The Guilfordian

"(The School of Americas) is the only thing that has ever made me ashamed to live here," said Faye Rickman, a Columbus, Ga. resident, in a telephone interview. "I support our military, but I can't support the things that they are teaching there."

Rickman was one of thousands of people who gathered outside the gates of Columbus's Fort Benning on Nov. 16. They were there to protest the presence of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), the former School of Americas (SOA).

The SOA was founded by the United States in Panama in 1946 and moved to Fort Benning in 1984. It was replaced in 2001 by WHINSEC, under the defense department. Originally founded to help combat the spread of communism in Latin America, the school has trained more than 60,000 Latin American troops in counterinsurgency techniques.

More than 500 SOA graduates have been investigated for human rights violations, and nearly 100 have been convicted.

The most well-known violation took place on Nov. 16, 1989 in El Salvador, when a group of 26 soldiers assassinated six Jesuit priests, along with their co-worker and her daughter. Nineteen of the soldiers had attended the SOA, according to Worcester Telegram & Gazette News (Mass.).

Every year since, protests have taken place outside of Fort Benning on the weekend closest to the Nov. 16 date of the assassination. This year's demonstration marked the eighteenth annual protest.

The protest featured puppet shows, parades of demonstrators, teach-ins, training on violence, drum circles, and appearances by Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, and the Indigo Girls. A special ceremony consisted of singers calling the names of those who died at the hands of soldiers trained at the SOA.

"The whole protest was a bit festive at first, and then very serious, which was appropriate," said sophomore Anne Marie Drolet, who attended the protest.

Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich also participated in the demonstrations, saying that one of his first acts as president, if elected, would be to close the school, according to the Macon Telegraph (Ga.).

"We reject war as an instrument of foreign policy," Kucinich said to the Macon Telegraph.

Estimates of the number of protestors at the Nov. 16 rally vary greatly. SOA Watch chief organizer Eric LeCompte said that approximately 24,000 people attended the demonstration, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Ga.). The Columbus Police Department counted 11,238 just after noon.

"That's a low number," said LeCompte to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. "That's a tactic police use all over the country."

Only 20 people held the first protest outside of Fort Benning in 1990, while 20,000 people attended the SOA protest last year. Many of the first protestors, now in their 80s, have a special section where they sit.

By late afternoon, police had arrested 11 people, ages 25-76, for trespassing on federal property when they snuck onto the Fort Benning grounds. All were released on either $500 or $1000 bond and are scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 28, 2008. Each faces up to six months in prison.

Four others were arrested and charged with misdemeanors for obstructing a police officer. One crossed a police line and the others didn't clear away when asked, according to The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

Since 1990, more than 200 people have been arrested at SOA protests, including several Guilford alumni.

"People started to find out about the school because they started to ask, 'Well, why has this 91-year-old nun been sentenced to six months in prison?'" said LeCompte to The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. "Those people in the early years who began to cross, and those who continue to cross, allow us to build a movement that goes right into the mainstream."

While the demonstrations specifically commemorate the 1989 assassinations, graduates of the School of Americas have been accused of multiple other human rights violations.

"Over the course of several decades people trained here have murdered and tortured hundreds if not thousands of people," said Bob Goodman of the Georgia Coalition for Peace and Justice to Straits Times.

Protestors claim that graduates have overthrown legitimate governments, citing a coup against Chile President Salvador Allende in 1973 as an example, according to Reuters News. Columbia recently arrested seven high-ranking military officers trained at the SOA for providing security and troops for a major drug cartel.

Amnesty International has called for WHINSEC's closure since discovering copies of torture manuals at the school.

The military has acknowledged that some graduates have committed crimes after attending the SOA and WHINSEC, but has said that no cause-and-effect relationships has ever been established, according to The Macon Telegraph.

WHINSEC has instituted mandatory human rights courses in an attempt to prevent future violations. At least 10 percent of the lessons in every WHINSEC course addresses democracy, ethics, morals, and human rights.

"We do not teach war; what we teach is how to be a professional," said Institute Commander Colonel Gilberto Perez to the BC Heights (Mass.). "We're talking a professional soldier, who is trained to use force when necessary to protect. We check to make sure he is using his weapon correctly - not just accuracy, but also if he's using it in a situation where it is correct to use lethal force."

Since the SOA became WHINSEC, 10,000 students have graduated with no convictions for human rights violations. Nevertheless, protestors still call for the school's closure.

"I'm glad that they are making it more humanitarian," said Rickman. "Still, though, the school's existence is a slap in the face to all those people whose family members were murdered by (SOA graduates). Eventually we'll get them to shut it down for good."

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