Weekend Voices 9/12/09

Executive Producer/Editor/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded/contributed by John Greenman
Topic: Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, speaking in Maine
Over the years WERU has reported extensively—here on Voices, as well as on RadioActive—on efforts to close the School of the Americas, also known as the school of the assassins. The school is located at Ft. Benning, in Georgia, and in recent years the name has been changed to the Western Hemisphere Institute on Security Cooperation, but critics see that as mere “newspeak”. Soldiers from Latin America that have received training at the school have returned to their countries and committed notorious atrocities, including assassinations, killing civilians and church workers, and engaging in military coups—most recently in Honduras.

In the 1980s SOA graduates engaged in a reign of terror in El Salvador, and drew international attention when they murdered several Priests and their staff, and raped and murdered nuns and Catholic workers. Two of the nuns were friends of Father Roy Bourgeois, a Vietnam Veteran who worked with the poor, in the tradition of Liberation Theology, in Bolivia. In 1990, Father Roy, as he is known, founded the “School of the Americas Watch”, and he has worked tirelessly since that time to make the crimes of the school’s graduates known, and to convince the U.S. government to close it down. With legislation in Congress that may make that goal closer to reality than ever, Father Roy Bourgeois spoke at the University of Maine on Thursday. His talk was sponsored by Maine Peace Action Committee at the University of Maine, UMaine’s Peace and Reconciliation Program, the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, the Jim Harney chapter of Veterans for Peace, PICA (Peace through InterAmerican Community Action), the UMaine Office of Multicultural Programs, Pax Christi, and Peace Action Maine. He’s introduced by Doug Allen of the University’s Department of Philosophy, and local peace and justice groups.
More information about School of the Americas Watch, the legislation to close the school, and the annual vigil that draws thousands every November, is available at www.soaw.org Be sure to also check WERU’s audio archives for reports on this issue that have aired on RadioActive and Voices over the years.

Talk of the Towns 9/11/09

Producer/Host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

Topic: Acadia—one of America’s best ideas

Guests: Sheridan Steele, Superintendent, Acadia National Park, Deb Wade, Chief Interpreter, Acadia National Park, Marla O’Byrne, Friends of Acadia

If, as Ken Burn’s new television series asserts, national parks are America’s best idea, then surely Acadia is a best example of that best idea… give us a sense of Acadia’s history, including the role of early philanthropists who recognized the special qualities of place.

What are among Acadia’s most important assets? What does Acadia share with other national parks, and what makes it stand out in your minds? What are some of the challenges in protecting Acadia’s natural resources?

RadioActive 9/10/09

Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco & Amy Browne

Segment 1: We hear of internationally known speakers and performers coming to Maine next week: Marcela Olivera, a Bolivian water rights activist, and the acclaimed duo “Climbing PoeTree” with their performance “Hurricane Season”, as we talk with organizer Emily Posner. (FMI: defendingwaterinmaine.org , www.climbingpoetree.com)

Segment 2: We look at TABOR II, a so-called taxpayer’s bill of rights that will be on the ballot this November. We’ll speak with Republican County Commissioner Steve Johnson of Colorado about the dire reasons that state repealed a TABOR initiative, and with Rep. Jim Martin, District 18 (Bangor, Veazie, Orono) about the potential impact here.