News Briefs

Prison Conference Held This Weekend

This weekend, American Friends Service Criminal Justice Program and Oberlin student activists will host the Ohio Prison Activist Conference. The on-campus conference serves as an educational and organizational seminar for Ohio's professional and student activists.

The conference begins with Discovery channel documentary, "Lock Up/ Lock Down." The newly released film contrasts the super-maximum security Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown with an intensive treatment program for violent prisoners in a San Francisco jail. The movie will be followed by a discussion lead by Youngstown attorney Alice Lynd. Lynd has closely monitored conditions at OSP since its 1998 opening. Oberlin student activists have worked with cases of excessive use of force on OSP deathrow.

The conference, projected to attract over 100 area activists, will continue Saturday with workshops and a lunch provided at no additional costs for participants. Workshops will address issues ranging from women in prison to violence alternatives programs. Prison privatization and students' role in exposing Sodexho-Marriot's connections with the Corrections Corporation of America will be discussed in an 11:30 p.m. workshop. A panel on Ohio prison activism, including Oberlin activists, former prisoners and the acting director of Prison Advocacy Network of Ohio, will conclude the afternoon's activities.

The conference will close with keynote speaker, Luis "Bato" Taloumantez's, lecture, titled "Prisoner's Rights and Human Rights." Talamantez is a human rights activist, former political prisoner and artist who draws on his own experiences of 30 years behind bars to make change. He and five other prisoners, The San Quentin Six, were tried on 97 felony counts stemming from a 1971 rebellion at San Quentin. The trial, which gained international attention, was, at the time, the longest and most costly in California history. The published poet and artist currently teaches creative writing to prisoners at the San Francisco jail. Friday and Saturday evening's events will be held 8 p.m. in King 106.

Students are invited to partake in all events. There will be a sliding registration fee ranging from $5 to $25, however, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

-Ariella Cohen

Guatemalan Leader Speaks About Witnessing Massacre

Guatemalan indigenous leader Pedro Canil spoke to several groups on campus this week, sharing his account of a 18-year-old massacre in Santa Maria Tzeja.

Canil, who lost his mother, daughter and six of his nieces and nephews in a state-sponsored killing, was moved to tears by the painful memory when speaking to students Tuesday afternoon in "Dirty Wars and Democracy," a class taught by history professor Steven Volk.

Canil witnessed the attack, and was forced to relocate with the surviving members of his community to southern Mexico in order to escape further violence. He is currently serving as a witness in a genocide case brought against former Guatemalan dictator Romeo Lucas Garcia.

In addition to "Dirty Wars and Democracy," Canil spoke to the Oberlin Peace Activists League on Sunday evening and to students in Spanish House on Monday night, managing to raise $345 from student donations as well as an additional $183 at a speaking engagement in Cleveland at the Escuela Popular.

Canil's visit to Oberlin was sponsored by the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala and the Oberlin Santa Elena Project of Accompaniment, a program in which many Oberlin students have participated that sends U.S. citizens to Guatemala to act as human rights watchdogs in indigenous communities.

According to NISGUA, the fact that Canil is bringing a legal case to court against the Guatemalan government for human rights abuses within the country where the crimes occurred may be historically unprecedented.

-Liz Heron