Peace activists turn selves in at McHenry County jail

Peace activists gathered outside the McHenry County courthouse Thursday to offer prayers and support for a pair of colleagues sentenced to a month in the county jail for trespassing on a U.S. Army base.

With a crowd of 20 backers surrounding them, Chicago-area residents Gus Rhoddy and Le Anne Clausen turned themselves in at the jail to begin serving their sentences stemming from a protest last year of a controversial Army school that trains soldiers from Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Ask again when I get out, but right now it's definitely worth it," said Rhoddy, of Evanston. "We're raising awareness about this issue."

The pair were arrested Nov. 28 during a protest of the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, at Fort Benning, Ga. Both were accused, and ultimately found guilty in federal court, of illegally trespassing on the military base.

Critics of the program say its graduates have taken what they've learned there back to their home countries and participated in human rights violations.

"The school teaches torture," said Sister Dorothy Pagosa of Illinois School of the Americas Watch. "When a school is that corrupt, you close it."

Defenders of the institute says its program stresses democratic values and makes human rights a large part of its curriculum.

Pagosa said many members of her group have been arrested and sent to jail for its protests of the school, including herself, but Rhoddy and Clausen are the first to do their time in the McHenry County jail.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons agreed to allow them to serve the sentences in McHenry County because of its proximity to their homes.