Young and Radical

Charity Ryerson
Going to Jail for the Cause
Part II 

STEVEN HIGGS / The Bloomington Alternative 14sep03

[More below]

Five days before Charity Ryerson surrendered herself to the minimum security Federal Prison Camp at Pekin, Ill., she spoke nonchalantly about the six months she would serve for cutting a padlock during a protest at the School of the Americas. Curled up on the couch in The Bloomington Alternative office, Ryerson was unapologetic about her crime, and seemingly unphased about her time.

"Personally, I'm going to put this on my resume," she said. "I'm not going to decide that I want to join corporate America and have this thing erased. It's part of my lifelong commitment to activism. …

"There's a girl who just got out of the jail I'm going to. I got a letter from her, and she said I'd probably have to work in the welding shop. I'll be carrying around metal. I'll be the tool girl for a month or something. It sounds really boring."

As her first month as federal prisoner #91335-020 drew to a close, 21-year-old Ryerson was no less sanguine when she wrote the Alternative in mid-August: "It's not quite as easy here as I'd hoped, but I'm almost through my first month. I'll certainly come out unscathed."

Unscathed, perhaps, but not unaffected - and apparently not undeterred in her mission as a social justice activist. Ryerson's note was accompanied by a stack of material she had already gathered on "mandatory minimums." She promised to send information on the "prison industrial complex."

Included in the information packet were articles on the crushing impacts that federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in drug cases have on the lives of people like fellow Pekin inmate Diana Webb.

A former attorney from Kansas City, Mo., with no criminal record, Webb is serving 150 months in prison for Conspiracy to Manufacture Methamphetamine, even though no drugs were ever produced, and her three co-defendants initially provided sworn testimony that she was not involved.

Webb's co-defendants included a man who never did a single minute of jail time for forcing his way into her house and beating her with a baseball bat and a tire iron. He and his colleagues received reduced sentences of 46 to 60 months in prison in the drug conspiracy case after they changed their stories to help prosecutors convict Webb.

"This gives a little background on one of the appalling cases in here," Ryerson wrote. "Since she was an attorney, she has the best documentation of her case, but I don't think that this is isolated."

"Anyway, tons of women here with tons they want to say but nobody hears them. Congress ignores them because they're felons and can't vote. The media pay little attention. They feel very isolated and don't know how to get their stories out. It's strange how trapped one can feel in a prison with no fence."

In some ways, Charity Ryerson's prison term is the fulfillment of a career goal. The Indianapolis native turned Bloomington activist has been committing acts of civil disobedience for a variety of social justice issues since she was 19.

While attending school on a full scholarship at Loyola University, Ryerson was the eighth member of the "Loyola 7," who were arrested while protesting economic justice issues at Nike Town in the Chicago loop. "It was supposed to be the Loyola 8," she said. "I just sat there, and they arrested everyone around me. They wouldn't arrest me."

Ryerson had twice before joined the thousands of protesters who, since 1990, have annually converged on the U.S. Army's School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., a/k/a the School of the Assassins. The SOA is a U.S. government-sponsored terrorist training camp for military thugs from Latin America and other Third World countries. Its alumni include former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and the 1989 killers of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. The protest is held on Nov. 17, the anniversary of the Salvadoran slayings.

"This was my third year going down," Ryerson said of the 2002 SOA protest. "I had crossed the line before, but there were too may people that year, so I didn't get arrested. They just bused me off and dropped me off."

Led by New England priest and SOA Watch founder Father Ray Bourgeois, the SOA protests have grown steadily and raised awareness about the U.S government's complicity in human rights violations worldwide. Last year's drew more than 7,000 protesters, 96 of whom were arrested, including seven nuns and 10 minors.

Ryerson said that after 9/11, the U.S. Department of Defense, which had assumed control over the SOA and renamed it the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, erected a fence to keep the protesters from entering the base.

"They put up this stupid little fence that sort of goes down to this creek," Ryerson explained, "and all the nuns go down and wade through the creek to get around, and it's kind of a pain if you're old and all that. So we decided to cut this lock on this little pedestrian gate, to sort of push the envelope."

Logistically, cutting the bolt made it easier for elderly protesters to enter the base, Ryerson said, and it may have prompted more people to do so.

"But also, it sort of radicalized the movement a little bit," she said. "The SOA movement isn't really radical. It's very religious and sort of spiritual. It's a lot of prayer and singing. The actual civil disobedience is a funeral procession. It's really very Catholic. What we wanted to do was to push the envelope and make it a little more radical."

The other half of the "we" Ryerson referred to was her partner Jeremy John, a 22-year-old Bloomington activist who brought the bolt cutters and busted the lock and is likewise serving six months in federal prison in Terre Haute.

