After a 21-hour ride, 47 Creighton students filed out of the bus and into the streets of Columbia, Ga., to take part in the 18th annual protest of the School of the Americas, now called Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
These students, who gathered at the gates of the SOA, located at Ft. Benning, stood alongside some 20,000 other protesters, the largest number yet. The students marched, chanting “presente” to signify the presence of the thousands of dead and missing Latin Americans.
U.S. presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney, Sister Mary Waskowiak; President of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and Rabbi Michael Lerner were all in attendance and addressed the crowd.
The protest, which focuses on issues of peace and justice, started after six Jesuits were murdered in El Salvador by graduates of the SOA. Since then, thousands of people have been gathering to remember those who have died, and to call to shut down the school.
“It’s important to keep their memories alive,” said the Rev. Ray Bourgeois, S.J.. “We started [the protest] as a small group, with no intention of starting a movement.”
He said after word got out that American tax dollars were used to keep this school open, people started getting angry.
“It was our money that caused all this suffering in Latin America, and people started saying ‘Not in our name.'”
According to a press release from SOA Watch, the organization that plans the protest, in 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution.
While protestors drove and flew in from as far away as Canada and El Slavador, locals gathered to counter-demonstrate.
A group called God Bless Ft. Benning, gathered in the downtown part of Columbia, Ga., handing out flyers.
Flyers with information targeting protestors said they had an open call for violence. It also noted the importance of the SOA.
“WHINSEC educates and trains western hemisphere soldiers, politicians, civilians and law enforcement in modern advances with great emphasis on the humanitarian aspect,” the flyer read.
Bourgeois addressed the God Bless Ft. Benning group in his speech at the St. Ignatian Teach-In, the night before the protest.
“I do not believe God blesses killing, I do not believe God blesses violence,” he said.
Laura Burke, Arts & Sciences junior, was the leader of this year’s trip to the SOA. She said this year, apart from the two other years she has gone, had a different feel to it.
Last year, HR 1707, Rep. McGovern’s legislation to suspend operations at the SOA and investigate deaths linked to the school, was going to Congress to be voted on.
“There was a lot of hope last year at the Teach-In,” Burke said. “With the McGovern Bill and the new congress and senate.”
The bill lost by seven votes and will be put up to a vote again next year. One difference she noted in the weekend was Rep. Jim McGovern’s (D-Mass.) speech.
McGovern said he has opposed the SOA since the murders of the priests in El Salvador.
“I went to the campus of the University of Central America (where the Jesuits lived) and the bloodstains were still fresh in the grass,” McGovern said.
After he learned that 19 of the 26 “triggermen” were graduates of the SOA, he started working to close it through Congress.
He said the foundation of the SOA is built on secrecy and murder.
“This is more than a battle to close the School of the Americas,” McGovern said. “This is a battle to take back our country, to define what we’re all about.”
Steve Laird, senior Arts & Sciences major, has traveled to the gates of Ft. Benning for 5 years now, and he spent a summer in El Salvador, meeting the people and learning about the consequences of the SOA.
“After going to El Salvador, there is more of a passion to represent the people I came in contact with there,” Laird said. “It feels more right to me every time I do it.”