Chicago nun sentenced for protesting at Georgia military base

By JOE BIESK, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - For Sister Kathleen Desautels, crawling around Fort Benning's front gate with a symbolic foam coffin was more than civil disobedience - it was her burden.

So last November, the Chicago-based Roman Catholic nun dressed in a black funeral shroud and joined with fellow activist Mary Dean and nearly 10,000 other peace protesters at the Georgia Army base to call for the closing of the former School of Americas, a training school for Latin American soldiers.

They believe the school - which was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - is nothing more than a breeding ground for violence. "There's sort of a burden in knowing, because you cannot not do something," Desautels said. "You write your letters, you call your Congress people, you go and you visit them and they don't listen and so sometimes then you have to take another step."

Desautels, 64, and Dean, 37, also of Chicago, were among 43 protesters arrested at the base Nov. 18 and later charged with trespassing.

On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Mallon Faircloth in Georgia sentenced 37 of them to federal prison time ranging from three to six months.

Desautels and Dean said they carried the fake coffin through a ditch, crawled through the woods and around the fence. They said made it about 200 yards onto the base before military police arrested them.

The two women were back in Chicago Tuesday and met with their supporters at an Illinois School of the Americas Watch rally.

Critics claim the school has graduated brutal military leaders linked to murder, torture and other human rights violations. The U.S. Army says the school tries to instill democratic principles in its students.

"What we'll go through in prison is really nothing compared to the suffering that people in Latin America have gone through," Dean said.

Protesters have gathered in front of the base every year since 1990 to speak against the school. Other Catholic nuns have served time in prison for trespassing at the Georgia military base.

The demonstration is an annual event featuring black-clad protesters who participate in a mock funeral procession to commemorate the 1989 deaths in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests they say that School of the Americas graduates killed.

This was not the first time either woman has been arrested for trespassing at the base. Desautels said this was the fourth time she has trespassed there and the second time she has been arrested.

Dean said this was her second arrest at the base.

Despite their six-month prison sentences, Desautels and Dean say they remain undeterred in their efforts.

Both women are waiting to hear when and where they can begin their prison stint.

Unlike Desautels, Dean also owes the government a $1,000 fine.

"It certainly is in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Civil disobedience, he did it and they crucified him for it," Desautels said. "I'm getting off easy here."