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CounterPunch
November
19, 2002
Thousands
Say No to Exporting US State Terror
A Report from the Protest at
the School of the Americas
by LORI KORTE
Fort Benning,
Georgia. War is peace. Terror is
human rights. The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) is now
the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).
Some 7,000 demonstrators from all regions
of the country descended on Fort Benning last weekend to disagree.
Young and old, religious and secular, veterans and sympathizers,
gathered with deep pacifist convictions reminiscent of the 1960s
civil rights movement.
Despite requirements of the USA Patriot
Act that no terrorists be harbored or trained in the United States,
supporters of the movement to close a military training facility
in Fort Benning, Georgia contend that foreign persons are indeed
being trained by the US military in tactics that qualify as terrorist.
This knowledge is what moved protestors
like Barbara Baker, a psychotherapist from Oshkosh, Wisconsin
to come to Columbus, Georgia to protest the work of the U.S.
Army School of the Americas (SOA), now the Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). "We are fighting
this war on terrorism, but here we are, the largest exporters
of terrorism. We are supporting this particular school with our
tax dollars. My small part is to be here and stand witness to
what I really feel, which is my desire for peace and more non-violent
work."
According to the Intelligence Oversight
Board, a federal panel commissioned in 1996 by President Clinton,
SOA/WHISC used training materials that specifically condoned
"executions of guerillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion,
and false imprisonment". This training directly resulted
in atrocities by the SOA/WHISC trainees such as those detailed
in the findings of a U.N. Truth Commission on the civil war in
El Salvador, "Three quarters of the Salvadoran officers
responsible for seven other massacres during El Salvador's bloody
civil war were trained by the Fort Benning school." This
is only one of the numerous examples that protestors cited as
an example of grievous, deadly acts committed by SOA/WHISC trainees--
graduates carrying on the work of US foreign policy.
Currently, graduates of the SOA/WHISC
are being implicated by other international human rights organizations.
Human Rights Watch found SOA graduates directly responsible for
numerous human rights violations, and one graduate, Brigadier
General Jaime Ernesto Canal Alban, exemplified the legacy of
SOA training through his leadership of the infamous Columbian
Calima Front and the forced disappearance of 2,000 persons as
well as 40 assassinations.
With hopes of raising awareness for these
US Army-facilitated atrocities and energizing activists through
visible solidarity, SOA Watch organizes protests, vigils and
educational activities each November at Fort Benning. Said Eric
LeCompte, SOA Watch Outreach Director, "The protest is part
of a very strategic campaign, and it's important for the movement
to gather. It serves as a mobilizing point to call people to
do the legislative, media, outreach and education work required
to close the SOA and ultimately last beyond the SOA."
Non violence is also a guiding mission
of the protests. On both Saturday and Sunday, protestors pledged
commitment to and recited a vow stating that each protestor will
"not assault_either verbally or physically_those who oppose
or disagree with us...even if they assault us. We will protect
those who oppose us from insult or attack...Our attitude as conveyed
through words, symbols and actions will be one of respect toward
all_including police officers, military personnel, members of
the larger community, and all vigilers and members of the SOA
Watch family." This pacifist commitment to non violence
was successfully upheld throughout the weekend.
With the opposition to the apparently
violent operations of the SOA/WHISC, many protestors said they
were traveling 1,000s of miles out of a broader objection to
US foreign policy, which includes opposition to the actions to
the Bush Administration's desires to wage war with Iraq. Annie
Quimby, student of Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin, said,
" How can we say that what Iraq is doing is wrong when we
are doing things (training soldiers at the SOA/WHISC) that are
also wrong, if not worse?"
"An argument of the administration
for war with Iraq is based on the danger that Iraq poses to the
democratic freedoms of its population and potentially to other
countries. Yet it is difficult to think of an action more antithesis
to democracy than the training of individuals that ultimately
cause torture and death to people who work to uphold social change,
such as six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter
who were massacred in El Salvador by an SOA/WHISC graduate,"
said another protestor who wished to remain anonymous.
Though there is legislation at the Congressional
level to dissolve the SOA/WHISC, organizers foresee that more
work will need to be done, especially in the congressional climate
fostered by so called war on terror. "This can't be a one-day-of-the-year
kind of thing. If we are really serious about closing this school
and ultimately transforming our foreign policy, we need to be
doing work in between. That's education, that's legislative...It's
putting forceful constituent pressure on our representatives
so that they are accountable to us", SOA Watch's LeCompte
said.
As SOA Watch brings its campaign to colleges,
high schools, churches, human rights groups, and union halls
around the country, its contention that the US government has
been actively training deadly terrorists around the globe for
decades is all too believable.
Lori Korte
is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. She can be reached
at lorikorte@hotmail.com.
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