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Voices of Peace
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| Sister John |
Four Eugene area residents are preparing to fly to Columbus, Georgia. We will join around 60 Oregonians, and 10,000 altogether, who will gather, November 15-17, 2002, at Fort Benning, to urge the closing of the former Army School of the Americas, now renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
Sister John Backenstos, SNJM, age 80, lives in Blue River, where she collects and distributes food and clothing for homeless people. Donna Frazier of Eugene, makes and sells hand-crafted candles. In her "other life," she works persistently to close the SOA. Shauna Farabaugh, moved recently to Eugene, after living in a Catholic Worker house in Washington, DC. Peg Morton, also of Eugene, is a Quaker activist who has been to Guatemala many times to support refugees and who works in the Central America solidarity movement locally. All four of us have been to these huge Fort Benning gatherings many times and have been arrested there in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. Shauna was arrested in Washington, DC last April, 2002, and went to trial in July, for briefly blocking the Capitol, while making a statement about U.S. military aid to Colombia. The trial resulted in a hung jury.
Background: The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. It was established in Panama in 1946, supposedly to promote stability in the region. But instead, the result has been instability in the region. The school was dubbed "School of Assassins" by a former President of Panama. Moved to Fort Benning in 1984, it has trained over 60,000 Latin American troops. In 1996, a White House report revealed the existence of training manuals used at the SOA that advocated torture, execution and blackmail. While the school has informed the public that it no longer uses this manual, in fact torture, assassination and massacres still happen, and documented authors of massacres, graduates of the SOA, walk free, with impunity. The school has never taken responsibility for its part.
In the year 2000, when votes in the House to close the school were extremely close, an amendment to close the school was added to the defense appropriations bill. The school, which had been administered by the U.S. Army, was closed briefly, and then re-opened as WHISC. It is now administered directly by the Department of Defense, has a completely new administration, and an advisory committee, largely dominated by the Defense Department. It is maintained that there are increased offerings of human rights courses and information. However, examination shows that few students take these courses, that there is little change from the past. It is still a combat training school. SOA Watch, the national organization that coordinates the movement to close the school, points out that countries with the worst human rights records have "consistently sent the most soldiers to be trained at the SOA." A current example is Colombia, which has the largest number of soldiers at the school.
The SOA Watch movement to close the school began in the early 1990's, with only a few people involved. It has grown to include thousands. The movement is embedded in the Gandhian philosophy of active nonviolence. We believe in treating our opponents with respect while firmly and imaginatively standing against policies which we abhor. We believe in taking suffering upon ourselves rather than causing the suffering of others, including our opponents. Currently, 27 people are serving prison terms around the country, for from 3 to 6 months, for nonviolent actions of civil disobedience at Fort Benning. Chani Geigle-Teller, a 19-year-old young woman from Salem, is serving a 6 month sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Dublin, California. Over a hundred people in this movement have served prison terms. All this in contrast with generals and others who have authored massacres throughout Latin America and who have never been brought to trial. Others in the SOA Watch movement have engaged in lengthy fasts. Legislative work has resulted in close votes in the House of Representatives, where HB 1810 would close the school, creating a task force to study its history and record.
The annual demonstrations at Fort Benning come close to the date of the massacre in 1989 of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. There is an all-day rally on Saturday, followed on Sunday by a massive interfaith service and procession in commemoration of the assassinations and massacres, of the Jesuit priests, of Archbishop Oscar Romero, of the 800 killed in the El Mozote Massacre in El Salvador, and the hundreds of thousands of others massacred, tortured, assassinated and disappeared throughout Latin America. Following the procession, groups arrive with puppets and other actions that dramatize the atrocities. Many cross the line illegally onto Fort Benning., risking arrest and prison. Human rights leaders from Latin America and from around the United States, internationally known musicians and religious leaders from a variety of traditions, bring their voices to these demonstrations. Nationally, hundreds of universities, editorial boards, legislative bodies, veterans, and church groups (including over 300 bishops) continue to advocate for the closure of the school.
For more information, visit SOA Watch on the web, or phone SOA Watch at 202-234-3440.
Visit Peg Morton's other stories and photos about the SOA at WxNw.org:
School for Dictators on Trial
Report from the SOA Vigil at Fort Benning in Georgia
Pilgrimage to Fort Benning
Peg Morton's Letter to the Editor
Also see:
Volveremos! We Shall Return! A Project to Document Living with the Consequences of U. S. Policy in Central America by Pam Fitzpatrick & Paul Dix
"The Ghost of Vietnam Haunts 'Plan Colombia'" from Joan McIntyre
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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