Richmond freedom fighters continue to push the struggle forward! On Nov.6, rebels from Richmond's 804Noise Collective held a secret show in the VCU library $tarbucks. While the Nov.9 anti-war protest was happening downtown, members of the black community and anti-racist whites once again protested in opposition to the fascist World Church of the Creator's organizing attempts in the community. With anti-racist opposition always outnumbering the supporters of the WCOTC it seems the score is set at Community 2, Fascists 0.

Every year dedicated crew of folks from Richmond travel to Fort Benning, GA to protest the School of the Americas. Click on the links below to read a firsthand account and view photos from Richmond IMC reporter Jen Lawhorne. As well our comrades at the Atlanta IMC have provided extensive coverage on the SOA protests.
[ Jen's Article | see photos from the protest | check out the Atlanta IMC for breaking news ]

On Nov. 9th, 750 people from around the state of Virginia manifested a strong force of opposition to the US government�s plans for a war. In a state that is home to the Pentagon, numerous US military bases, and weapons manufacturers, people of conscience, freedom fighters and community organizers gathered at Richmond Coliseum�s Festival Park to show dissent to the Bush adminstration�s drive toward a full out war on Iraq.

People from Food Not Bombs chapters across the state provided a delicious meal while colorful banners and signs made for a beautiful show of resitance. A warm sunny autumn day accomodated the march, which went through downtown Richmond by the offices of the conservative Richmond Times Dispatch [1, 2], and onward to the state capitol. A diverse spectrum of voices and opinion made for an inspiring and powerful demonstration against profit-driven US foreign and domestic policy, the illegal occupation of Palestine, and the system of global capitalism that the US imposes upon people the world over.

Speakers from groups such as Richmond Food Not Bombs, The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, National Organization of Women, The Muslim Student Association, and many more called for an immediate end to the war mongering of the US government. Free Palestine Now, a local group which is in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for independence, displayed Palestinian flags and a banner which called for an end to the occupation. The Better Days Collective, a local anarchist group, held a banner that declared, �Neither Their War Nor Their Peace. Overthrow The Status Quo� and distributed a leaflet with the same title. A Food Not Bombs activist going by the name Incoquistada (meaning unconquered) published and distributed a Demand For Justice.

This day was an amazing success for the Coalition To Stop The War In Iraq and certainly has created a momentum that will be felt statwide. For more info about the coalition contact a16rva@hotmail.com. For more detailed accounts of the protest and photos, click on the links below. For more anti-war action, get yourself to Charlottesville on Wednesday, Nov.20!
[ Coverage by IMC reporter Jen Lawhorne | Coverage by IMC reporter Luther Blissett | Extensive Audio Coverage by Harm*Stryker ]

�All of the things you are going to hear about going on in Palestine; all of these things you support. You are paying for the Israeli occupation with your tax dollars, which the U.S. gives to Israel, who turns around and spends it at major corporations, like Caterpillar, General Electric and Lockheed Martin.�

This is how Mark Lance of SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now) opened this past Wednesday�s Free Palestine Now event, �The Palestinian Struggle.� To read more about the incredibly informative and moving evening, click here.

On Wednesday, Nov.13th, FPN will join with universities and colleges from all over the country in launching divestment-from-Israel campaigns, demanding that their campus end all investment from the Israeli economy. That evening at 7pm in the VCU Student Commons, FPN will be holding a meeting to collectively decide in what shape thiscampaign will take.
[ visit FPN!'s website for more info ]

Recently the oft quiet city of Richmond, Va. has been bustling with radical activism and organizing. Plans for a Nov. 9 march on the state capitol to oppose the war on Iraq are bringing people conscience, freedom fighters, and critically minded folks out of the woodwork. The march is planned to begin with a 2 p.m. rally at Festival Park. If you are interested in taking action to stop the war, Saturday meetings of the Richmond Anti-War Coalition are convening every weekend up to the march at 2 p.m. at the Pace Center.

On Tuesday, Oct. 8 survivors of sexual assault and their allies held a Take Back the Night rally at the Virginia Commonwealth University Commons and an energetic march that followed took to the streets to protest the global pandemic of rape and sexual assault. After the march �officially ended,� anarchist feminists and Richmond radicals continued the march to local fraternity houses.

