> From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher at igc.org>
> To: Solidarity4Ever at igc.topica.com, LLNews-post-4244 at igc.topica.com
> Subject: 1700 Arrested in School of Americas Protest
> Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 22:35:04 -0800
>
> 1,700 arrested at Georgia soldier-training school
>
> By ELLIOTT MINOR,
> Associated Press
>
> COLUMBUS, Ga. (November 19, 2000 8:57 p.m. EST
> http://www.nandotimes.com) - Civilian and military police arrested
> 1,700 protesters who had marched into Fort Benning on Sunday
> demanding the closing of the Army's School of the Americas, a
> training center for Latin American soldiers.
>
> About twice that number, including actor Martin Sheen, had entered
> the west-central Georgia post, chanting and carrying cardboard
> coffins and crosses, while others continued the protest outside the
> gates.
>
> The demonstrations have been spearheaded for 11 years by Roy
> Bourgeois, a Catholic priest who served in Bolivia. Bourgeois blames
> the school for human rights abuses committed by some of the school's
> former students.
>
> Army officials termed the charge absurd.
>
> "I'd characterize it as false and as propaganda," Maj. Gen. John
> LeMoyne, the post commander, said at a news conference Sunday.
> "Roy's thesis is based on emotion and falsehood."
>
> Wearing plastic parkas, many of the protesters shivered in
> near-freezing temperatures and occasional rain as they marched to a
> point where they were halted by military and civilian police.
>
> Police officials estimated 6,500 people gathered outside the gate
> for the protest, about half the number that appeared last year. The
> group School of Americas Watch organizes the demonstrations each
> year near the anniversary of the Nov. 16, 1989, killings in El
> Salvador of six Jesuit priests. A United Nations panel found 19
> Salvadoran officers involved in the slayings had been trained at the
> school, the group said.
>
> Col. G.T. Myers, Fort Benning's provost marshal, said most of the
> protesters arrested Sunday were charged with trespassing, given a
> warning and released. Some who poured fake blood on the street were
> charged with damaging government property, he said. A few of those
> charged may be prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office, Myers said.
>
> Sheen, who plays the nation's president in the television show West
> Wing, was arrested, Myers said, but the colonel said he did not know
> what laws the actor was accused of breaking. Sheen has joined the
> protests for the past three years.
>
> All those arrested were given letters barring them from visiting
> Fort Benning for five years. Those barred from the post who are
> charged with trespassing there again within that period could be
> subject to a year in prison.
>
> Bougeois and Sheen gave brief pep talks before the march.
>
> "I have a directive I mean to share with you," Sheen said. "To the
> secretary of Defense: Dear Mr. Cohen, as the acting president of the
> United States, I want you to declare the School of the Americas
> closed." Although it is still unclear who will become the next
> president, President Clinton's term has not concluded.
>
> The School of the Americas is scheduled to close on Dec. 15 and be
> replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
> Cooperation. The new school will be run by the Defense Department,
> under guiding principles of the Organization of American States.
> Bourgeois has said the name change is just cosmetic and his group
> will continue to protest against the school.
>
> Shortly after Sheen's speech Sunday, he joined a procession that
> marched slowly through the post's main gate. At the front of the
> procession were demonstrators wearing white death masks, black robes
> and carrying coffins.
>
> After they had advanced about one-quarter mile, they poured fake
> blood on themselves and "died" in the street. Police rushed in to
> tag them, photograph them and cart them off on stretchers to waiting
> buses.
>
> Sister Mary Johnalyn, 68, of West Allis, Wis., said she was
> photographed, fingerprinted and given a "ban and bar" letter,
> meaning she is barred from Fort Benning for five years. She said she
> was charged with damaging U.S. property for spilling fake blood.
>
> "I was a missionary in Mexico and I found those people so loving,"
> she said. "I don't want them to come up here and learn to be ugly
> murderers. I'm also here to honor those who suffered and died."
>
> Processing the large number of demonstrators could take until early
> Monday, Myers said.
>
> That wasn't good news for John Dunn, 27, of Cleveland.
>
> Dunn said he drove a charter bus with 50 passengers to Fort Benning
> and was expected to drive them back on Sunday night. He joined the
> demonstration impulsively.
>
> "I'm taking my chances like everybody else," he said. "It's a little
> more chancy for me because if I'm not there to drive them back, I'm
> in trouble."
>
> Published on Sunday, November 19, 2000 in the Contra Costa [CA] Times
>
> School of the Americas: Local Grandmother Mobilizes to Fight for Her
> Beliefs
>
> by Theresa Keegan
>
> ELEVEN YEARS ago today, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and
> her 15-year-old daughter were brutally murdered in their El
> Salvadoran home. Years later a United Nations Truth Commission
> revealed that 19 of the 26 army officers cited in the killings had
> been trained at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.
