12,000 marchers say
'Shut down the Pentagon torture academy'
By
Dianne Mathiowetz
Fort Benning, Ga.
Some 12,000 opponents of the School of the Americas gathered
at the gates of Fort Benning for a two-day action Nov. 20-21 to
press their demand for the closure of the facility they call
the "School of the Assassins."
On Nov. 21, several thousand marchers, led by a group robed
in black funeral gowns wearing white death masks and carrying
coffins, crossed onto the base. They deliberately violated
federal law, which prohibits political demonstrations on a
military installation.
At the same time, the names and ages of those killed by
SOA-trained soldiers were solemnly intoned from a nearby stage.
As a drum beat, the entire crowd responded "Presente" and
raised their hands.
For more than an hour and a half, the names were called out
as row after row of college students, nuns and priests,
veterans, the disabled, families with babies and small
children, immigrants from South and Central America, trade
unionists and seniors "crossed the line."
When those at the front of the march, who included actor
Martin Sheen and anti-war activist Daniel Berrigan, reached the
police line, they poured red paint over themselves and lay down
on the road, simulating the many massacres committed by SOA
graduates throughout Latin America.
This dramatic move caught the base police by surprise and
triggered a sit-down demonstration by the rest of the march
that continued for hours. According to the organizers, 4,408
people participated in the civil disobedience.
The military detained 63. They were taken to a processing
center, fingerprinted and released. Of those, 23 had already
been banned from the base for previous actions against the
School of the Americas. The Army has said it will decide later
if it will press charges. Dozens of peace activists who have
served lengthy jail sentences for protesting at the base
returned again this year.
School trains political murderers
Originally based in Panama, the School of the Americas has
trained tens of thousands of Latin American soldiers in
counter-insurgency, psychological warfare and population
control techniques. In 1984, the school was moved to Fort
Benning, Ga.
Father Roy Bourgeois formed SOA Watch after the November
1989 murder of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter
at the University of San Salvador by soldiers trained at the
SOA.
The group has compiled a damning dossier of massacres,
political assassinations, tortures and disappearances planned
and carried out by U.S.-trained military in country after
country in Latin America.
In El Salvador, for instance, the assassination of
Archbishop Oscar Romero, the massacre of over 900 villagers in
El Mozote, and the murder of four U.S. churchwomen are also the
work of SOA graduates.
In Argentina, Leopaldo Galtieri headed the military during
the "dirty war," when 30,000 were killed or disappeared.
Another SOA graduate, Gen. Hector Gramajo, orchestrated the
brutal repression of the Indigenous people of Guatemala,
causing hundreds of thousands to be murdered, tortured,
disappeared and made refugees.
Today, the majority of the soldiers being trained at the
school come from Mexico and Colombia, where popular movements
such as the Zapatistas and the FARC-EP threaten the rule of the
oligarchies.
Responding to numerous stories in the media that the Army is
going to change the name of the school, reorganize the
curriculum, and move it to another location, Roy Bourgeois
said, "We are not here to transform this school. We are
here--and we need to make this clear--to close this
school."
The Army is under intense pressure to do something. The
House voted earlier this year to cut some funding to the
school. Although the money was restored, it signaled the
military brass that a growing number of people in the U.S. are
rejecting the politics of domination and intervention in Latin
American affairs.
Lynn McClintock, 46, a health worker from Marietta, Ga., is
representative of that trend. "Our whole foreign policy needs
to change. We need to stop going in and assisting governments
that oppress poor people and take their resources," she
said.
SOA Watch has announced the next action in its decade-long
campaign to close the School of the Americas. On April 2, 2000,
a rally in Washington, D.C., will kick off a two-week period of
fasting at 2,000 locations around the United States. For more
information, contact the SOA Watch at 202-234-3440 or
www.soaw.org.
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