On Wednesday, Oct. 9, the Rural Justice Tour came to the Pace Center and educated Richmonders about the struggles for land and freedom in this hemisphere. Members of the Brazilian landless Movement, Indigenous Peoples Without Borders from Mexico, and a rural justice organizer from Venezuela spoke eloquently about their struggles and the need for international solidarity.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, Richmonders memorialized the freedom fighter Gabriel �Prosser,� an African slave who planned the largest slave uprising in Virginia history. Due to a sudden and massive thunderstorm, the uprising faltered and authorities caught wind of the rebellion�s plans. �Prosser� was hung in Richmond on Oct. 10, 1800 and today his body is buried beneath a parking lot downtown. Councilman Sa�ad El-Amin is calling for an official memorial to honor Gabriel. Local white supremacists turned out to protest and antagonize Richmonders who attended to commemorate Gabriel �Prosser.�

William Mendoza, Colombia citizen and president of a labor union representing Coca Cola workers, appeared in Richmond Tuesday evening to tell about Coca Cola's implication in murdering unionists in his home country. Although William Mendoza misses his wife and three children in Colombia, at least now he can rest knowing they're safe since he's not in the country.
[ READ MORE... ]

�It�s like having a stray dog on your porch; it�s something that�s got to go,� said L.J. McCoy, branch secretary of the Chesterfield NAACP in regards to an outnumbered World Church of the Creator as it attempted to meet at Chesterfield Public Library Saturday.

Hundreds of people turned out to make the white supremacy group as unwelcome as possible.

After much debate, the WCOTC was permitted by the board of supervisors of Chesterfield, a county south of Richmond, to use the library to recruit future fascists and to meet at 5 p.m.

According to the WCOTC�s Web site, the organization exists to promote the �advancement of white people� and the �natural superiority� of white people.

A crowd amassed at 3:30 outside the library to oppose the group�s racist foundations, at its height the number of people grew to 300. Church groups, the NAACP, anarchists, activists, local residents and people from Philadelphia milled about the library�s lawn, while 75 individuals stood in line to go inside to attend the meeting; some who waited planned to confront the organization inside while some nervous skinheads impatiently awaited the opening of library doors... [continue reading this story]
[ caine rose's photo documentary | mp3 audio files of protest | photo collage of anti-fascist community members ]

On September 21st at 5:00 PM, the white supremacist World Church of the Creator plans to hold a meeting outside of Richmond in the Chester Public Library in Chesterfield County VA. The WCOTC claims to be the fastest growing white, racist, and anti-semetic church in America. In 1999 one of their members Ben Nathaniel went on a shooting spree murdering 2 poeople and wounding 9 others. However, the WCOTC is not without opposition. This winter in York, PA angry residents and anti-fascist groups from around the east coast attacked them when they attempted they held a meeting in the York public library. Richmond area anti-fascist groups such as RVA Food Not Bombs and The Better Days Collective are planning a festive confrontation with the WCOTC to take a stand against racism, homobohobia, sexism, and fascism.
[ READ MORE... ]

Although the dark sky above threatened buckets of rain, 120 people turned out to rally for Richmond�s Coalition for a Living Wage before joining the city�s Labor Day Parade. The rally convened as part of a stepped-up campaign to pressure city council into granting hundreds of contracted city workers a living wage status.

Richmond currently pays all of its direct full-time and part-time employees a living wage of $8.70 an hour plus health benefits. The RCLW charges that the city gets away from paying hundreds more a living wage by contracting temporary labor services and labor pools to supply underpaid minimum-wage workers for the city.

Mary Lou Decossaux, a coordinator with the RLCW, said such a practice causes serious harm to the city, where one out of every four people live in poverty. �(The city council) doesn�t want people on payroll because they can save money going through labor pools,� Decossaux said during the rally. �They�re using tax dollars to keep people in poverty.�
[ READ MORE... | Rally Photo Collage | Bread and Roses: A Message From The Better Days Collective ]

Story and photography by Caine Rose

Three Richmond activists with Food Not Bombs formed a delegation to join International Solidarity Movement with its Freedom Summer campaign to resist the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The delegation was committed to taking nonviolent direct action against the inhumane occupation and stand as a grassroots media collective to document and expose human rights abuses by the Israeli military forces as well as represent the common voices of the Palestinian people to the world.

