SOA WATCH: Father Roy, Lisa Sullivan, Father Luis Barrios and other Speaking Tours

Fund the campaign to close the SOA! Donate Now. Educate and Organize your Community! Speaking Tours in the Lead-Up to the November Vigil Hosting a speaker in the lead-up to the November 20-22 Vigil to Close the SOA, mobilizing your friends to a speaking event that is already planned or organizing a film screening is a great way to educate and activate community members in your area. Check out the list of upcoming events below. If you would like to host one of the speakers/performers listed below, please contact them with your interest. Hector Aristizábal Hector is a native of Medellin, Colombia and currently lives in California. Hector is a long time SOA Watch activist, who has been part of the Puppetistas for several years. His commitment to the human rights work forced him to leave his country in 1989 due to death threats. He is an actor and a practitioner of the techniques known as Theater of the Oppressed. Hector Aristizabal performs Nightwind, a harrowing solo performance in which he re-enacts his own arrest and torture by the SOA-trained military in Colombia. For more information and to invite Hector, contact him at (626) 221-7710 or visit www.ImaginAction.org Rev. Luis Barrios, SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience Rev. Luis Barrios is speaking to communities about the School of the Americas and the SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras. He also talks about his experience crossing the line at Ft. Benning, being convicted of trespassing and becoming a prisoner of conscience. The Rev. Luis Barrios, Ph.D., is a professor at John Jay College in New York. He is also the chair of the Department of Latin American & Latina/o Studies. Since 1988, Dr. Barrios is a columnist of El Diario La Prensa in New York City, one of the oldest Spanish newspapers in the United States. In addition, Rev. Barrios is an associate priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in West Harlem, New York City. He is an active member of IFCO-Pastor for Peace Board of Director. You can contact Luis Barrios at LBarrios@jjay.cuny.edu or (212) 237-8747 for more information or to invite him to speak in your community Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M., SOA Watch Founder Fr. Roy has returned from an SOA Watch emergency response delegation to Honduras and is on the road to talk to communities in the lead-up to the vigil. Hear Father Roy speak from personal experience why the SOA/ WHINSEC has to be shut down and get updates about the situation in Honduras. Father Roy has spent over four years in US federal prisons for nonviolent protests against the training of Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Father Roy will be speaking in Vermont, New York, Ohio, Arizona, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Click here to see Father Roy's speaking schedule. Simón Sedillo, community based human rights film-maker Sedillo has been active in the campaign to close the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) for many years. He shares some experiences and perspective on the implications of the people's struggle in Oaxaca, Mexico. Through lectures, workshops, and screenings Sedillo helps open a space for dialogue on the effects of neoliberalism on indigenous communities in Oaxaca, immigrant communities around the world, and communities of color in the US., to share, teach, and learn from one another, about popular community based resistance and the collective construction of horizontal networks of popular power. For more information visit www.ElEnemigoComun.net. If you are interested in hosting an event at your University or community center, please contact: elpinchesimon@yahoo.com Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch Latin America Coordinator Lisa is on a month-long speaking tour. Lisa visited Honduras and was able to attend a meeting with President Zelaya a few weeks prior to the coup of June 28 and returned to Honduras shortly after the military coup to accompany human rights organizers in the streets. Lisa has lived in Latin America since 1977. She worked for 21 years as a Maryknoll lay missioner in Venezuela and Bolivia, and currently lives in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. As the Latin America Coordinator, Lisa has led numerous delegations to Latin American countries to meet with political officials and social movement leaders throughout the region. Lisa will be speaking in Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, California, Washington, Oregon and Florida. Click here to see Lisa Sullivan's speaking schedule. Cecilia Zarate-Laun, Colombia Support Network Cecilia was a member of the SOA Watch Advisory Group. She was born and raised in Colombia and graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1966. She co-founded the Colombia Support Network (CSN) in 1988 to address U.S. foreign policy toward the war in Colombia and to help foster a national solidarity movement in the U.S. with the Colombian people. She has been active with CSN since its inception and has been the Program Director since 1997. Throughout that time, she has spoken and written extensively on the violence in Colombia. SOA Watch is currently working with CSN and others to stop the expanding U.S. military involvement in Colombia. Click here to support the efforts by sending a letter to your Representative. You can contact the Colombia Support Network at (608) 257-8753 In October, activists with Rights Action will be on speaking tours in Ontario, Quebec and eastern Canada (and parts of north-east USA), showing slides and short documentaries and speaking about the on-going pro-democracy, anti-coup movement in Honduras, and about indigenous and community resistance to Goldcorp Inc.'s open-pit, cyanide leach mines in Guatemala and Honduras. Karen Spring will be traveling in Ontario; Francois Guindon will be traveling in Quebec and eastern Canada; Grahame Russell will be in the north-east USA. For more information: info@rightsaction.org. Mobilize your community for the November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas Organize a film screening in your community. Order the DVD Compilation of Films to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC and to Change Oppressive U.S. Foreign Policy. The DVD features twelve of the some of the finest films on the School of the Americas and the movement to shut it down. The compilation includes eight English and four Spanish short films and is an excellent resource for both those who are new to SOA Watch and those who are long-time supporters of the movement. The following films are on the compilation DVD: English Guns and Greed Nightwind The New Patriots Journey to Awareness An Insider Speaks Out Prisoners of Conscience Trailer for El Enemigo Comun Español Protesta en Colombia Armas y Avaricia Un Instuctor Denuncia Buy the DVD: Order it now for only $17 plus $3 shipping and handling You can send a check or money order to: SOA Watch P.O. Box 4566 Washington DC 20017 or click here to order the SOA Watch DVD compilation online. We appreciate your interest! You are subscribed to this list as david.chirot@gmail.com. Click here to unsubscribe. Contact us. Our mailing address is: SOA Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, D.C. 20017, USA Our telephone: (202) 234 3440 Click here to fund the campaign to close the SOA.