Posted on 11/19/2007 5:01:14 PM PST by SandRat
SIERRA VISTA — For the second year in a row, protesters against alleged torture practices being taught on the post were arrested Sunday on charges of trespassing.
Two of the three had met Army officials Thursday and were briefed on the human intelligence collector’s course, which includes interrogation methods.
Mary Burton Riseley, 65, a Quaker from New Mexico and the Rev. Jerry Zawada, 70, of Nevada had met with post officials last week. Joining them was Betsy Lamb, 69, of Oregon as they walked across Buffalo Soldier Trail just before 1 p.m. Sunday. They were taken into custody by post law enforcement officials.
The trio were released on their own recognizance slightly before 4 p.m. and given a Dec. 4 court date to appear at the federal courthouse in Tucson for an initial hearing.
This year was the fourth annual protest at the fort and the fourth time a group of post supporters protested the anti-fort people.
Pat Pugh, whose husband is a Vietnam War veteran, said her husband and others fought to defend the right of people like the anti-fort protesters.
“They have the right to protest, the right to be wrong and the right to be fools,” she said.
And, equally as important are for people like her and other post supporters to protest against their presence outside the fort’s property, Pugh said.
Nearly 300 protesters against the Intelligence Center and alleged torture teaching on the fort gathered on a small lot on the southwest corner of Buffalo Soldier Trail and Fry Boulevard.
Lining the sidewalk were about 30 anti-protesters, who had support from nearly two dozen motorcyclists, who drove around the picket area.
Separating the two sides were more than a dozen Sierra Vista police officers.
The anti-fort protesters were kept to one area and the pro-post people to another area, with a small no-man’s area between them. Whenever a member of one group would try to walk on to the other side, a quick police reaction nipped it in the bud.
Signs were plentiful, with messages supporting both sides.
One stated, “Shut down Ft. Huachuca’s torture center.”
It was countered by one stating: “Torture is not taught on the fort.”
Shouting matches between the two sides were common.
Both sides each had particularly foul-mouthed young women, whose messages were laced with variations of the F-word and whose body language included middle finger salutes.
On the pro-post side, another woman ranted and raved about the anti-post protesters being communists and liars, her voice ever increasing in volume.
And, on the anti-post side there was a man who screamed that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was done by the U.S. government as an excuse to attack Iraq.
Angrily, and in a loud voice, he demeaned supporters of the fort, questioning their intelligence.
But, generally the two sides had people who were more calm in expressing their views, although both sides could temporarily have their emotions increased by rhetoric from their opponents. The pro-fort motorcyclists would drive past the anti-post group and rev up their engines, drowning out speakers and musicians.
One of the key organizers of the protest against the fort was Rick Ufford-Chase, executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, a nationwide organization.
The Tucson resident said this year’s protest is also to honor the two priests who were arrested last year for trespassing on the post and failure to obey a Sierra Vista police officer’s orders.
The Rev. Louis Vitale, a Franciscan, and the Rev. Stephen Kelly, a Jesuit, pleaded no contest last month to the two charges and were each sentenced to five months in a federal prison.
Initially, their defense attorney tried to convince a federal judge that they had acted within the Constitution and were trying to put torture on trial by establishing Fort Huachuca as a major conduit for such training.
The judge refused to accept that, saying the case was one of trespassing and disobeying a law enforcement officer.
Vitale and Kelly previously had served many prison and jail sentences for actions involving protests against the military and other U.S. government entities.
Zawada, who is a friend of Vitale, also has served more than four years in federal and county prisons and jails for actions related to protesting.
Ufford-Chase said one thing the protest group against torture wants to do is convince Congress to set up a special committee “to investigate where interrogation techniques are taught, including Fort Huachuca.”
In the past, the fort has hosted numerous congressional staffers, human rights organizations and the media, to show them what is taught at the fort’s Intelligence Center.
On Thursday, Riseley and Zawada, along with another Quaker from Tucson, Meredith Little, spent 90 minutes with Lt. Col. Jeffrey Jennings, commander of the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion and his staff, discussing in a polite but pointed way, by both sides, how human intelligence courses operate, with the soldiers being direct about how they see the issue and the opponents questioning the training.
Ufford-Chase said the steps being taken by the annual protests outside the fort is part of a long-range project to eventually cause the military to change interrogation procedures with a “goal to end torture.”
The fort has maintained that torture is not part of any course on the fort, noting the Army’s field manual, a public document, prohibits specific actions such as waterboarding, which critics contend is taught.
The anti-fort protesters cheered when a bus went by, a sign on its sides stating: “Iraq veterans against the war.”
Like the motorcyclists, the bus driver drove around the protest site many times.
While alluding to there being Iraq War veterans inside, there were none. Also, the driver of the Texas-registered bus was cited by the Sierra Vista Police for failure to yield.
Part of the anti-fort group included the “Raging Grannies,” an organization of women who are anti-war.
They sang a number of parody songs, including one to the “Marine Corps Hymn,” that started “From the halls of torture to the gates of Fort Benning,” a take off on “from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
As the protests — anti and pro fort — continued, soldiers watched from behind large orange barricades put out on post property, which denied foot and vehicle access to the Main Gate from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.
Perhaps the most poignant comment made by a supporter of the anti-fort group came from Pat Corbett who related her grandson, Jason Corbett, was killed in Iraq in January.
Saying she wasn’t happy about his enlisting, the grandmother from Cascabel, said what she wants is “for torture not to dishonor his sacrifice, it brings shame on all of us.”
On the pro-fort side, Terri Bills, whose 86th Signal Battalion husband just returned to the post from a 15-month deployment to Iraq, said those who oppose the fort and its Intelligence Center are wrong.
Until the opponents get the facts right, they should be careful what they say, she said.
And, like many of those who oppose the anti-post protesters, Bills said, “It was our husbands who give them the right to protest.”
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
Military police arrest Betsy Lamb of Oregon on Sunday as she crosses the boundary at the Main Gate of Fort Huachuca, which had been sealed off during a protest. Observing in the background, wearing a dark jacket and tie, is Capt. Evan Seamone, the chief prosecutor with the post’s Staff Judge Advocate Office. (Suzanne Cronn•Herald/Review)
Thought You all would like to see this.
I don’t want to defend these people anymore.
libs like to get arrested
As time goes by, the more it seems to me that there are very large segments of this countrys population who will never be able to peacefully co-exist. The gulf is too wide, and the hatred is becoming too deep.
This is tangential to the thread, in a way, but I am glad the local police were doing their job protecting people's 1st Amendment rights to protest. When the two groups intermingle in any way, both messages are lost, to that extent, and the protests are in vain.
Both sides each had particularly foul-mouthed young women, whose messages were laced with variations of the F-word and whose body language included middle finger salutes.
What Mr Hess did not mention in the above statement is the fact that on the counter protest side the foul mouthed young women were all wives of deployed soldiers who were rather upset that the protesters were there.
While alluding to there being Iraq War veterans inside, there were none. Also, the driver of the Texas-registered bus was cited by the Sierra Vista Police for failure to yield.
The people in the Bus just wanted to yell rude statements at us as they drove by. I am impressed that Bill Hess actually stated there were no veterans on the bus. I usually am not impressed by his reporting at all. They are just a bunch of anti-everything cry babies.
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