Not Just Change But Justice! Anti-militarization teach-in and workshop.
February 15, 2009, 4-7pm
Howard University Blackburn Center: 2397 6th St. NW, Washington, DC
4pm: Welcome
Latin America Solidarity Coalition and North American Congress on Latin America
4:10 Grassroots organizing and Latin America solidarity work in the Obama era Father Ray Bourgeois
4:20: U.S. militarization in Latin America: What are we facing today? Lesley Gill
4:40: Panel discussion: Organizing against U.S. militarization Moderated by Christy Thornton
- South-North organizing: Pablo Espinosa Ruiz
- Border militarization and immigrant rights: Sonia Umanzur
- Plan Colombia: John Lindsay Poland
- Mérida Initiative & the ILEA: Ben Beachy
5:30: Audience Q & A
6:00: Networking session
This is an opportunity for groups and individuals to get together to strategize about next steps for action and collaboration!
6:50: Closing Remarks
Featuring Patricia Isasa
About the speakers:
Ben Beachy lived for three years in Nicaragua, where he co-led 22 delegations to explore firsthand the impact of U.S. economic policies, traveled to a dozen other Latin American countries, wrote articles on U.S. influence in the region, and acted as a liaison between Nicaraguan textile unions and U.S. labor organizations.
Fr. Roy Bourgeois worked in the 1970s with the poor in Bolivia before being arrested, tortured and forced to leave the country. In 1980 he became involved in issues surrounding U.S. policy in El Salvador after four US churchwomen were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. Roy is the founder of SOA Watch, the campaign to close the School of the Americas, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Lesley Gill is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. Her research has focused on political violence, human rights, global economic restructuring, the state, and transformations in class, gender, and ethnic relations. She is the author of School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence (2004: Duke University Press).
Patricia Isasa was 16 years old in 1976 when she was kidnapped by Argentine police and soldiers. She was tortured and held prisoner without trial for two and a half years. One of Patricia’s torturers was Domingo Marcelini, a graduate of the School of the Americas. Her research in Argentina resulted in the incarceration of nine of her torturers.
John Lindsay-Poland is the co-director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean, a position in which he has served since 1989. Previously he served with Peace Brigades International as a peace team member in Guatemala and El Salvador, U.S. staff, and co-founder of PBI’s Colombia Project.
Pablo Espinosa Ruiz is a Chilean human rights activist, journalist and former political prisoner who lives in Santiago, Chile. He worked in Chile with the Committee Against Impunity, seeking to bring to trial military who had committed human rights abuses during the dictatorship of General Pinochet. Pablo is spearheading efforts to seek the withdrawal of Chile from the SOA. He works as the Communications Coordinator for SOAW’s Partnership America Latina.
Christy Thornton is the Director of the North American Congress on Latin America and Publisher of its flagship, NACLA Report on the Americas. She holds a master’s degree from Columbia University, has written for numerous publications, and is co-editor of The Development Imperative: Toward a People Centered Approach (2005: SSRC) and Real World Latin America: A Contemporary Economics and Social Policy Reader (2008: Dollars & Sense).
Sonia Umanzor left El Salvador in 1981 to escape persecution by paramilitary groups. She is a nurse who attends to Salvadoran immigrants in DC. Her everyday interactions with migrants newly arrived from the perilous journey through Mexico and the U.S. desert have convinced her that the increased militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border has created more pain and suffering.