It is impossible to overstate the importance of the War Resisters League's office at 339 Lafayette Street in the formation of Witness Against Torture in 2005.
In December of that year, 25 Catholic activists violated the Bush administration's bans on travel to Cuba (technically, they just didn't want travelers to spend any in Cuba) and walked more than 100 kilometers from Santiago de Cuba through the City of Guantanamo and onto the Cuban military zone that surrounds the vast US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. After walking for about a week, camping in backyards and parks along the way, we arrived and set up an encampment at the edge of the Cuban Military Zone. There we vigiled and fasted for five days, calling on the US Southern Command to let us in. We held an international press conference on International Human Rights Day and maintained a prayerful 24 hour a day presence at the gates, hoping that our intentions and prayers would travel the remaining few kilometers that separated us from the brutalized and scapegoated human beings.
At the time, the Global War on Terror was in its first few years. Information about the illegal prison and torture facility for Arab and Muslim men and boys not charged with any crime was emerging in fits and starts as human rights advocates, journalists and lawyers sought to break through the cone of silence and impunity erected by the Bush White House.
Without the dusty desks, aging computers, cranky copier and copious corners where we could shoo a cat for a quick meeting, our ambitious idea to walk to Guantanamo to visit the prisoners and bring back letters to their families would have remained a half baked notion, just one more of the many "out there" ideas on the butcher paper brainstorm of how to resist the global war on terror and care for that endless war's victims. We needed that revolutionary infrastructure to incubate our idea, building it up into a plan nut by bolt, email by circumspect email.
But it wasn't just the office and its infrastructure, it was the relationships. A few of us were active in the WRL's NYC Chapter and/or the National Committee. As WRL identified activists and organizers, we were able to open doors for strategic and sensitive conversations with a wide array of activists and country experts who offered invaluable advice.
WRL offered one more crucial ingredient-- proximity to an audacious hope and borderless internationalism both of (at that time) more than 80 years of militant, serious, nonviolent resistance to war making, nationalism and racism.
Mark Twain is credited with the wry observation that history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. As our plan coalesced and our fears mounted, we drew inspiration from the visionaries who imagined the First Freedom Rides of 1947, the 1951 Paris to Moscow Bike Ride for Nuclear Disarmament and the Quebec to Guantanamo March of 1963. Ralph DiGia participated in all three of those peace treks and many more. He was often in the office as we hemmed and worried, and he buoyed us with his example: just put one foot in front of the other! And that is what we did! As we stepped off into the unknowns in our 2005 walk, we were not alone! Ralph and so many others were right there with us! And we had this incredible history as a dynamic inspiration to step into too!
Arthur Laffin, Frida Berrigan, Matt Daloisio Lafayette Park, January 11, 2023 (Photo Credit: Frida Berrigan)
War Resisters League staff and activists helped amplify our dispatches from the road, provided labor and money for WAT press conferences and activities. After our march, we decided to organize in the United States, marking January 11 as a Day of National Shame; the date in 2002 when the first plane full of Arab and Muslim men and boys landed at the Guantanamo prison. WRL activists, staff and organizers have been with us every step of the way since as we mobilized year after year: fasting, demonstrating and occupying public spaces with the specters of Guantanamo each year in Washington, DC and throughout the country.
--Blog Post by Frida Berrigan
