Yesterday in Columbus, Georgia, Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was sentenced to three months in federal prison for enacting her habit of bearing witness against US military violence, this time by crossing onto the property of Ft. Benning military base in November of 2003, as a form of protest against the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC). You can read “Hogtied and Abused at Fort Benning” Kathy’s account of the inhumane treatment that she received by her arresting officers.

Please visit SOA Watch where you can find more information about the SOA/WHISC, which has trained many of the military dictators and soldiers who have massacred of hundreds of thousands of people of Central and South America, especially indigenous people. You can also learn about other ways to support the project of closing the SOA/WHISC. Just as the US occupation in Iraq fails to provide for the security of ordinary Iraqis, the SOA/WHISC has, at the very least, failed in its stated task of ’security’ for Latin America and, in actuality, created more insecurity and fear for millions of people in the Global South. Kathy’s act of crossing the line with 28 other witnesses for peace, including VitW friend Rev. Jerry Zawada, O.F.M., is a sign of the commitment to nonviolent direct action which Voices in the Wilderness clings to as a hopeful road to peace and social justice in our world.

Alongside Kathy, Fr. Jerry Zawada, an Iraq Peace Team member and recent VitW delegate to Iraq, was sentenced to six months in federal prison (he was convicted of trespassing at the SOA/WHISC last year as well), Faith Fippinger, a former Human Shield in Iraq, was sentenced to three months in prison, and Scott Diehl, a CPT member who was in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, was also sentenced to three months in prison. May we all begin to draw the connections between the destruction caused by surging US militarism in Iraq and its effects elsewhere, wherever that may be. Here in the United States, military recruiters continue to steal the lives of students in our poorest schools and US police officers (such as those in Miami during the recent FTAA protests) are being ordered to beat down and trample their fellow US citizens who nonviolently protest the architects of social injustice.

Please read Kathy Kelly’s statement before Judge Faircloth.

If you’d like to find new ways to resist the militarism of our time, see What We Can Do.

Voices in the Wilderness is still facing a lawsuit of its own from the federal government; we’ll keep you updated on the proceedings of that case. If you haven’t already, please sign our petition to John Ashcroft and the Justice Department.

In the meantime, Kathy and Jerry wish to extend their gratitude for the support of the VitW community at this time. They are going into this prison witness with a confidence that such witness brings us all closer to those who suffer injustice and, in essence, closer to true peace.