Blind SOA activist chooses jail time

U.S. Magistrate Mallon Faircloth asked 78-year-old Edwin Lewiston if he wanted a sentence of 90 days under house arrest or 90 days in prison.

"Do I have a choice?" asked Lewiston, who has been legally blind since birth.

"Yes," Faircloth replied.

"I'll take prison," said Lewiston, a retired professor of American history at Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.

Four times Lewiston has joined protests at the U.S. Army's Fort Benning near Columbus, Ga. Fort Benning hosts a training school for Latin American soldiers, formerly called the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Graduates of the school have been implicated in human rights abuses in their home countries.

A largely Catholic group, SOA Watch, has been trying to close the school for nearly 20 years. The group holds massive annual rallies that include acts of civil disobedience at the fort on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Four times Lewiston trespassed at Fort Benning, but unlike his fellow activists, he never got jail time. In previous years, the U.S. attorney, without explanation, declined to pursue charges against Lewiston. He said that he felt he was being discriminated against because of his blindness.

The fourth time was the charm, apparently. Lewiston and 10 others were sentenced Jan. 28 for "crossing the line" at the Army base Nov. 18. Lewiston received one of the longest sentences.

"He [Faircloth] did what I needed done," Lewiston told NCR in a telephone interview after court.

Lewiston said the civil disobedience at Fort Benning was "a way of making more people know about [the training school] ... and the more people that learn about it the better" because it would take a mass movement to close the school.

Also sentenced to prison were:

* Joan Anderson, 65, Casper, Wyo.--30 days and a $500 time.

* Ozone Bhaguan, 33, Duluth, Minn.--90 days.

* Le Anne Clausen, 29, Chicago--30 days.

* Art Landis, 74, Perkasie, Pa.--30 days.

* Chris Lieberman, 54, Albuquerque, N.M.--60 days.

* Tiel Rainelli, 25, Canton, Ohio--90 days and a $500 fine.

* Gus Roddy, 45, Chicago--30 days and a $500 fine.

* Stephen Schweitzer, 45, Binghamton, N.Y.--60 days and a $500 fine.

* Michelle Yipe, 45, Argonia, Kan.--30 days and a $500 free.

Faircloth allowed 10 of the defendants to self-report to jails and prison at a later date. Pax Christi USA board member Diane Lopez Hughes, 58, a Catholic nurse of Springfield, Ill., opted to go straight into jail to serve her 45-day sentence. She was fined $500.

[Patrick O'Neill writes from Raleigh, N.C.]

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