On Tuesday, August 7th at 6 AM, a jet touched down on the tarmac at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport carrying among hundreds of others eagerly awaiting entry to Israel, the three Richmonders who had planned for months with much community support from back home. Within minutes of their setting foot on that same tarmac, the mission was realized as having already been compromised. After hours of dizzying rounds of interrogation and body searches, the three delegates were separated and confined to cells, not knowing their fate.

Contact was eventually made, upon demand, with the United States embassy in Tel Aviv via a telephone call placed by one of the Richmonders within the detention facility. An informant had tipped off the Israeli embassy in the States before the delegation had even departed and the Ministry of Interior for Israel were prepared for apprehending the three. No rights were read to the Richmonders and no formal appeal was offered as their laws require. At 6 PM that evening the delegates were escorted by armed guards to a police vehicle and driven to the next departing flight from the airport. Passports were retained by the Israeli police and handed over only to the captain of the airline for the entirety of the flight to London.

The next couple days were spent by the delegation in an attempt to negotiate another way back to the Middle East to join with ISM for the remainder of the Freedom Summer campaign. All roads led to disappointing failure and the delegation was left with little other choice than to return home.

During the same week of the failed attempt of the Richmond delegation to reach Palestine, a US Congressional staff delegation, comprised of American Muslims for Jerusalem and Jews for Peace in Palestine, was denied entry as well. Adam Shapiro, founding member of International Solidarity Movement was also forced to leave Israel after a brutal arrest during a nonviolent demonstration in the Occupied West Bank. Others were assaulted and deported during the same show of solidarity with the Palestinians. What is Israel trying to hide? What is Israel trying to deny?

On Tuesday, August 20th at the Pace Center(700 W. Franklin St.)a gathering will be held to discuss the recent events in Palestine and delegation members will be on hand to answer any questions concerning their ordeal. All are invited to this informal forum at 7 PM to show solidarity with those who suffer at the despotic hand of imperialism in Occupied Palestine.
[ Food Not Bombs of Richmond | International Solidarity Movement ]

Early this August, a delegation from Richmond, Virginia will leave for the Israeli occupied regions of Palestine in order to bring humanitarian relief to the families trapped in military conflict zones, to provide media coverage of human rights abuses, and to take direct action for justice and peace in the Middle East.

The delegation will be taking part in the International Solidarity Movement's Freedom Summer. Modeled after the successful Mississippi freedom summer of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the ISM is inviting thousands of internationals to bear witness to the struggle Palestinians wage daily for human dignity.

Heeding the ISM's call, three Richmond-based activists from Food Not Bombs are planning to join people from all over the world who are converging on Palestine. They are departing on early in August for three weeks to reinforce the work of Palestinians and Israelis against the occupation.

They plan to act as a media collective to provide coverage of the situation and to assist the Palestinians in any way that is deemed safe for them. This will include the use on non-violent direct action tactic to intervene on the behalf of Palestinians. International solidarity activists already in Palestine have been carrying out a number of actions such as riding in ambulances, delivering food to families trapped in their homes by curfews, monitoring checkpoints, and rebuilding areas demolished by the Israeli offensive.

Several Richmond events have been scheduled prior to the delegation�s departure date to help create an awareness of both the mission to Palestine and the reasons behind the mission, including a fundraiser dinner on Saturday, July 27th at 7pm at the Pace Center, where all donations from the meal will go towards both supporting the ISM delegation and contributing to Palestinian medical organizations. There will also be a video showing of "Gaza Strip", a documentary made earlier this year, on Wednesday, July 18, also at 7pm at the Pace Center. The Pace Center is located at 700 W. Franklin, on the corner of Pine and Franklin St.

The more support this mission receives, the more successful it will be in witnessing and challenging the Israeli occupation, oppression, and destruction of Palestine and its people. With the departure date less than a month away, the delegation has an enormous amount of work to do, as well as an ambitious fundraising goal of $6,000. This figure covers not only the bare necessities of travel, but will also include money to be donated directly to relief organizations on the ground in Palestine.

Planning meetings for the mission are held regularly. For more information about them or to get involved in any way, please contact Shawn O'Hern at 643-0196, or email generalstrike17@hotmail.com.

If you would like to donate to the effort, please make checks payable to Food Not Bombs (earmarked Palestine Solidarity) and send to:

Food Not Bombs, PO Box 5688, Richmond, VA 23220

After an intense week of trial preparation meetings, planning, and media work, the trial of 37 human rights activists began on July 8th, 2002 in Columbus Georgia in front of Magistrate Faircloth. Eight Virginians were among 37 human rights activists charged with trespassing for their actions to confront the School of the Americas. The end of the trial found all eight Virginians with sentences of varying degrees, detailed as follows:

Peter Gelderloos of Harrisonburg, and Niklan Jones-Lezama of Blacksburg were both sentenced to six months in federal prison. Peter is in the Muskogee County jail now.

