CINCINNATI, OH - February 25 - On February 25 (Ash Wednesday), Fr. Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J., a Catholic Priest and member of the Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), begins the fifth week of his indefinite liquids-only fast after being transferred from the Muscogee County Jail, Columbus, Georgia, to the Harris County Jail, Hamilton, Georgia. On January 28, 2004, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail for trespassing onto Ft. Benning property last November 23 to demand the closing of the Army's School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and a fundamental change of American foreign policy from unilateral aggression to multilateral cooperation. Approximately 10,000 people had participated in the legal demonstration outside the gates of Ft. Benning on November 22 and 23.

During the last week of January 27th, Fr Joe Mulligan and 26 other human rights activists received sentences for trespassing ranging from probation to six months in prison plus fine. In their trials they had asserted that many graduates of SOA/WHINSEC returned to their Latin American countries to become assassins, torturers, and even dictators.

As he approached the start of his fifth week on the fast, Mulligan reported: "I have probably lost about ten pounds but am feeling OK. For those who want to express their solidarity, I would suggest that they urge their Members of Congress to vote for the closing of SOA/WHINSEC and to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq."

Specifically he asks people to participate massively in the March 20 demonstrations against the occupation of Iraq, and in the March 27-30 "Spring Mobilization and Lobby Day" sponsored by the School of the Americas Watch."

STATEMENT BY FATHER JOSEPH E. MULLIGAN, S.J., ABOUT HIS FAST

Date: January 28, 2004

Today I begin an indefinite, liquids only fast as I start serving the prison sentence I received for walking onto Ft. Benning in protest against the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation on Nov. 23, 2003.

1. I AM FASTING AND PRAYING that the U.S. Congress will vote to close down SOA/WHISC in repudiation of its record of training Latin American dictators, assassins, and torturers.

2. I AM FASTING AND PRAYING that the U.S. government, at SOA/WHISC and at other installations, will cease training, equipping, and strengthening the hand of the armed forces of Latin America, since such militarization is NOT the most urgent need of the poor of the continent and since it entails the integration and control of Latin American forces in the service of U.S. military strategies, as in Iraq.

3. I AM FASTING AND PRAYING that U.S. and Latin American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq so that the Iraqi people can exercise true freedom and self determination in their own country; if the Iraqis choose to have the assistance of the U.N. and other international bodies in rebuilding their country, their decision should be honored.

4. I AM FASTING AND PRAYING that the U.S. government, especially the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Honduran government will release all information concerning Father James Guadalupe Carney, an American priest who disappeared in Honduras in 1983 after entering that country as a chaplain to an insurgent group, and that both governments will do everything possible to find his remains and to clarify the circumstances of his disappearance.James Carney had received basic training at Ft. Benning before being sent to Europe during World War II. Some of the Honduran soldiers alleged to have been involved in his disappearance were SOA graduates.

5. I AM FASTING AND PRAYING that the U.S. government, especially the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Honduran government will release all information concerning the American citizen David Arturo Baez Cruz, who also disappeared in Honduras in 1983 in the same group with Father Carney, and that both governments will do everything possible to find his remains and to clarify the circumstances of his disappearance. An investigation should be made of the statements of a retired U.S. Army Delta Force Sergeant Major who wrote in his autobiography ("Inside Delta Force The Story of America´s Elite Counterterrorist Unit," Delacorte Press, 2002) that he killed a Nicaraguan American in combat in Honduras, whom he later identified as Mr. Baez Cruz (see MIAMI HERALD, Sept. 3, 2003, "Ex Green Beret's Sandinista story emerges 20 years later," by Juan O. Tamayo). Baez Cruz, a Nicaraguan by birth, had been a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces for 11 years before returning to Nicaragua and then entering Honduras. In a radio talk show in Georgia in November, 2002, the former Delta Force Sergeant Major stated that Fr. Carney was killed, adding: "there was some talk, and I believe I had heard some evidence, that he did not die an easy death.... What I heard was that from the condition of his body, he was brutalized prior to his death, that the marks that were on his body had to have been inflicted while he was still alive." About 50% of the material concerning Baez Cruz and Father Carney "declassified" by the U.S. government is blacked out. During this fast, as I pray to the God of justice and peace, I am also directing my requests to the appropriate governmental authorities.

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