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	Southwest Weekend of Witness 1
Reverend John Fife on Moral Implications of Torture		Dr Kathy Norgard on Psychological Effects of Torture

SWW / Southwest Weekend of Witness took place 17 & 18 November 2007 in Tucson and at the gates of Ft Huachua, AZ - home of the Army Intelli- gence Center and school for interrogators in the war on terror.  Ft Huachuca is also where curriculum and instruction design is developed for the notorious WHINSEC - Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas and bluntly described by many as the School of the Assassins.

John Fife is now Reverend Emeritus of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson after leading that congregation for many years going back to the 1980s and the Sancuary Movement.  In his address at the SWW Teach In at Pima Community College (thanks to Dean Muir) he details the nature of the policy of torture and condemns those that initiated, participated in & perpetuate these gross crimes against US and international law - indeed, against humanity.

Dr Kathy Norgard is a psychologist who has been focused in recent years on the effects of torture not only on victims, but perpetrators, witnesses and the society in which these degenerate offenses are committed.  Her work is closely associated with support and recovery of torture victims throughout the world - a world in which 3 out of 4 countries practice torture on those they percieve as enemies or threats... usually their own people struggling for self determination.

Rick Ufford-Chase conducted the Teach In at Pima Community College, additional activities Southside Presbyterian and following that, led an all night vigil at the Tucson Federal Building.  He was founder and for many years the Executive Director of Border Links.  He has also recently served as moderator of the 216th Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and is now ED of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

SWW is an effort involving faith, human rights and pro peace activists to bring public attention to the indefensible and increasing use of torture as a tool of policy by the Bush administration and public pressure upon our cowardly and corrupt congressional representatives to uphold their oaths of office and enforce accountability on an executive branch gone mad.  2007 marks the 4th year that Tucson based activists and others have brought their protest to the gates of Ft Huachuca in support of the long established and growing movement spearheaded by School of the Americas Watch to shut down the School of the Assassins in Ft Benning.

Last year, Fathers Vitale & Kelly "crossed the line" to deliver a letter of protest and demand to end torture to Army Intelligence Center commander, General Barbara Fast - that same General Fast that was head of all intelligence operations in Iraq at the time of the Abhu Ghraib debacle.  They were promptly arrested and are now serving five month sentences in federal penitentiaries as prisoners of conscience.  RFS! taped the 2006 events and the program can be viewed here.

This year three activists - Father Jerry Zawada, Betsy Lamb, and Grant County resident Mary Burton Riseley - similarly crossed the line to demand an end to torture in our names and those of all Americans.  They have been similarly dispatched to Federal Court and both Lamb & Zawada are being held without bail as a consequence of having conditions prohibiting their actions placed upon them from other pending cases.

RFS! taped The Teach In, Procession &  Vigil and protest.  More programs on SWW will be posted in coming weeks.  Please visit again.

Click here to watch or here to listen.

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