http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2006c/081106/081106o.php
 
Peace group under FBI surveillance 
By LINDA COOPER and JAMES HODGE
School of the Americas Watch, a faith-based peace organization that seeks to
close a U.S. military school that has advocated the use of torture and
assassination, finds itself under surveillance by the FBI’s counterterrorism
unit.
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who founded the organization, recently
told members of the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva that the spying
has been going on for years.
And he has the documents to prove it.
With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, Bourgeois obtained FBI
records showing it has been targeting his organization, which monitors the
U.S. military school for Latin American officers, now called the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The group organizes an annual
November protest against the school in Fort Benning, Ga.
What is chilling, Bourgeois said, is that the surveillance continues despite
the fact the FBI’s own documents conclude that SOA Watch is a peaceful
group.
An Oct. 14, 2003, field report advises FBI headquarters that SOA Watch
leaders “have taken strides to impart upon the protest participants that the
protest should be a peaceful event.” A Dec. 29, 2003, document says,
“Overall the crowd was peaceful in their actions and the SOA Watch leaders
appear to foster that type of environment.” A Nov. 30, 2004, document
states, “This year’s protest was peaceful as it has been for the most part
over the past 15 years.”
Despite these assessments, said Gerry Weber, the ACLU’s legal director in
Georgia, the FBI surveillance of SOA Watch, once classified as “routine,”
somehow became “priority,” subjecting the group to monitoring by the
counterterrorism division.
The FBI denies it monitors political activity. But Weber said the bureau has
“made no allegations of wrongdoing” against SOA Watch activists, aside from
civil disobedience, leading one to conclude that the FBI is “identifying
groups opposed to the administration’s policies as potential threats.”
“It’s become clear to me,” Bourgeois said, “that any person or organization
critical of U.S. foreign policy becomes the enemy, is seen as subversive, as
a possible terrorist.”
SOA Watch is often characterized as a grass-roots movement with a large
faith-based constituency, including the support of hundreds of priests, nuns
and lay Catholics, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and the
Presbyterian General Assembly.
Bourgeois told U.N. committee members that it was “a scandal” that the U.S.
government was squandering “time, money and resources” infiltrating and
spying on a peace group, rather than investigating the military school, its
use of torture manuals and “the heinous crimes of its graduates, who have
caused so much suffering and death in Latin America.”
The ACLU hosted the panel of Americans in Geneva, which also included women,
minorities and immigrants allegedly victimized by the government. The U.N.
committee is reviewing U.S. compliance with a major international human
rights treaty.
The redacted FBI documents, which can be found on the ACLU’s Web site at
www.aclu.org/spyfiles, have the names of FBI personnel blacked out, as well
as those of informants and SOA Watch demonstrators.
The documents note the news coverage that the activists receive, as well as
the annual growth of the demonstrations, which drew an estimated 19,000 last
year.
The Dec. 29, 2003, memo registers the effect that stiffer fines and prison
terms have had on the group, saying the immediate jailing of trespassers
“has had a chilling effect on those deciding whether to participate in an
overt act of civil disobedience.”
Weber said the ACLU sees no indication the surveillance will stop anytime
soon, as it’s difficult to challenge it in court.
Bourgeois said he wouldn’t be surprised if the spying increased, given the
recent successes of the movement. In March, after he led delegations to meet
with Uruguayan defense minister Azucena Berrutti and Argentine defense
minister Nilda Garré, both governments announced they were severing their
long ties to the school.
Their decisions came two years after Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez made
the same announcement six weeks after meeting with Bourgeois’ delegation.
The priest has also appealed to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is
expected to make a similar announcement.
On the domestic front, SOA Watch and its network helped Massachusetts
Congressman Jim McGovern get legislation cutting the school’s funding to the
House floor.
The June 9 showdown was the first time in six years that the issue was
brought to a vote. While the measure failed by a 218-188 margin, school
critics were encouraged that the issue had garnered 29 Republican supporters
and that only 16 more votes are needed to pass the measure.
The developments on Capitol Hill and in South America have fueled the
movement, Bourgeois said, making it less vulnerable to FBI intimidation.
The spying, he said, is an abuse of power and “a clear attempt to stifle
political opposition, to instill fear. But we aren’t going away.”


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