The 86 adults who were arrested were prosecuted for Class B and C misdemeanors of trespassing. Ryerson and John were also charged with trespassing and destruction of federal property, an A misdemeanor.

Charity Ryerson may be only 21 years old, but she has a solid grasp of the role that nonviolent civil disobedience has played throughout American history. She cites a litany of examples, from the Boston Tea Party to the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th Century.

"People act like this sort of radical action is something new or something atrocious," she said. "Well, that's not true. It's been happening and happening and happening throughout history. And it's been a really important part of history. A lot of people think that the civil rights movement would have gone through just fine had no one pushed the envelope."

Indeed, Ryerson sees radical action through creative, nonviolent civil disobedience as a legitimate, necessary component of the 21st Century global struggle for social, environmental and economic justice. And, based on her first-person observation of repression in the Mexican state of Chiapas and her experience as a student organizer against the World Bank, Ryerson argues the times demand it.

"I don't know what else to do," she said. "When I think about the stuff that I know we have been doing for so long with our foreign policy, and what we've been doing in Latin America, what we've been doing in Southeast Asia with our sweat shops and with Free Trade, and with Plan Colombia and the Drug War, and obviously I can go on and on and on forever."

As she prepared to become one of the statistics, Ryerson also pointed out that the United States has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. And more than half, 58 percent, are imprisoned for nonviolent crimes - like Diana Webb.

"That's way above and beyond Russia and other places that have high percentages in prison," Ryerson said. "And so, we've got this huge clamp down by our government on the people, and I just feel like it's tightening and tightening and tightening. And if we can't finally wake up and see what we're doing to the rest of the world … "

She cited the impact of the decision to "push the envelope" at last year's SOA Watch protest as an example of the power of civil disobedience.

"We've gotten a lot of media coverage for this. When I think of the number of people who know what the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is, just in Indiana, and consider that there were 86 people prosecuted from all over the country. …"

"I would guess that because of the two of us, maybe 500 people - not including media coverage, the people that read the articles - know about it that didn't before. When your friend goes to jail, or a friend of your friend goes to jail, or your client's daughter goes to jail - it's like those links seem sort of insignificant, but they're not. They're actually huge."

"When I think about the effect that one stupid little padlock has had, I mean, it's ridiculous. That padlock cost 12 dollars, and look at the impact."

To keep her scholarship at Loyola, Ryerson would have to return to school upon her release from prison in January. Chicago in January, two weeks after classes started? Perhaps not, she says. "I'll probably just hang out down here."

She and John will be on probation for a year and will not be allowed to leave their hometowns without permission. But Ryerson does not see that as too inhibiting a factor in her work.

"Yeah, we're kind of at their mercy," she said. "So that's kind of irritating. But, at the same time, there are a lot of things to do without breaking the law. I've been very busy for the past two years being an activist, and I've never … I guess I've broken the law a few times, but I haven't actually been caught."

And there's no lack of issues to work on, she says, "There's tons, and I'm sure I can easily go a year working my ass off without getting arrested and get good work done. Personally, I'm really drawn to the I-69 thing. When I get out, I'm really excited about that."

"So, at least for me, there's a bazillion issues. And radical action is almost, I mean, it's urgent, it's necessary, it needs to be happening more."

Steven Higgs is editor of The Bloomington Alternative.

source: http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/subscribers/news.php?topicid=358 14sep03

IU Senior, Hoosier Freed from Jail After Protest

Indianapolis Star 22nov02

Bloomington—Two Bloomington residents were released from jail Tuesday after being arrested in connection with a protest at Fort Benning, Ga., about a U.S. military school that trains Latin American soldiers.

Jeremiah Matthew John, 21, an Indiana University senior, and Charity Ryerson, 20, Bloomington, were among nearly 100 demonstrators, including several nuns, arrested Sunday.

John and Ryerson could face jail for destroying and trespassing on U.S. government property.

More than 6,500 protesters—including dozens of students from Indiana schools—had gathered for the 13th annual demonstration organized by the School of the Americas Watch. The group conducts the protests to mark the killings of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador on Nov. 19, 1989. Some of the killers had attended the Army's School of the Americas, which was moved from Panama to Fort Benning in 1984.

Congress closed the School of the Americas last year, and it was replaced by a Department of Defense school called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

"They do this every year, and it's absolutely legal," said Lee Rials, spokesman for the institute. But at least 85 demonstrators were arrested, he said, because "these people trespassed onto Fort Benning after being told they could not make political statements on military reservations."

This year, several protesters also cut a dead bolt on the fence to enter the fort. Those who allegedly trespassed were taken to Muscogee County Jail in Columbus, Ga. Most face up to six months imprisonment.

