NATION

National Catholic Reporter, April 13, 2001 by Gill Donovan

"There's no question but what pain that's been caused to the victims is still going on. Frankly I cannot overlook that," the judge said after rejecting the plea agreement of 90 days in the county jail and five years probation.

After the judge's ruling, Horace Patterson, father of one of the abused boys, said, "I feel about 100 pounds lighter." Eric Patterson was one of at least three victims of abuse by Larson who have since committed suicide.

Paul Schwartz, one of the victims of abuse who spoke in court, addressed Larson in the courtroom. "I felt I did something wrong and this was the punishment," he said.

When allowed to speak, Larson said, "I stand before you a man full of shame and remorse." He asked forgiveness for the ! damage he'd done to the church and told his victims they'd done nothing to deserve what had been done to them.

"That tore me up inside," Schwartz later said. "But it made it all worth it."

The 71-year-old priest will be eligible for probation in 18 months and is unlikely to serve the full 10-year sentence.

Hundreds protest School of Americas

Hundreds of protesters calling for the closure of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas demonstrated at the Pentagon April 2.

The protesters, meeting in the early morning, formed a funeral procession, circled the building to the Parade Grounds and planted crosses. To protest the school's role in training Latin Americans military officers in counterinsurgency warfare, they enacted a scene using giant puppets in which helicopters sprayed bullets on a Colombian cornfield killing crops and farmers. Workers were delayed from entering the building to start work by the long procession, which blocked traffic and clogged walkways around the building. Ten protesters were arrested for spilling blood on government property.

Despite the fact that Congress recently changed the school's name to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the school, located at Fort Benning, Ga., is still run by combat instructors who teach counterinsurgency.

Reports by the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, and human rights experts have implicated the school's graduates in some of the worst human rights abuses in the hemisphere in recent years. Fr. Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch founder, told NCR Dec 8 that some of the worst violence is not in the past but is going on now in Mexico and in Colombia, where paramilitaries linked to officers trained at the school have killed thousands of political opponents, labor organizers, health care workers and farmers.