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Robin Lloyd's Statement PDF Print E-mail
Judge, I took my step 'across the line' as a world citizen, as you can see from the document in my file: a "World Citizen's Arrest Warrant" for the Director of WHINSEC. This was the reason why I entered the base. In addition, this World Citizen passport and world identification card confirm my identity as a registered world citizen. (He asks to see them). I have not claimed this identity lightly, and I want to point out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), ensures the right of every person to claim this citizenship when it states "everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized."

I'd like to tell you a bit about my personal motivation and family history. Ninety-one years ago, in 1915, after war had already broken out in Europe, my grandmother, Lola Maverick Lloyd, crossed the Atlantic with 47 other women. They joined hundreds of women from European countries - many of whose husbands and sons were killing each other - to offer mediation to the warring states and to try to stop World War 1. They did not succeed, but formed an organization that is vitally alive to this day, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, of which I am an active member.

Lola and her co-worker, Rosika Schwimmer, were convinced that nations are the cause of war, and that some supernational organization was required to prevent future wars. In 1937, they launched the Campaign for World Government to promote this objective. My father became the organization's first director. My aunt, Mary Maverick Lloyd, took over the Registry of World Citizens from world citizen Garry Davis, who created it in the late forties. So you see that my claim of world citizenship has a long family history.

Prior to my arrest in November, my only experience in advocating actively for international law occurred in 1984, when I was a defendant in a trial in Vermont called the Winooski 44. We occupied our Congressman's office for a weekend because he was unwilling to even meet with us in a public forum to discuss the violence in Central America funded by American tax dollars and in many cases perpetuated by graduates of the SOA. However, the judge in the case allowed the necessity defense - which acknowledges that minor laws such as trespassing, can be broken when there is an imminent larger danger. He also allowed international law to be presented in the courtroom. In fact an informative book called Por Amor del Pueblo discusses the trial at length. I will send you a copy? The jury heard several compelling weeks of testimony from refugees from El Salvador, professors of International Law, and persecuted church people. What an education! The jury took a few hours to deliberate and acquitted us!

So, Judge, I am troubled by the decision of this court that finds International Law irrelevant. I am especially disappointed that you denied without hearing the 'Motion for Ruling on Evidence for Defenses of International Law' written by the SOAW legal collective which I believe has been submitted to you for the last several years, and which I personally found to be very compelling.

While I am not formally educated in the law, from the reading I have done, I understand that the Supreme Court has declared that "International Law is part of our law", and, as recently as 2002, the 9th circuit declared that "complicity with torture is a violation of International Law." President Bush talks about our Constitution being 'the supreme law of this land', but the facts on the ground show that he believes in the rule of force. This directly contradicts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says, for example in Article 6: "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." (Even in Guantanamo!) And in Article 5: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The operative words there are NO ONE. Then there are the Nuremberg Decisions which define crimes against humanity and war crimes. Among other things, this includes inhumane acts done against a civilian population. As you may know, the US was the prime mover behind these Principles. These Principles were so central to the Nuremburg tribunals that Nazi officials were hung in Germany for violating them.

I believe you have seen on the SOAW website the lists of hundreds of Colombian SOA graduates who have committed massacres, torture and gross human rights violations. Clearly these are crimes against humanity. WHINSEC is not only complicit in these crimes but gives them official sanction by welcoming criminals back to their school.

The good news from my perspective is that International Law is being increasingly acknowledged and implemented in other countries. For example, the former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, is presently being held in house arrest. The winds of change are blowing toward justice!

When the names of the dead and murdered are read in our funeral procession and we respond, "Presente," it is humanity and its laws we affirm and honor!

As a world citizen, I urge you to acknowledge these laws in your courtroom.
 

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