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SOAWatch brought nearly 20,000 people from all over the US to Fort Benning last Nov. 19-20 to demand the closure of SOA/WHINSEC, where the US military trains Latin American soldiers. Photo by Linda Panetta. |
School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) (http://soaw.org) is a nonviolent grassroots movement working in solidarity with the people of Latin America to close the School of the Americas (SOA) and change oppressive US foreign policy. The US Army founded SOA in Panama in 1946 to train Latin American military officers; the school was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1985. In 2000 the Department of Defense took it over and renamed it the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). Over the years, SOA graduates have notoriously been found responsible for massacres, coups and torture. SOA Watch was founded in 1990 after SOA graduates directed the murder of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador. Each November since 1990, SOAWatch has organized a vigil at the gates of Fort Benning to commemorate that massacre and demand closure of the institution. The Muste Institute became the sponsor for the educational work of SOA Watch in December 2004.
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In this photo from Artists Against the War’s Disarming Images project, marchers hold signs based on Picasso’s famous Guernica painting at a mobilization against the Iraq war on March 20, 2003, in New York City. Photo by Carole Ashley. |
Artists Against the War (http://aawnyc.org/) was organized in New York City just before the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In 2005 the group began preparing Disarming Images, a multimedia presentation demonstrating the breadth of creative resistance to the war on Iraq. Produced as an hour-long tri screen video projection in DVD format with text in English, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, the project was completed over the summer of 2005 and has been shown in 15 public venues: from the tent at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas to the Resistance Film Festival in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The Muste Institute became the sponsor for Disarming Images in July 2005, and has expanded the sponsorship for 2006 to cover Artists Against the War's other projects, including a planned book version of Disarming Images.
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Climate Crisis Coalition members in Montreal for the Day of Action to Stop Global Warming on Dec. 3, 2005. Photo by Liz Veazey. |
Climate Crisis Coalition (http://climatecrisiscoalition.org/) was formed in early 2004 to coordinate efforts among environmental, peace and justice, labor, student and other groups to address the issue of global warming and impending catastrophic climate change. CCC became a sponsored project of the Muste Institute in June 2004, and by December 2005 its network had grown to include 70 groups around the country. Last Dec. 3, a Day of Action to Stop Global Warming, the Coalition facilitated 40 actions in the US, while at least two Coalition activists joined a 30,000-strong "Global March for the Climate" in Montreal during the UN Climate Conference there. CCC activists also helped coordinate a press conference in Montreal where they presented the People's Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, with 40,000 signatures, to the US Consulate General. The Montreal events garnered worldwide media attention.
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A DRUM Family Organizer at a March 2005 demonstration in Queens, New York, organized by Immigrant Communities in Action, a coalition effort by DRUM and other immigrant groups. Photo by DRUM. |
DRUM - Desis Rising Up and Moving (http://drumnation.org/) was founded in 1999 in New York City as a low-income South Asian community organization for social justice. DRUM's Immigrant Justice Program works to build power and leadership among immigrants and families facing detention and deportation, and to organize against anti-immigrant policies that affect low-income South Asian communities. The YouthPower! program works to develop sustained leadership among low-income South Asian and Muslim new immigrant youth through training programs and organizing campaigns. DRUM's Third World Resistance project builds strategic alliances with anti-war and racial justice movements nationally and globally. The Muste Institute began sponsoring DRUM in December 2005.
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In July of 1966, A.J. Muste and others in the peace movement tried to arrange visits to North Vietnam to witness the extent of civilian casualties caused by American bombing raids. Their personal telegrams to the General-Secretary of the North Vietnamese Peace Committee were reported verbatim by an unidentified Western Union employee to the National Security Agency, which forwarded the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It's a chilling reminder that the recent uproar over NSA surveillance of people's personal correspondence is not exactly a new tactic in the government's approach to "protecting national security."
We first wrote to the FBI on August 3, 1998, requesting A.J.'s files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FBI's office for handling FOIA requests responded by informing us that the file appeared to be over 10,000 pages. So we asked them to leave out any public information like news clippings, leaflets and flyers gathered from activist groups, and just send us FBI documents such as surveillance notes, informant reports and agency memos.
In 2002, we received our first box from the FBI: over 1,000 pages detailing A.J.'s activism in the 1940s and 1950s. Several more boxes followed over the years, and we now have more than 3,500 pages spanning three decades of surveillance. The most recent item is the 1966 telegram to the North Vietnamese Peace Committee, which came to us last month as part of four pages released by the NSA's Central Security Service in Maryland. Most of the other files consist of eyewitness accounts—written by informers posing as activists—of meetings, demonstrations and other events, with occasional memos about internal meetings or private conversations. Because FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with the "threat" of communism, much of A.J.'s file is focused on his ties to alleged communist organizations, as the agency desperately tried to paint movements for civil rights, nuclear disarmament and civil liberties as controlled by the Communist Party.