A jury trial for Ryerson and John is scheduled for February, Ryerson said.

source: http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/6/002745-1736-009.html

A Real Patriot

FRAN QUIGLEY / School of the Americas Watch 22jan03

For someone just 20 years old and talking about the prospect of spending 18 months in federal prison, Charity Ryerson seems pretty matter-of-fact. She discusses her plans to have books shipped to her over the course of her sentence and the arrangements to take correspondence courses from prison. All things considered, she says, this is not a bad period in her life to be serving time.

If asked, though, Ryerson admits her mother has shed a few tears. There are times when Ryserson herself can scarcely believe what is facing her just a few years after graduating from Brebeuf Jesuit High School.

“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and say to myself, ‘I’m going to prison.’ And then I have to think, ‘OK. Breathe ... Breathe.’” But Ryerson insists such anxious moments are rare, and quickly resolved when she revisits the reason for her sacrifice. “It helps a lot to realize that one and a half years in federal minimum security prison is not the same as spending one and a half years in a Latin American community where School of America graduates inflict terror on the people.”

Ryerson and Jeremy John, 21, both Indianapolis natives now living in Bloomington, face trial on Jan. 21 on charges of trespass on federal property and destruction of property. The allegations are based on events that occurred during the annual protest to close the U.S. Army’s Fort Benning-based Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of Americas (SOA). Ryerson and John are charged with cutting a padlock off a fence to allow other protesters to enter the Georgia base.

(Actually, John is charged with destruction of federal property while Ryerson faces a nearly-identical “aiding and abetting” charge. “I don’t know why they charged me with just aiding and abetting,” Ryerson says, rolling her eyes. “It’s probably because I’m a girl.”)

The School of Americas has a half-century of history as a training ground for some of Latin America’s most notorious war criminals, including Panama’s Gen. Manuel Noreiga, the assassins of El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero and two Guatemalan dictators accused of genocide. The curriculum sponsored by the U.S. Army included manuals on beatings and executions and medical doctors who instructed SOA students on torture techniques. School of Americas graduates have been implicated in the murders of thousands of civilians, including six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador in 1989.

The anniversary of those killings is commemorated each November with a non-violent protest outside Fort Benning, attended this past year by some 11,000 people, many bearing crosses with the names of civilian victims of SOA graduates. Eighty-six of those protesters, including Ryerson and John, face trial later this month on federal trespass-related criminal charges.

In the Hoosier tradition of Eugene V. Debs, who famously insisted that he could not be free while anyone is in prison, Indiana is well-represented in the dock. Sister Adele Beacham, 74, and Sister Rita Gerardot, 76, both of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, face six months in federal prison for walking onto the base grounds. Sister Kathleen Desautels, originally from Indianapolis (“Nun Faces Prison,” NUVO, June 26, 2002), and Father Jerry Zawada, originally from East Chicago, are still serving sentences for trespassing during the November 2001 protest.

More necessary than we think

Ryerson, who twice attended previous SOA protests without being arrested, says civil disobedience is a vital component of a movement that has come as close as five votes away from having the U.S. House of Representatives stop funding for the SOA’s successor. “There are all sorts of different resources we are using in this effort: While we are getting arrested, there is a bill going through Congress every year [most recently H.R. 1810, which counted Rep. Julia Carson (D-Indianapolis) as one of its 112 co-sponsors]. Thousands of people are writing letters, and of course there is the mass mobilization every November.

“But civil disobedience is often more necessary than we think it is. Education is probably the most important and hardest step in any kind of effort to make social change, and civil disobedience really helps with the education piece,” she says. “If I wasn’t going to prison, I wouldn’t be doing this interview with a newspaper. I have friends and family who have never been politically active at all who are now incredibly mobilized. Multiply that by 96, the number of people arrested this past November, and that’s enormous.”

Ryerson is a student at Loyola University in Chicago and a national campus coordinator for the World Bank Bonds Boycott, which aims to reform the institution whose debt policies cripple developing countries. She views her activism and impending prison sentence in the broad context of flawed U.S. foreign policy. “I consider the SOA to be the military arm of the World Bank in Latin America,” she says. “I am doing this not just for Latin American SOA victims, but also for people working in sweat shops in Asia. I am really protesting U.S. foreign policy worldwide.”

That foreign policy presents an ironic twist to opponents of the SOA. The Bush Administration is using opposition to terrorism as justification for preparing for war with Iraq, all the while refusing to shut down a U.S. institution that has nurtured Latin American terrorists. Anti-SOA activists also face a post Sept. 11 citizenry with newly energized pro-USA sentiments. But Ryerson says that a time when flag decals are again in vogue presents the perfect chance to demonstrate the true meaning of engaged citizenry.

“A real patriot is someone who appreciates the positive things about their country and the standard of living in their country, but also can criticize and make sacrifices for social change to make their country one to be proud of,” she says. “My sacrifice is for a much greater cause than my own comfort, and I’d do it again in a second.”

source: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=558 14sep03