Between the Lines.

Dismantling the SOA 

Nearly 4,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., in May to tell President Clinton and Congress that the U.S. training of Latin American death squads must stop. "As we point the finger at Yugoslav leader Milosevic's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the United States must wash the blood from its own hands by shutting down the School of the Americas," said Father Roy Bourgeois, co-director of SOA Watch, which seeks to close the Columbus, Georgia-based U.S. military facility. "We can set the example by ending this murderous chapter in our history."

"The Colombian Army is the cradle of the School of the Americas," said Cecilia Zarate-Laun, co-founder and program director of the Colombia Support Network, a grassroots organization working for peace in Colombia and solidarity between Colombians and North Americans. The so-called war on drugs in Latin America, Zarate-Laun explained, is actually a war against peasants. Supposed drug-war money is spent only to increase military presence in regions with peasant political opposition, she said, and not to stop drug trafficking and traders.

The next day, Monday, May 3, Pentagon staffers were greeted by as many as 1,700 protesters waiting outside their doors. The activists sang and walked around the Pentagon. When they reached the parade grounds, figures representing Clinton, arms dealers, a corporate "fat cat," and the Pentagon danced around a giant skull representing what the protesters called the SOA "death machine." At the edges of the field, demonstrators held signs containing "evidence" against the SOA, such as "State Terrorism in Colombia," "Instrument of torture," and others. While presenting this evidence in a service of remembrance, the "death machine" was dismantled and buffed.

Prevented from entering the Pentagon, many created "marks of death" on the sidewalk by outlining the shapes of bodies with red paint. Sixty people were arrested, most of them charged with defacing property.

Booming Economy a Bust for the Poor

So much talk was on the Dow breaking 10,000 that hardly anyone noticed the decline in net worth of the average worker. A new report, Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap, shows that most households have less net worth than in 1983, when the Dow broke 1,000. Further, the report, published by United for a Fair Economy, found that almost 90 percent of those gains in stocks and mutual funds went to the richest 10 percent of society. Meanwhile, about one of every five households have negative or no net worth, meaning that their debts are greater than their assets. The report shows that the economy has actually been in a state of decline since the 1980s.

For the Forgiveness of Debts

Following the story of Jesus' path to Golgotha, 150 people gathered on Good Friday at the U.S. Capitol for the Economic Way of the Cross. This was no ordinary Stations of the Cross; participants were not dressed in robes or early Roman armor. Instead, each person held crosses with names of Third World countries and the amounts of their international debt. As participants traveled from site to site in Washington, D.C., they called out to the world's business and political leaders to forgive the unpayable debts of Third World nations. When the crowd reached the International Monetary Fund office building, the crosses were laid in front of the entrance. Seven participants blocked the doors and were later arrested.

Praying for Peace in Yugoslavia

Starting on Sunday, May 16, thousands of people of faith around the United States, Europe, and Yugoslavia have held candlelight prayer vigils on local bridges and overpasses as a witness for peace in Yugoslavia, and to protest the violence in the region--whether from NATO, Serb, or KLA forces.

A prayer campaign organized primarily by e-mail brought people out to the Dry Creek bridge in Modesto, California, the Loraine-Carnegie bridge in Cleveland, Ohio, and bridges in Rockford, Illinois; Biddeford, Maine; Canton, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; Evanston, Illinois; and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

"We hope tonight's vigil accomplished two things," said Barbara Shifter, organizer of a vigil in Green Bay, Wisconsin. "We want this to be a public witness to the power of prayer, and a show of solidarity and love for the people of Yugoslavia."

Bridges have a special place in the heart of the Slavic people. They are seen as a link between heaven and earth, a link between those who would otherwise be separated by ethnicity, religion, or race.

Taking Out the Trash

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) revealed in April an alternative to the U.S. government's radioactive waste disposal plans. IEER called for the cessation of work at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The group's president, Arjun Makhijani, considers the two sites to be "technically unsound and politically motivated." IEER has called for increased funding for alternative disposal methods.

Previously, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) agreed to take responsibility for the disposal of waste from nuclear utilities by 1998. To date, DOE has taken no action except an offer to pay for the continuing on-site storage of these wastes. Makhijani does not believe the DOE should be involved in the issue of ongoing waste disposal. "Given the mess that the DOE has made at the nuclear weapons sites and its problems with managing its own irradiated fuel, this would be a grave step backward in nuclear waste management."

Don't Look Now!

project Censored listed the Multinational Agreement on Investment's threat to U.S. sovereignty as the most censored story of the past year. According to alternative media sources, the MAI will give corporations close to the same rights and powers as sovereign nations.

Project Censored highlights stories they believe the public should know about that have not hit the mainstream press. Other censored stories include how Monsanto Company's terminator technology forces farmers to buy seeds year after year; how the U.S. government brings about deaths of Iraqi children through sanctions; and how the U.S. government subverted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with its own underground test.

Newspaper Workers Continue Protest

Continuing their two-year vigil, locked-out Detroit newspaper workers brought their protests in May to the Washington, D.C. area home of Gannett Company CEO John Curley. Gannett owns The Detroit News.

Many community and religious leaders have supported the workers. The Detroit Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church began a boycott of the Detroit newspapers in 1996. During its annual meeting in May, the conference instituted an economic boycott against USA Today, Gannett's flagship newspaper, "to protest the lack of progress in settling the dispute and to press for early resolution." The conference called upon the entire denomination to join the protest. The denomination will decide on the resolution in spring 2000.

The Detroit newspaper strike began in 1995; all workers offered to return to work two years later, but many of their jobs had already been filled. Currently 1,400 workers remain locked out of their jobs at the News and the Detroit Free Press, which is owned by Knight-Ridder.

"We're exploring new strategies and committing new resources to achieve justice.... We're not going away," said Teamsters president James P. Hoffa.