Monthly Archive for November, 2012

Courtroom scene when David Coombs played a Quantico video. Sketch by Clark Stoeckley.

Accused Army whistleblower Bradley Manning testified on November 29 and 30 at a motions hearing for court martial proceedings in Quantico, Virginia. It was the first time he spoke in public since his arrest and imprisonment 917 days ago in May 2010.

Manning testified about the abusive treatment he was subjected to in captivity, in support of a motion to dismiss the charges against him or at least mitigate any punishment should he be convicted.

from Save Jeju Now

[Nuclear Resister editors’ note:  This is the latest of many ongoing acts of resistance to the construction of a naval base on Jeju Island, Korea.]

On November 28, in response to the news that the Jeju Naval Base project budget for 2013 – 200,900,000,000 Won – was passed completely without any cuts by the National Assembly and the majority holding Saenuri Party, Jeju citizens, villagers and activists rose up in anger with direct action. Three people were arrested.

Two vehicles were parked in front of the gates to the naval base site and people chained themselves underneath. At one gate, Anglican priests held a prayer service and at the other another person climbed on the roof of a van, wrapping himself in barbed wire. People surrounded the vehicle with their bodies, firewood, junk and whatever else they could find as usual. Soon hundreds of police arrived. They surrounded the Anglican prayer service so that they couldn’t leave and join the other gate’s struggle. Then they moved to the main gate of the construction site.

from Leonard Eiger

My Dear Friends,

Let’s start with a definition.

Sabotage: Destruction of property or obstruction of normal operations, as by civilians or enemy agents in time of war (Free Dictionary). Destructive or obstructive action carried on by a civilian or enemy agent to hinder a nation’s war effort (Merriam – Webster).

It appears that the U.S. Attorney’s office is hard at work trying to figure out the most expeditious way to get Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli of the Transform Now Plowshares to cop a plea and get them behind bars with a minimum of public attention. Hmmm… wonder why???

Nashua Chantal just before his arrest at Ft. Benning. Photo by Ann Dowling/SOA Watch

Mass funeral procession and die-in commemorated the victims of SOA/WHINSEC violence and U.S. militarization

from SOA Watch, November 18, 2012

Columbus, Georgia – The largest annual anti-militarization gathering in North America took place in Columbus, Georgia, from November 16-18, 2012.

Nashua Chantal of Americus, Georgia, who stood in silence with the message ‘Study war no more’ painted across his face during the symbolic funeral march, crossed the line onto the military base. The base is home to the US Army School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC) in 2001, a training facility that has turned out some of Latin America’s most notorious killers and continues to be implicated in human rights abuses today. Nashua Chantal was arrested after he crossed over the barb-wired, and is currently in the custody of the military police. He will be arraigned in federal court and is facing up to six months in federal prison for his courageous act of civil disobedience.