>
> Four years ago today, Father Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest, led
> 2,000 people onto the school's property to protest the school's
> activities and urge its closure.
>
> This afternoon, more than 10,000 people are expected to descend upon
> the military training school, again demanding its closure. Among
> them will be Natalie Russell of Pleasant Hill.
>
> This will be the third time the 73-year-old retired school teacher
> and mother of nine will be risking arrest and protesting at the
> site. For her, the reason is obvious.
>
> "It's important ... to make the truth known about what's happening."
>
> What's happening is that the School of the Americas, a U.S. military
> institution, funded with our tax dollars, has been training
> graduates who've somehow forgotten that human rights are a critical
> part of military affairs.
>
> The school was formed in 1946 as the Latin America Training Center
> -- Ground Division and was moved from Panama to Fort Benning in
> October 1984.
>
> Since its creation, more than 57,000 soldiers have received training
> at the school.
>
> The SOA's graduate list includes some of the most feared dictators
> of Latin America, among them Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega,
> Bolivian Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez, Guatemalan dictator Gen. Lucas
> Garcia and El Salvador's Roberto D'Aubuisson.
>
> U.N. reports repeatedly linked SOA graduates with numerous
> atrocities, including the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar
> Romero while he celebrated Mass and the rapes and murders of four
> U.S. churchwomen that same year.
>
> Public pressure finally forced the Pentagon, in 1996, to reveal a
> training manual used at the school.
>
> It advocated blackmail, torture and the arrest of anti-American
> politicians in Latin American countries.
>
> Clearly the school's goal of training leaders who would embrace
> democratic ideals and work well with America had gone terribly
> wrong.
>
> Although the school no longer teaches torture techniques and it now
> has a human-rights component for students, critics still contend
> that it needs to be closed.
>
> Yet, the school continues to operate, graduating 1,000 soldiers a
> year. And peasants and innocent victims in Latin America continue to
> be victims of its training.
>
> Father Bourgeois, who had witnessed soldiers intimidating and
> massacring peasants in Bolivia, has pledged to close the school.
>
> His nonviolent protests are a testimony to the conviction of people
> of all faiths.
>
> "Our tax money is supporting this school," says Russell. "I'm paying
> to have this happen, and it's absolutely atrocious."
>
> She just had to turn her anger into action.
>
> "I'm not into picketing and parading," she says. "But if it takes
> voices to be heard, to get attention brought to the problem, I'll do
> what it takes."
>
> She's not only willing to fly stand-by to get to Georgia, she most
> likely will be arrested for participating in the protest. But she
> wouldn't have it any other way.
>
> "When I got to thinking about what the responsibilities of the world
> are, for people of faith, I just feel I have to do it," she says
> matter-of-factly. She talks solemnly about the death march protest
> that will highlight the demonstration at Fort Benning.
>
> A similar, but smaller, public protest will be held today at 1 p.m.
> at Todos Santos Plaza in Concord.
>
> In Georgia coffins representing the slain priests will be carried
> onto the school grounds.
>
> Thousands of protesters will follow, carrying individual crosses
> with the names of slain people on them, including the 900 peasants
> of El Mezote who were massacred.
>
> The victims' names and ages are solemnly read aloud. Protesters
> respond "Presente" -- you are not forgotten.
>
> "We're trying to be the voice to the people who no longer have a
> voice," explains Russell.
>
> Protesters at the beginning of the line expect to be arrested by
> military police after they enter the school grounds.
>
> They'll be piled into buses, and because there is no facility large
> enough to process them, they're driven about a mile away, cited and
> released.
>
> Another group will then enter the school grounds. Protesters will go
> back and join the group, but most won't cross onto the school
> property again.
>
> "We walk back singing and hold our little signs," says Russell. In
> the past, a handful of visible and repeat protesters are arrested
> and jailed.
>
> The annual act of civil disobedience has certainly gained attention,
> and not just from doting grandmother-types like Russell.
>
> The school's closure has been supported by many religious leaders of
> all faiths, as well as labor groups and political leaders.
>
> In May of this year the House of Representatives voted 214 to 204 to
> close the School of the Americas. However, critics contend it's
> nothing more than a sham, involving only a name change. A bipartisan
> attempt to halt funding for the new school failed.
>
> But critics contend they will continue to protest both at Fort
> Benning and in the halls of Congress. And Russell will be lending
> her voice to the cause.
>
> "It's really important to me, as a human being, to care about others
> in my human family across the border," she says "I love my country,
> I really don't want to run it down. I just want to straighten out
> what's gone wrong."