[Peace-discuss] US military thugs

[C. G. Estabrook]

{Here's our guest Kathy Kelly's account of her treatment at the SOA
demonstration last weekend.  Compare it with the stories coming from Miami
about Gestapo tactics by the cops there to get an idea of how this
administration is willing to deal with non-violent protest.  We can expect
increasingly brutal confrontations between now and the election.  --CGE]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

November 26, 2003

"What Country Is This?"

By KATHY KELLY

On Sunday, November 23, I took part in a nonviolent civil disobedience
action at Fort Benning, GA, to protest the U.S. Army's School of the
Americas (SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation -- WHISC)

Shortly after more than two dozen of us entered Fort Benning and were
arrested, US Military Police took us to a warehouse on the base for
"processing." I was directed to a station for an initial search, where a
woman soldier began shouting at me to look straight ahead and spread my
legs. I turned to ask her why she was shouting at me and was ordered to
keep my mouth shut, look straight ahead, and spread my legs wider. She
then began an aggressive body search. When ordered to raise one leg a
second time, I temporarily lost my balance while still being roughly
searched and, in my view, 'womanhandled.' I decided that I shouldn't go
along with this dehumanizing action any longer. When I lowered my arms and
said, quietly, "I'm sorry, but I can't any longer cooperate with this," I
was instantly pushed to the floor. Five soldiers squatted around me, one
of them referring to me with an expletive (this f_ _ _ er) and began to
cuff my wrists and ankles and then bind my wrists and ankles together.
Then one soldier leaned on me, with his or her knee in my back. Unable to
get a full breath, I gasped and moaned, "I can't breathe." I repeated this
many times and then began begging for help. When I said, "Please, I've had
four lung collapses before," the pressure on my back eased. Four soldiers
then carried me, hogtied, to the next processing station for interrogation
and propped me in a kneeling position. The soldier standing to my left,
who had been assigned to "escort" me, gently told me that soon the ankle
and wrist cuffs, which were very tight, would be cut off. He politely let
me know that he would have to move my hair, which was hanging in front of
my face, so that my picture could be taken. I told him I'd appreciate
that.

I was then carried to the next station. There, one of the soldiers who'd
been part of pushing me to the floor knelt in front of me, and, with his
nose about two inches from mine, told me that because I was combative I
should know that if I didn't do exactly as instructed when they uncuffed
one hand, he would pepper spray me. I asked him to describe how I'd been
combative, but he didn't answer.

After the processing, I was unbound, shackled with wrist and ankle chains,
and led to the section where other peaceful activists, also shackled,
awaited transport to the Muskogee County jail.

At our bond hearing on Monday, Nov. 24, a military prosecutor told the
federal judge that the military was considering an additional charge
against me for resisting arrest. I explained my side of the story to the
judge, grateful that there are at least sevreal witnesses upon whom I
could call.

The federal judge determined that most of us were "flight risks" and
increased by 100% the cash bond required before we could be released, from
last years $500. to $1000.

Today I have a black eye and the soreness that comes with severe muscle
strain. Mostly, I'm burdened with a serious question, "What are these
soldiers training for?" The soldiers conducting that search must have been
ordered not to tolerate the slightest dissent. They were practicing
intimidation tactics far beyond what would be needed to control an
avowedly nonviolent group of protesters who had never, in thirteen years
of previous actions, caused any disruption during the process of arrest.
Bewildered, most of us in the "tank" inside the Muskogee County jail
acknowledged that during the rough processing we wondered, "What country
do we live in?" We now live in a country where Homeland Security funds pay
for exercises which train military and police units to control and
intimidate crowds, detainees, and arrestees using threat and force.

This morning's aches and pains, along with the memory of being hogtied,
give me a glimpse into the abuses we protest by coming to Fort Benning,
GA. As we explore the further invention of nonviolence in our increasingly
volatile time, it's important that we jointly overcome efforts to deter
our determination to stand together against what Martin Luther King once
called, "the violence of desperate men," -- and women.

[Kathy Kelly is director of Voices in the Wilderness. She can be reached
at: kathy at vitw.org]