SOA 2003 Saturday Night: Autonomous Puppetshow Causes Civil Unrest

[DUreader]

This is from an open publishing newswire copyleft, so I am posting

the whole thing

There are some pics at the link


http://atlanta.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=23669&group=webcast


Sunday 11-23-03
Autonomous Puppetshow Causes Civil Unrest
Warren Goodwin, IMC-Atlanta
2:03 AM - Columbus GA

According to first hand reports, the "Argentina Autonomous Puppetshow" sparked a series of
confrontations culminating in a defiant standoff between SOA/WHISC protesters and
Columbus Police.

The Puppetshow, composed entirely dumpster-dived materials, was scheduled to be held
8-10pm in the Ballroom of the Heritage Inn in Downtown Columbus. When far more protesters
arrived than the room could hold, building management informed the audience that everone
sitting in the aisles had to leave in order to "comply with fire codes". In response, the audience
stacked up all the chairs in the room and everyone sat down.

Columbus police arrived and threatened the audience with arrest if they did not disperse. -- A
handful of protesters continued to refuse but eventually the crowd and the puppets moved to
the parking lot of the inn, where the puppetshow continued.

The police were accomadating for about 15 minutes and the puppet show was able to continue
describing Argentinia under dictatorship of the 1970s, the Movement of the mothers of the
Dissapeared, and the economic collapse and Cacerolero revolution of 2002.

Eventually, however, an officer described as "an asshole cop" arrived and began removing the
backdrops of the puppetshow.

The Police told the puppetshow to move off of the private property of the Inn,
which the demonstrators did. Yet once on the public property of the sidewalk, the
demonstrators were informed that since they did not have a permit, they were liable for arrest
for being there.

According to Josh, "The puppet show, which describes police repression and civil resistance in
Argentina was about exactly what was occuring to the crowd".

While some demonstrators kneeled in prayer on the sidewalk, others voiced their defiance:
"This is "What Democracy Looks like -- that is what Hipocracy looks like...." and other chants.

The protesters stood up for their rights, refusing to bow to the dispersal order, and
approximately 40 marched from the Inn to the Convention Center, chanting and singing an
exuberant rendition of "Solidarity Forever. There they joined the SOAW benefit concert, their
voices echoing in the halls.

[sleipnir]

1. Good to hear that guerilla theatre is still alive and well in the south

I wish I could have attended, S. America in the 70's 80's sparked a lot of theatre, some of the best concepts ever produced, to get around censorship and the dictators.

[glitch]

2. what a great story - thanks for posting nt

[Say_What]

3. Hidden in Plain Sight and Plan Colombia --two not-to-be-missed films

about the SOA. What happened in Central America is now happening in Colombia--many in the Colombian military are SOA trained. With the millions given to Colombia from the US for the *drug war* front, 85% goes to the military. The military in turn trains and advices the paramilitaries who are responsible for more than 70% of the massacres carried out over the past two years. The area where the worst atrocites are carried out if the area that produces 80% of Colombia's oil. Colombia is the US' 8th largest supplier of oil.

Here's some information on these important, award-winning films. I think this was held over in SF at the Roxie on 16th between Valencia and Guererro.

<clips>

John H. Smihula's "Hidden in Plain Sight," a documentary on the United States Army's School of the Americas, brings together material from several politically engaged films about the government's activity in Latin America, creating a sort of anthology of atrocity.
The school, founded during the cold war to train Latin American soldiers in the techniques of withstanding Marxist aggression (and, not incidentally, protecting United States interests), was shut down in 2000 under the threat of a Congressional investigation. It soon reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the name it continues to operate under today, in the hope that its cold war associations have been expunged.

The school, at Fort Benning, Ga., conducts its classes largely in Spanish and graduates 800 students a year. The Army says they are learning leadership skills; others say the school produces torturers and dictators, pointing to past graduates like Manuel Noriega of Panama and Gen. Leopoldo F. Galtieri of Argentina.

Mr. Smihula has little difficulty establishing a grave record of human rights violations by graduates of the institution. Scenes roll by of villages massacred, nuns raped and murdered, children maimed and tortured and politicians assassinated, all seemingly at the hands of soldiers trained by the School of the Americas — as almost everyone outside the bureaucracy continues to call it — or under the leadership of its graduates.

http://www.hiddeninplainsight.org/main/home.html

---

<clips>

I recently returned from a delegation to Colombia sponsored by the Colombia Support Network. The purpose of this trip was two-fold. First, to better understand and to see first-hand the effects of fumigation in the Putumayo region; second, to bear witness to the violence perpetrated by the Colombian military--of which more than 10,000 soldiers have been trained at the School of the Americas--and the paramilitary forces, which have been responsible for more than 70% of the massacres in Colombia over the past two years. The fumigations are part of the "anti-drug" campaign called "Plan Colombia," which is a multibillion dollar program purportedly developed by the government of Colombia to deal with the many conflicts of its country. To date, the US has pledged $1.3 billion in aid (which will primarily be paid to US weapons and chemical corporations) in the form of military training, helicopters, and fumigation related expenses. Additional funding has already been proposed.

During our time in Colombia, we met with community leaders, including tribal representatives from the indigenous people of the Putumayo region, religious leaders, Colombian officials, military leaders, the director of the UN High Commission on Human Rights, and the US Ambassador to Colombia.

Throughout our meetings and visits to the Putumayo it became vividly evident that due to the indiscriminate nature of the fumigation campaign not only were coca (the raw material of cocaine) crops being targeted, but food crops and medicinal plants were being eradicated, and water supplies were being contaminated. The herbicide, glyphosate (more commonly known as "Round-up"), is produced and manufactured by the US chemical corporation, Monsanto. In Colombia, this herbicide is used in a highly concentrated form and can obliterate a food crop with a single aerial application. The negligence associated with the fumigation campaign has not only had disastrous ecological and health consequences for the region, but it also has significantly increased the expansion of coca crops throughout Colombia.

Paradoxically, as coca was being eradicated in regions such as Peru and Bolivia, there was a nearly instantaneous surge in production and control in Colombia by the newly formed Medellin Cartel. Basic economics, and our own history, tell us that where there is a demand, especially of an illicit drug, there will always be those who find a way of not only providing the product, but of making a tremendous profit on it.

http://www.soawne.org/Pccrops.html