Click on the link above to see information about our second annual conference, featuring
keynote speakers Alfred McCoy.
The Quaker Initiative to End Torture- First Conference Report
Friends from 18 yearly meetings including Canada, Britain, and Rwanda, gathered on June 2-4, 2006, at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina to learn about United States-sponsored torture and to plan how to end it. Several non-Friends woshipped and worked with us, as well. Sixteen speakers, including three survivors of torture, provided information and inspiration to 126 conference attenders.
After a period of welcome and worship, Jennifer Harbury gave a riveting keynote on Friday evening, giving us a brief but comprehensive overview of U.S. torture. She spoke from her personal experiences with CIA-sponsored torture of her deceased Guatemalan activist husband in the 1980s through the May 2006 United Nations hearings on United States compliance with the Convention Against Torture. This was followed by the film, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” which gave a vivid history of the School of the Americas and the twenty-year struggle to close the school that has trained Latin American military officers since World War II. The film and the question and answer session offered by two survivors brought participants a sense of immediacy and responsibility.
On Saturday morning, a panel of three speakers introduced us to the topics of direct action, legislation and executive monitoring, and treatment, which were followed by more intensive workshops providing in-depth information to conference participants on these topics, and on strategic planning. On Saturday afternoon, Hector Aristizibal using the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed depicted his own experience as a survivor of torture and then engaged the audience in a powerful interactive movement that moved us toward hopeful engagement to end the practice of torture. Chuck Fager and Bal Pinguel then took the stage to exhort us towards the long work ahead to abolish torture, moving us from learning to action. Conferees next joined in a town meeting to brainstorm ideas in the five categories of education, legislation, treatment, prisons, and media/strategy. After supper, work groups in those categories met to plan actions. A hard day’s work closed with a folk music concert donated by the Short Sisters, an amazing a capella group of three women.
Sunday worship was led by our five elders, who held the conference in the Light throughout the weekend and attended every session, workshop, and work group. The conference culminated in a second town meeting in which we heard from each work group and then discussed the future of QUIT.
There was a clear sense of the meeting towards the following actions:
-educating our meetings and others;
-asking for monthly, quarterly, and yearly meeting support (minutes, donations, conference attendance);
-using the QUIT website as a resource of information and events (http://www.quit-torture-now.org);
-joining the QUIT listserv via the website to share news and ideas.
Conferees appreciated the QUIT planning team’s care in creating an excellent conference on a difficult topic presented with a tone of reverence, and they thanked the five elders for their prayerful attention in setting the tone for spiritual work. The planning team was asked to bring in more members and plan a second conference at Guilford College, June 1-3 2007.
We ended with worship that was deep in silence and full of gratitude and expectancy.
Save the date QUIT 2nd Conference June 1-3 2007