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Note #7980 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Presbyterian peace activists released from prison
03447
October 21, 2003

Presbyterian peace activists released from prison

Women trespassed on Army base while protesting	'terror school'

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Two Presbyterian women imprisoned earlier this year for entering
an Army base during a protest have been released from jail.

Marilyn M. White, 56, of suburban Houston, TX, was released on Oct. 3 from a
federal Prison Camp for Women in Bryan, TX. Ann Huntwork, 72, of Portland,
OR, was released on Oct. 6 from the Federal Prison Camp in Dublin, CA.

The longtime peace activists served six-month sentences on misdemeanor
charges of trespassing. They were charged last November after they entered
Fort Benning, in Columbus, GA, during a demonstration against a training
facility for Latin American military officers formerly known as the School of
the Americas (SOA).

 About 8,000 peace activists took part in the annual protest. More than 80
were arrested.

White, a Presbyterian elder active in the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, also
was fined $5,000.

"It's really good to be out," White said.

White is a retired IBM computer programmer. Huntwork is a former Presbyterian
missionary in Iran and the Philippines.

"I think it was worth it," said Huntwork of her stint in prison. "There's no
question about the increase of public awareness, when you know somebody who
has been incarcerated."

The women, who have permanent orders to stay off Fort Benning property, vow
to continue calling for the closing of the school.

 Both plan to attend next month's anti-SOA demonstration in Columbus, but
they probably won't risk arrest again venturing onto the base, which is about
85 miles southwest of Atlanta on the Georgia-Alabama state line.

"I'll probably try to stay legal this year, just because it would be very,
very hard on my family to do another incarceration right away," White told
the Presbyterian News Service.

The Rev. Clifford W. Frasier, a United Church of Christ minister who is
coordinator of Presbyterian Welcome, the New York City regional affiliate of
That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS), also was among those arrested during the
protest.

Frasier is serving his time in a prison in Fort Dix, NJ, and is scheduled for
release on Nov. 25, according to the Web site of the group that organized the
rally, School of the Americas Watch (SOAW). He also paid a $500 fine.

SOAW hosts the annual demonstrations at Fort Benning's main gate in memory of
six Jesuit priests and two others killed in El Salvador by School of the
Americas graduates in 1989. Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assemblies in
1994 and 1995 condemned the SOA and urged that it be closed, citing
human-rights abuses perpetrated by some of its graduates.

"If we don't hold those accountable, then we're defaulting on our
discipleship," said Huntwork, a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in
Portland, OR. "Doing nothing, for me, is not an option."

The school has been renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation (WHISC). Graduates include former Panamanian strongman Manuel
Noriega and Chile's ruthless former dictator, Augusto Pinochet.

White, who worships at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church
in Houston, said the minimum-security camp she was assigned to is "quiet,
comfortable and friendly," and has no bars on the windows.

Still, she said, "It's not easy to be incarcerated and away from your family
and friends for six months."

White said she spent some of her free time responding to the 800 pieces of
mail of she received from Presbyterians and other supporters.

"There were times when the only thing that got me through the day was knowing
how many people were praying for me," she said. "The fact that I knew I
wasn't forgotten in prison made it a lot easier to tolerate."

Huntwork described her camp, an "old, beat up Army barracks," as a "socially
benign" environment where other inmates sang to her on her birthday last
month.

"Once again, the U.S. government's strategy has backfired, in terms of
deterrence," she said.

White was arrested once before during a protest at Fort Benning. Last year's
arrest was Huntwork's fifth. Neither received prison time in connection with
the previous arrests.

Two Presbyterian ministers arrested during the 2001 protest - the Rev. Chuck
Booker-Hirsch, of Ann Arbor, MI, and the Rev. Erik Johnson, of Maryville, TN
- served six-month prison sentences for trespassing.

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