Dayton Pledge of Resistance
Margaret Knapke
                                                                                                                                                                 

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PRISON SENTENCE

SOA-10, 2000

In March of  2000, 10 SOA Watch human rights activists were tried before Judge Hugh Lawson in the Middle District Court of Georgia for repeated nonviolent protests at Ft. Benning, Georgia -- home of the SOA.  They were sentenced in June.  Nine received prison sentences and fines, and one probation and a fine.

 

A Matter of Heart:  Artists for Human Rights in Latin America
evolved as a conscientious response to  Margaret's fine.

  

 Do The Right Thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Margaret's 

Margaret's friends retrieved her from prison on October 27, 2000. She had served 3 months.  From left to forward: David, Beth, Margaret and Patty.

 

 

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                               www.resistersbook.org
From Warriors to Resisters:
US Veterans on Terrorism
edited by our very own Margaret Knapke

Personal narratives by eleven U.S. vets
who explain their awakening to the reality
of U.S. foreign policy and why they became
resisters.

Read the Book     Purchase the Book
 

Trial Statements

 Court Statement; Sentencing Statement
Essays from Prison Journal Entries; The Facts of This World; Fencing; Razorwire; From the Underside
Letters from Prison August 6, 2000;  August 19, 2000;  September 9, 2000
Other Writings

 


 "From Warriors to Resisters: US Veterans on Terrorism" (2002/2005)
Baghdad is Burning - a poem (Apr 2003)  
Holy Trinity Lenten address: From Violence to Peace (Mar 2003)
 Four Blue Benches  - the painting and its story (Dec 2002)
Plan Colombia:  ¿Plan de Muerte o Plan de Vida? (Nov 2002)  
Reflections on 9/11:  Waking the Body Politic (Sept 2002)
On the 20th Anniversary of the Massacre at El Mozote
Touching El Salvador (July 2001)
Remarks from Debate with former SOA Commander (April 2001)
Contact me at... margaretknapke@earthlink.net

 

Selected Quotes from Margaret's Essays:

.....practice putting faces on all the stories you hear.  Put faces on the soldiers you
hear about; put faces on the Iraqi children, their parents and grandparents, the 
aunts, uncles, shopkeepers, nurses, and farmers.  Let them be real to you, because 
they are real.  Their lives and deaths matter to God; they should matter to us, too.
                                                                                               (Knapke on Violence)

.....only a "tough love" of our country can suffice today -- because merely sentimental
love leaves us quietly complicit with abusive policies, and ultimately vulnerable to
those who would resort to acts of terror.   
                                                                                               (Knapke on Sept. 11)

.....Clearly the Atlacatl Battalion, the Salvadoran Army's crack unit which conducted
the [El Mozote] massacre, had been indoctrinated well -- so well that they could
look at those children and see an aspiring Red Menace. Lessons in dehumanization
learned all too well.  [Of the] 66 Salvadoran soldiers...positively identified as having
been involved in human rights abuses,....47 of those soldiers had been trained at the
US Army School of the Americas (SOA).  Among those 47 cited graduates, we find
10 soldiers cited for the atrocity at El Mozote.  
                                                                                               (Knapke on the massacre of El Mozote)

....grassroots Colombians describe Plan Colombia as un Plan de Muerte, a Plan
of Death. This view happens to coincide with major human rights reports issued
by Amnesty International, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights,
Human Rights Watch, the Washington Office on Latin America, and numerous
church groups.  
                                                                                               (Knapke on Plan Colombia)


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