Peace protesters do time in Georgia jail

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Posted 8:37AM on Sunday, October 13, 2002

CORDELE - Protesters arrested outside a Fort Benning training facility - which critics blame for the cruelty of some of its Latin American graduates - have always been able to do their time at relatively comfortable, minimum-security federal prisons. But Toni Flynn and the Rev. Jerry Zawada, along with a handful of arrested outside the former School of the Americas last November, were sent to rural local jails like the one here in Crisp County, where they are spending six months with thieves and drug abusers. Flynn, a 56-year-old Catholic volunteer from Valermo, Calif., spends her days praying for a peaceful resolution of the Iraqi crisis, doing aerobics and getting used to Southern food. ``I'm learning to love grits and greens, but I'm getting tired of beans.'' Zawada, a 65-year-old Franciscan priest from Cedar Lake, Ind., has lost 30 pounds while praying and fasting for peace. They were convicted of trespassing at Fort Benning, where they demanded the closing of the former School of the Americas. For 12 years, those sentenced on the federal misdemeanor charges have gone to minimum-security federal institutions closer to their homes, where they can kiss relatives and hold babies in visiting rooms. In the Crisp County Jail, visitors are separated from prisoners by glass panes and talk to them on telephones. Flynn and Zawada were among a group of 28 protesters who pleaded guilty or were convicted in July. All but five went to federal institutions. Flynn and Zawada were among three sent to Crisp County. One was later transferred to a federal institution. Two others served three-month sentences at the Harris County Jail in west-central Georgia. Wearing their pumpkin-colored jump suits during a recent jailhouse interview, Zawada and Flynn said they have no regrets. Zawada, who is reading George Orwell's ``Animal Farm'' and Mark Twain's ``Huckleberry Finn,'' said he shares a cell with three other men, including two he refers to as ``the Huck Finns.'' ``I've never felt threatened,'' he said. ``The Huck Finn guys are delightful, but they are very simple. They live in a trailer by the railroad tracks.'' Flynn and Zawada are members of School of Americas Watch, a group that blames the Army's School of the Americas and its successor, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, for human rights abuses in Latin America. The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, said 71 protesters have been jailed for more than 40 years since the demonstrations began 12 years ago. He said he was baffled when Bureau of Prison officials sent some to county jails this year. ``The only thing I can come up with is that they are getting mean,'' he said. But Paige Augustine, a spokeswoman for the bureau's Southeast Regional Office in Atlanta, said federal policies provide for sending inmates serving less than a year to county jails, instead of federal institutions. Such decisions are usually determined by space availability. ``We deal with it on a case-by-case basis,'' she said. ``We may have lots of beds open today and none tomorrow.'' Accommodating Flynn and Zawada has been an ordeal for Crisp County Sheriff Donnie Haralson, but he welcomes opportunities to hold federal prisoners because they mean additional revenue for his rural county. Their supporters, who may have equated Southern jails with chain gangs, bombarded Haralson with hundreds of letters and faxes, questioning the quality of the food and water, the availability of health care, the use of pepper spray to subdue an unruly inmate and the death of an inmate from natural causes. Haralson responded by having his 12-year-old jail inspected four times by the Bureau of Prisons, twice by the U.S. Marshal's Service and once by a jail mediator. ``It's a modern-run facility,'' he said. ``I've shown I'm human and I've done what's right. But I catch the devil both ways. I catch it from the protesters and from the working taxpayers who do not sympathize much with people put in jail.'' Flynn and Zawada are asking supporters on the SOA Watch Web page to stop harassing the sheriff. ``When I leave here, I'm going to write the sheriff and let him know I support anything that's restorative to human beings,'' she said. ``It would be so easy to say the sheriff is the bad guy, but he's a human being, too.'' Haralson said he's adjusted to the new prisoners and they seem to have adjusted to his jail. ``They've backed off and they're not viciously attacking me as a person,'' he said. ``I drink the same water ... and have eaten the same food that they do.'' A volunteer with a Roman Catholic worker community and prison ministry in southern California's high desert, Flynn is about 3,000 miles from her four grown children on the West Coast and will miss the birth of her first grandchild this month. ``I am heartbroken that I was not transferred to California,'' she said. ``I would plead with the Bureau of Prisons to consider the hardship on my family. I have not had one visit from a family member or my Catholic workers. No one can afford the $700 plane ticket.'' Zawada, who has worked with victims of torture, said he was shocked when he learned that he would do his time in south Georgia. ``I felt it would place an unfair burden on my family ... and my Franciscan community,'' he said. The sheriff's office and jail are located in a boxy, single story brick building that sits in the middle of a clearing surrounded by pine trees. A chain-link fence topped by razor wire encloses a recreation yard on one side. The average jail population is about 175, Haralson said. ``The women are my sisters in here,'' said Flynn, a psychiatric nurse. ``I know firsthand what it feels like to be alone and despondent in jail. I hopefully am making a difference. They certainly are making a difference in my life.'' Flynn said the Baptist ``preacher women'' who visit are inspiring. ``They are lights,'' she said. ``It's given me a renewed motivation for prison ministry when I return home.''