Senior Activists Protesting SOA Gain Temporary Reprieve

Model Citizen: Senior Laurel Paget-Seekins smiles, as all five charges were dropped for her protest of the School of the Americas. (photo by Liz Fox)

Seniors Laurel Paget-Seekins and Rebecca Johnson are not going to jail. Not yet, at least.

Paget-Seekins and Johnson, both members of the School of the Americas Watch, were two of over 420 people arrested for protesting July's Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Their protest demanded the closure of the SOA, which they believe breeds notorious human rights abusers in Fort Benning, GA.

Also, the city of Philadelphia public defender selected Paget-Seekins' and Johnson's as a test case in an attempt to have all the charges dropped for those who protested the Philadelphia convention. "I think the public defender chose ours because it was the clearest in terms of being non-violent," Paget-Seekins said.

Although the trials for those arrested are still underway, all charges against Paget-Seekins and Johnson have been dropped as of Monday Nov. 6. Paget-Seekins was arrested for obstructing justice, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, obstructing a highway and conspiring to obstruct a highway. Johnson was arrested on the same counts save disorderly conduct.

The judge chose to drop the charges because he claimed the protesters were arrested due to the content of their speech, not the manner in which they conveyed their message. "It was very obvious we were arrested selectively," Paget-Seekins said.

Johnson, responding via e-mail from Woods Hole, MA., said she felt ambivolent about the dismissal of the charges against her. "We got so much media coverage for the action itself, I felt like we could have got a lot out of a trial as well," she said.

While Johnson and Paget-Seekins have avoided the prospect of imprisonment for the time being, the two are contemplating a Winter Term project in which they would travel to Fort Benning for a month-long vigil outside the SOA base, culminating in a march on the grounds on the final day of the vigil. While entering the grounds of the SOA base would not result in arrest for most, both Paget-Seekins and Johnson were banned from the base for five years last November for leading a march onto SOA grounds.

"It's going to take a lot of thought to decide whether I want to graduate from Oberlin then spend the next three months in federal prison," Paget-Seekins said. "It would be worth it only if we got a lot of media attention and were able to reach out to more Americans about what's happening and how the U.S. is putting non-violent demonstrators in jail."

Johnson said what she considered atrocities committed by the SOA make it possible for her to accept the possibility of jail.

"By doing nothing, by passively accepting the situation, I contribute to the torture and murder of Latin Americans. As a pacifist, as a human, I cannot accept that," she said.