ja_mageia

November 18-20, 2011

Stand Up for Dignity, Justice, Solidarity and Self-Determination

Shut Down the School of Assassins and Resist U.S. Militarization in the Americas

Click here to see the Workshop Schedule.

SATURDAY STAGE PROGRAM

(Stage is located on Fort Benning Drive)

11:30 SOA Watch Musicians Collective —Our movement has been fueled by gifted and generous musicians from across the Americas.

11:55 Welcome and Words of Solidarity, Father Roy Bourgeois, Vietnam veteran, Purple Heart recipient, a Roman Catholic priest and founder of SOA Watch. He has spent four years in prison for nonviolent protests against the SOA.

12:00 Former SOA Watch Prisoners of Conscience—300 SOA Watch activists have been sentenced to prison and probation for nonviolent resistance actions to expose the horrors of the SOA and to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Latin America.

12:05 Llatasujyo, a musical group based in Atlanta playing the music they grew up with—Andean music. Andean music originated in the central Andean region, homeland of the Inca people.

12:15 Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaños is a Costa Rican lawyer. He has litigated in promoting the Right to Peace, achieving constitutional recognition in 2008, and successfully force the Supreme Court to withdraw Costa Rica’s support for the invasion of Iraq.

12:20 SOA Watch Musicians Collective

Music and culture is an integral part of SOA Watch gatherings as a rich source of challenge and inspiration to us all.

12:35 Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based worker organization whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout Florida.

12:45 Francisco Herrera - Francisco’s songs capture the vitality of the immigrant experience, stories of faith, love and struggle.

12:50 Las revolucionarias/the womyn revolutionaries - a group of young and inspired womyn singing accapella soul/folk/roots music.

12:55 Emily and Pedro Guzman - Pedro was detained for 19 month at the Stewart Detention Center (a for profit immigrant prioson in Georgia). His wife Emily and their young son Logan were deprived of their husband and father and Pedro's story has been in national newspapers as an example of the unjust and inhumane immigration system in the U.S.

1:00 Legislative Update: Over the next months, the 2012 election campaigns will heat up: a critical time to approach candidates at campaign events and to make our opposition to the bipartisan US foreign policy heard.

1:05 Omari Fox, New Danger Collective - the New Danger Movement is a play on the historical identification of the perceived “threat” that artists, thinkers, and change agents pose to the system.

1:10 U.S. military veterans are on the forefront of the struggle to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. Veterans have fasted, organized, marched, hung uniforms and other military items on the fence, crossed the line to carry the protest onto the Fort Benning military base, and served jail time.

1:15 SOA Watch Youth and Student Caucus: The United States is seeing an upsurge in youth-led action. Young people are leading the Occupy movement and are fighting for social justice and against militarization.

1:20 Elise Witt is a singer who was born in Switzerland, raised in North Carolina and since 1977 has made her home in Atlanta, Georgia.

1:25. Charlie King and Prince Myshkins—Charlie is a musical storyteller and political satirist. Prince Myshkins is a folk duo that combines guitar, accordion and witty, original lyrics.

1:30 Mario Joseph, Haiti’s most prominent human rights lawyer, has led the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince since 1996. Attorney Joseph and the BAI represent political prisoners and victims of political violence, and fight to make Haiti’s justice system work for poor people.

1:35 Son Solidario, a collective of several Son Jarocho groups from all over the U.S. Son Jarocho is a traditional musical style of Veracruz, Mexico—a fusion of indigenous, Spanish, and African elements.

1:45 SOA Watch Musicians Collective: In Pete Seeger’s words, “SOA Watch is the singingest movement since the Civil Rights movement.”

1:55 María Christina Herrera, the co-director of Trabajo Cultural Caminante, has worked for over 35 years with rural and urban communities in Mexico and the United States. Last year, her brother was among more than 50,000murdered in the drug war in Mexico.

2:05 Emma’s Revolution—the duo of award-winning, activist musicians, Pat Humphries & Sandy O. This is their tenth year at the Vigil.

2:10 Jani Silva, a community organizer who has been promoting human and civilian rights in her home community of La Perla Amazonica, Putumayo, Colombia for 30 years

2:20 Jon Fromer is an award-winning singer/songwriter whose music is a special blend of folk, blues and country.

2:25 Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP passed a national resolution in 1998, calling for the closure of the SOA.

2:30 Dr. Luther Castillo Dr. Luther Castillo is a young, Afro-indigenous Garifuna doctor and community organizer. He is the founder and director of the First Popular Garifuna Hospital of Honduras. Since the SOA graduate-led military coup in 2009, Dr. Castillo has been active in the anti-coup resistance and he and the hospital have been subject to many threats of closure and other attacks by the military and coup government.

2:35 Colleen Kattau—progressive folk rock colored with south-of-the-border beats and socio-enviro-fem-conscious compositions.

2:40 Nelly del Cid works with Feminists in Resistance in Honduras, who are deeply concerned about the escalation of violence in Honduras since the SOA-led military coup, and the huge number of femicides (violent murders of women motivated by gender discrimination)

2:50 SOA Watch Labor Caucus - Union organizers are among the primary targets of SOA violence in Latin America. SOA graduates have been directly responsible for slaying striking workers and union organizers, and SOA torture manuals identified union organizers as potential subversives and targets.

2:55 SOA Watch Musicians Collective

3:15 Keish Kim, a 20-year old undocumented student, who works with the Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance (GUYA). We recognize the SOA/ WHINSEC and unjust immigration policies as parts of the same racist system of violence and control.

3:20 Quinto Imperio: a Chicago south side cumbia group, founded by three young brothers with the help of their father. This energetic group also mentors children and adolescents in their neighborhood and actively involved in the immigration reform movement.

3:30 Fr. Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch founder

3:35 Pageant with the Puppetistas: Artists are a tremendously important part of the movement to close the School of the Americas. Art and activism is an effective combination that is able to reach people on a different level and moves them to take action.

4:00 General Assembly – The Occupy Wall Street Movement vocalizes some demands of the 99%. A General Assembly will take place on the entrance to Fort Benning.

SUNDAY PROGRAM

(Stage is located on Fort Benning Drive)

7:45am Veterans for Peace and friends will gather at the Columbus Inn (3170 Victory Drive) to march together to the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. Join the march!

8:45 Veterans Cadence to Close the SOA

9:00 Buddhist Drumming with Peace Pilgrimage—Nipponzan Myohoji

9:10 Musicians Collective

9:25 Indigenous Blessing

9:35 Nonviolence Guidelines

Solidarity statements by the Sisters of Mercy, Simón Sedillo and Cristy Ayala

9:55 SOA Watch Musicians Collective

10:15 Jimena Paz, a young members of the Honduran Resistance who has lost friends to the SOA-led repression campaign and was part of the organizing of the SOA Watch Encuentro Venezuela

Martin Sheen, an American actor who has appeared in a wide variety of productions on stage, screen, and television. He is a tireless activist for social and environmental causes, and has taken a leadership role in the campaign to close the SOA. He has crossed the line onto Fort Benning and risked arrest in protest against the School of the Americas.

Father Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch Founder

In Honor of the Victims: No Más, No More

10:35 Commissioning of Funeral Procession

Puppetista pageant and commemoration of the victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.

1:15pm SOA Watch Musicians Collective, afternoon program with Pedro and Emily Guzman, Silvia Brandon-Pérez, Christian Estrada, Walker Grooms, George Martin & others

2:00pm Closing