Perhaps the most baffling item in the files is a memo (see image) from the FBI's New York office to headquarters, noting that A.J. Muste died on Feb. 11, 1967 at the age of 82. After running through a quick summary of his activism, the letter goes onto a second page to note that "in view of the above, no further action is contemplated... and the case on A.J. MUSTE is being placed in a closed status." The memo is dated April 6, 1970—more than three years after A.J.'s death.
-Murray Rosenblith
The Muste Institute's Sheilah's Fund East, which has been supporting active nonviolence in Latin America since 1999, has now been renamed the NOVA Fund and will expand its grantmaking in 2006 and 2007. The fund gets its new name from the shorthand term used by Latin American groups for "No-Violencia Activa" (Active Nonviolence). The fund was originally named to honor the donor, although grant recommendations are made by an associate of the Muste Institute with years of experience supporting Latin American nonviolence work. Pleased with the success of the fund's first six years, the donor has now reiterated her commitment with a gift of $150,000 for 2006 and 2007 (a 50% increase in funding), plus additional support for several new special programs to be announced soon.
From September 2005 through the end of the year, Sheilah's Fund East made four grants:
Hogar Comunitario Yach'il Antzetic (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico): $3,000 for activities promoting the health, well-being, rights awareness and self esteem of single pregnant women and single mothers and their children in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
International Development Exchange, IDEX (San Francisco, CA): $1,000 for representatives of Guatemalan grassroots groups to participate in the 5th Annual Solidarity Economics Gathering in Chiapas, Mexico in November 2005. http://www.idex.org
Oficina del Monseñor Samuel Ruiz (Mexico City, Mexico): $2,500 for efforts by the office of Samuel Ruiz, retired bishop and honorary president of the Secretariado Internacional de Solidaridad (SICSAL), to promote peace, justice and human rights in Mexico and throughout the world.
Servicio Paz y Justicia, SERPAJ (Buenos Aires, Argentina): $2,000 to help the Argentina office of SERPAJ recover from a vandalism and theft break-in last November 8. http://www.serpaj.org.ar
ASSOCIATION
FOR COMMUNITY REHABILITATION AND DEVELOPMENT (ACORD)
Sialkot, Pakistan:
$1,000
ACORD was organized in 2005 in the Sialkot district of Punjab, Pakistan,
to assist community members with vocational skills, health awareness and other
issues. This grant goes for Women's Rights Awareness Training Program, educating
women in villages and slum areas of Sialkot about their rights.
CENTER
FOR STUDY OF WORKING CLASS LIFE
Stony Brook, NY: $1,000
The Center
for Study of Working Class Life, based at the State University of New York (SUNY)
at Stony Brook, is producing a 27-minute documentary about the visit of senior
Iraqi labor leaders to 26 US cities in June 2005. This grant goes for promotion
and distribution of the documentary, titled "Meeting Face to Face: Iraqi Labor
Leaders Tour the US." http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/wcm.nsf
CHIAPAS PEACE
HOUSE PROJECT
Santa Cruz, CA: $2,000
Chiapas Peace House Project is
a two-year old center for education and solidarity in the southern Mexican state
of Chiapas, working to raise awareness of the impact of globalization and militarization
on indigenous and other communities. This grant goes for the Oaxaca Project, setting
up a similar solidarity center in the neighboring Mexican state of Oaxaca. http://www.chiapaspeacehouse.org/cs/
COALITION AGAINST
MILITARISM IN OUR SCHOOLS
South Pasadena, CA: $2,000
Started in 2003
by activists working against the US war in Iraq, CAMS seeks to inform students,
educators and the public in the greater Los Angeles area about the growing militarization
of schools, and to provide nonviolent alternatives and resources. This grant goes
for the Youth Projects, supporting young people's efforts to develop and expand
anti-militarist resources, including brochures, posters, peace clubs and workshops.
http://www.militaryfreeschools.org/
FLAGSTAFF NEW
DAY PEACE CENTER
Flagstaff, AZ: $2,000
Founded in 1996 as the Northern
Arizona Peace and Justice Coalition, this group changed its name in 2005 to the
Flagstaff New Day Peace Center. Our grant goes for "Exposed in Kingman," a photo
and oral history exhibit coordinated with the Mohave County Downwinders, raising
awareness about the effects of nuclear testing on residents of Mohave County,
Arizona, and supporting their struggle for justice. http://www.flagstaffpeace.org/
PRISON ACTION
NETWORK
Albany, NY: $711
Members of a support group for friends and
relatives of incarcerated people started the Prison Action Network in 2003 to
address the impact of the criminal justice system on prisoners, families and communities.
This network of organizations and individuals now produces a newsletter and weekly
radio program on criminal justice and prison reform. Our grant goes for efforts
to expand the network by bringing in a faith-based organization.
| The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute makes small grants to groups doing nonviolent organizing for social change. Our next deadline for proposals is July 21, 2006. To read our grant guidelines, click here. |
