Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

Next Wednesday, September 9, at 12:30 pm you have the chance to have a Brown Bag Lunch with Lisa Sullivan, the Director of the Latin American Office of the School of the Americas Watch! CRLN, in partnership with 8^th Day Center for Justice, is sponsoring this time of conversation and breaking bread together with Lisa. The conversation will focus on some of the larger issues the Obama Administration is facing in Latin America.

Below is Lisa's biography and the address for the 8th Day Center, where the lunch will take place.

What: Lunch with Lisa Sullivan (Bring your own food)

When: Wednesday, September 9, 12:30pm-2:00pm

Where: 8th Day Center for Justice

205 W Monroe St # 500

Chicago, IL 60606-5006

(312) 641-5151

Lisa's Biography

Lisa Sullivan directs the Latin American office of the School of the Americas Watch and leads its Partnership America Latina (PAL). She lives and works in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, where she has raised her family. Lisa has lived in different countries of Latin America for the past 32 years. Born, raised and educated in the United States, in the 1970's Lisa studied and lived in Mexico and Guatemala, then married and moved to Bolivia to work as a community organizer with Maryknoll, a Catholic mission order.  She raised her three children in the barrios of Bolivia and Venezuela where she saw first hand the brutality of the military on the poor and those working with them. She also came to find out that many of the military leaders were trained in the U.S. at the School of the Americas (SOA) in Georgia. 

In 2004 Lisa started accompanying Fr. Roy Bourgeois to visit countries that send troops to the SOA, meeting with presidents, defense ministers, representatives of leading human rights groups and civil society. They have met with 7 presidents (Chavez, Morales, Arias, Ortega, Correa, Lugo and Zelaya) and other leaders of 17 countries to date. Her purpose is to ask the leaders to consider withdrawing their military from the Cold War-era US Army School of the Americas (SOA) based in Ft. Benning, Georgia. The school, run by the U.S. Army, has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers. Graduates of this school have a long history of torture, death squads, mass killings and toppling legitimate governments. To date, four countries have stopped sending troops and others have dramatically reduced the number they plan to send. 

Last May Lisa traveled to Honduras, where she met with President Manuel Zelaya to discuss the issue of the SOA. A month later Zelaya was overthrown in a coup d'etat, and forced out of the country at gunpoint, under orders of SOA graduates. Lisa returned to Honduras shortly after the coup where she witnessed tremendous human rights abuses.