Abi Miller of Harrisonburg, Sue Daniels of Blacksburg, and Nancy Gowen of Richmond were all sentenced to three months in federal prison and $500 fine.

Lee Sturgis and David O'Neil, both from Harrisonburg, as well as Brigid Conarchy of Goochland, were each sentenced to six months probation and $500 fine.

Guide to the above photo of the Virginian SOA affinity group:

Front (L to R): Brigid Conarchy (Goochland, VA), Abi Miller (Harrisonburg, VA), Jenny Schockomoehl (Harrisonburg, VA), Anna Mitchell (Harrisonburg, VA), Elspeth Gilmore (New York) Back (L to R): Jamie Miller (Harrisonburg/Nicarauga), Dave O'Neill (Harrisonburg, VA), Lee Sturgis (Harrisonburg, VA), Brandon Passmore (Goochland, VA), Peter Gelderloos (Harrisonburg, VA), Summer Nelson (Montana)
[ For details on the whole trial, including the moving testimony of the defendants, please read the complete IMC article. | Virginian defendants updates ]

Eight Virginia Human Rights Activists Stand Trial for Civil Disobedience at School of the Americas

Trial Starts Monday, July 8 in Columbus, Georgia

Eight Virginia residents are among thirty-seven human rights activists will stand trial in federal court next week for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Columbus, Georgia. They were among 10,000 who gathered last November to call for the closure of the notorious school. The defendants peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning, site of the school. They are charged with trespass and face up to six months in federal prison and $5,000 in fines. Trial is scheduled to start July 8 before Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth in Columbus.

The eight Virginians are long time social justice organizers.Brigid Conarchy Goochland, VA, 23, Catholic worker with Little Flower Community in Goochland, VA. Niklan Jones-Lezama Blacksburg, VA, 38, married to Nicaraguan Sandinista. Part of fact-finding delegations. David O�Neill Elkton, VA Organic farmer, mason, and community organizer. Lee Sturgis Elkton, VA Organic farmer, social worker, and herbalist. Peter Gelderloos Harrisonburg, VA 19, anti-sweatshop organizer and journalist on homelessness. Abi Miller Harrisonburg, VA, 23, Involved in a community center, community gardens, and tutoring ESL. Sue Daniels Pembroke, VA, 41, a doctoral student in avian conservation biology. Nancy Gowen Richmond, VA, 68, Member of Pax Christi and Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation.

Five of the Virginia residents are among a group of seven who crossed onto the base in November to deliver an indictment to the personnel responsible for the school, charging them with violation of the US Patriot Act and various international laws. Two of the defendants plan to plead not guilty in an attempt to prove that delivering an indictment should be within the legal rights of any citizen. If they are given prison time, they will use their time in jail to confront the SOA through every possible outlet.

Judge Faircloth is known for giving the maximum of six months to opponents of the SOA/WHISC. Seventy-one people have served a total of over forty years in prison for engaging in nonviolent resistance in a broad-based campaign to close the school. Last year 26 people were prosecuted, including Dorothy Hennessey, an 88 year-old Franciscan nun who was sentenced to six months in federal prison.

�Those who speak out for justice are facing harsh prison sentences while SOA-trained torturers and assassins are operating with impunity,� said SOA Watch founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois.

The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. Its graduates are consistently involved in human rights abuses and atrocities. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated the use of torture, extortion and execution. The abuses continue. Colombia, who currently has the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere, with over 10,000 students, is the school�s largest customer. In April, two SOA graduates, Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, helped lead a failed coup on the democratically elected president of Venezuela. In June, Colombian police arrested SOA graduate John Fredy Jimenez for the murder of Archbishop Isais Duarte in March.

In December 2000 Congress authorized the WHISC to replace the SOA. The renaming of the school was widely viewed as an attempt to diffuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation. SOA Watch maintains that the underlying purpose of the school, to control the economic and political systems of Latin America by aiding and influencing Latin American militaries, remains the same.

Updates on the trial will be posted on the IMC site.
[ organizers | indictment | updates ]