Jane Hosking and John LaForge to begin 6-month sentences April 11

 
LUCK, Wisconsin -– Jane Hosking, 38, and John LaForge, 50, both Luck area residents of Anathoth Community Farm, will report to federal prison on Tuesday, April 11 to begin serving 6-month sentences for their of nonviolent civil disobedience opposing the controversial US Army’s School of the Americas (SOA). Hosking of the Anathoth Community Farm, and LaForge, a staff member of the peace group Nukewatch, were among 37 people arrested at theFort Benning military base in November of 2005 and later sentenced in a federal court. Hosking will report to FPC Pekin, IL, and LaForge to the Duluth FCI.

 Click on read more for prison addresses for John and Jane and how to send them money for stamps.

“Torturing prisoners is a barbaric crime that free people should interfere with,” LaForge said. “At trial, I reminded the Magistrate that he wouldn’t allow our ‘defense of necessity’ –- that our trespass was done to prevent torture. “The irony is,” LaForge said, “that, Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Attorney General’s office advised President Bush August 1, 2002, that torturing prisoners overseas ‘may be justified,’ and that the doctrine of ‘necessity could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability.’ The government wants us to believe that torture is legal but interfering with torture is not.

The SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, made headlines in Sept. 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. Despite having been investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants inEl Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA in 2003.

 In March, two South American countries sent a strong message of support for human rights and military accountability by ending all military training of their troops at the controversial school.Argentina and Uruguay become the second and third countries to announce a cessation of training at the SOA/ WHINSEC. In January of 2004, Venezuela announced that it would no longer send troops to train at the school.

The decisions of the South American countries and the prison sentences of Hosking, LaForge and their co-defendants come at a critical time in the campaign to close the U.S. Army institution. Legislation introduced last year by Rep. McGovern (D-MA) that would suspend activities at the SOA/ WHINSEC and call for a review of foreign military training inLatin America will come to the floor for a vote as early as May. The bill currently has 127 bi-partisan co-sponsors.

Last November 19,000 people –- including many Wisconsin residents -– gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning, home of the SOA/ WHINSEC, to call for the closure of the school. The annual Vigil has grown from a dozen people in November of 1990 to last year’s record numbers.

 SOA Watch, founded in 1990, is a national, grassroots organization committed to nonviolence.  SOA Watch has held a demonstration at the main entrance to Ft. Benning each November since 1990 calling for the closure of the training facility

John LaForge: 03213-090
FPC Duluth
Federal Prison Camp
PO Box 1000
Duluth, MN 55814

Jane Hosking: 05331-090
FCI Pekin
Satellite Camp
P.O. Box 5000
Pekin, ILL  61555  

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Federal Bureau of Prisons
[name and number, above]
P.O. Box 474701
Des Moines, IA 50947-0001