Col. Ann Wright: Time to hold Bush administration responsible for torture

By Brenda Norrell,
 

 Retired Army Col. Ann Wright and El Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio said it is time to hold President Bush and his top advisors accountable for torture in Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo and for secret renditions.

Speaking at the Festival of Hope, Mauricio descibed how he was tortured in El Salvador in 1983. Mauricio’s torturers were trained by the US military who used the manuals of the U.S. School of the Americas.

Col. Wright and Mauricio spoke as three more aging Americans, prepared for a hearing and possible prison sentences, following peaceful protests of the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca.

Exposing the secrets of torture, in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, prisoners of conscience arrived from throughout the United States to prepare for a court hearing in federal court here on Monday, Feb. 4.

Fr. Jerry Zawada and Betsy Lamb, both in prison in Florence awaiting trial, and Mary Burton Riseley, are charged with conspiracy, trespass and failure to obey an officer at Fort Huachuca in November.

Already in prison are two priests, Fr. Steve Kelly and Fr. Louis Vitale, for kneeling in prayer in protest of US torture at Fort Huachuca in Nov. 2006.