice, said he had his classes attend the event because civil disobedience is part of being a United States citizen.
Another student, Brian Teding, said, "In a country like this it's hard to believe that something like this goes on..."
Not all students attending the event thought that closing the school was an important measure.
"I think for the most part it's wrong, but we do need people who are trained to be out there to protect America in cases of war and terrorism," Brenda Cerda, a Sac State student, said.
Haiti: A Cry for Help
By Leisa Faulkner Barnes
Published on Thursday March 2, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
(Leisa Barnes, Co-Chair of Progressive Democrats of Sacramento, as well as a Co-Founder and Co-Chair of our local Haiti solidarity group, the Coalition for Democracy in Haiti, traveled to Haiti a couple weeks ago to serve as a "human shield" for the pro-democracy activists there. She was pepper sprayed and threatened by the death squads, but escaped mostly unharmed. She's now suffering from malaria. Below is her eyewitness report, which was published on the Common Dreams Newsletter.)
Marking the first anniversary of the day US Marines escorted democracy and President Jean Bertrand Aristide from Haiti, the people poured out into the streets in solidarity and fear, demonstrating their hope for freedom, and a restoration of democracy. Thousands of Haitians took to the streets all over Haiti this weekend dancing and singing, clapping and chanting in overwhelming support of the movement that is growing despite the death squads that roam the streets searching out Lavalas supporters for summary executions. About six thousand filled the streets of Cap Haitian where I walked with them as a shield on Sunday.
The assassins put the word "Police" on their varied uniforms, but no one thinks of them as officers of the peace. I photographed them eyeing the crowd with their fingers ready on their US supplied rifles. I photographed the tanks and armored vehicles encircling the exuberant crowd. I photographed the faces of hope that because of their mass felt safe to hold up to my camera their own images of President Aristide. Sasha Kramer and I had been asked to come meet with the UN prior to the demonstration, and to walk as human shields inches away from one of their leaders in the north who normally lives in hiding. In Cap Haitian, it all worked. We marched for hours, the Jean Charles Moise got away safely after speaking to the crowd, the police that were angry with us for photographing them, were restrained for some reason. As Moise made his escape, the worse we endured was a few bruises and cuts as we were dispersed with pepper spray. Sasha lay hid under a bed, after escaping the pepper spray by climbing over fences and wobbling roofs.
My friends in Port au Prince were not so lucky. Bill Quigley, my SOAW lawyer and advocate ran for any cover he could find, as the "police" opened fire on the crowd. He hid behind one-inch barriers as he witnessed the wanton shooting that left five dead in the streets. For the third time this week, the death squads welded their unmatched fire-power against the defenseless poor. Ten were gunned down on Thursday, five more on Friday before the demo. It is routine in the poorest sections of the Bel Air slums for roaming "officers" to open fire on the "sharma," as they call them -- street rats, young homeless and hungry boys who have no one to report their loss.
The Haitian poor turn to us, the international community, to speak for them. I came home yesterday with the dust of Haiti on my shoes and the cries of the people in my ears. We train those that become their death squads; we supply the guns; we've allowed the School of the Americas/WHINSEC to stay open.
Leisa Faulkner Barnes will speak with Father Roy on a tour of Northern California this week. She is a former prisoner of conscience, co-chair of Sacramento Progressive Democrats of America, mother of five, president of Campus Peace Action, and provides humanitarian work through Haiti Action Committee. Those wanting to find out more about Haiti can contact her at leisafaulkner@hotmail.com.
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