wfn.org | Presbyterians Cross Line to Protest Against Army's SOAs

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
7-December-1998 
98398 
 
    Presbyterians Cross Line to Protest Against 
    Army's School of The Americas 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -In fulfillment of church doctrine and personal conviction, 
73-year-old Meta Ukena recently stood with white cross in hand, ready to 
face possible arrest and a hefty fine for her part in protesting on a 
military base. 
 
    But she did not stand alone. Hundreds of Presbyterians from coast to 
coast stood there, too, as part of the largest-ever demonstration against 
the U.S. Army's School of the Americas. 
 
    The federally-funded institution, in Fort Benning, Ga., has long been 
accused by critics of being the "school of the assassins," where Latin 
American military officials learn torture techniques and graduates commit 
brutal human rights atrocities against their own people. 
 
    "The murder and rampage of their own people has just been inhuman and 
incredible. It must stop," said Ukena, an executive board member and former 
co-chair of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF). "Even the people down 
there (in Latin America) call it the `school of the assassins.'" 
 
    The 206th General Assembly (1994) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
approved an overture calling for the school's closure. The action was 
upheld a year later despite a move to overturn it by the Flint River 
Presbytery in Georgia, where Fort Benning is located. 
 
    Presbyterians of all ages drove or flew to the army base in Columbus, 
Ga., 85 miles southwest of Atlanta on the Georgia-Alabama state line. They 
traveled from as far as California and New York, Arizona and Texas. There 
were also Presbyterians from New Mexico and Georgia, Kentucky and Colorado 
at the two-day protest and vigil, which started Nov. 21 and featured 
speakers and worship services. 
 
    On the final day of the demonstration, Ukena was accompanied by 30 to 
40 colleagues from  the peace fellowship program. There were two dozen 
representatives from the Open Door Community, an Atlanta-based Presbyterian 
ministry that feeds, clothes and provides shelter to the homeless.  More 
than 10 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment from 
Presbyterian-affiliated Warren Wilson College in North Carolina also turned 
out. It was reportedly the largest collegiate contingent at the vigil. 
 
    Presbyterian officials said determining the exact number of people from 
the denomination was difficult because of the large crowd and because 
protesters traveled from several locations. Organizers estimated as many as 
300 to 400 Presbyterians participated in the event. 
 
    In all an estimated 7,000 people were there, calling for the closure of 
the federally-funded military academy, which has produced such graduates as 
former Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega. This year's attendance 
eclipsed last year's record turnout more than three-fold. 
 
    More than 2,370 people - at least 14 members of the PPF and countless 
other Presbyterians - defied police orders and marched onto Fort Benning. 
Actor Martin Sheen, who spoke to the rally earlier, led the band of 
protesters. 
 
    Some demonstrators carried wooden coffins. Everyone gripped white 
crosses bearing the names of people whose deaths were linked to the 
School's alumni. They were allowed to walk about a mile into the military 
reservation before they were ushered onto 27 white buses and driven to a 
park about a mile away and released. No one, including Ukena or White, went 
to jail. 
 
    "It was to demonstrate the focus and depth of our spiritual concern for 
the murders of the people in Latin America," said the Rev. Leonard 
Bjorkman, co-chair of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, from his home in 
Syracuse, N.Y. "The protest was to prepare ourselves for an act that would 
respectfully commemorate their deaths and call for the end to a program 
that would, in any way, promote murder." 
 
    Protest organizers say in previous years the arrests and prosecution of 
demonstrators - many of whom were priests, nuns and other clergy - have 
generated widespread publicity and sympathy, accounting for record crowds 
during the last two protests. Fort Benning police arrested 601 protesters 
last year, and nearly 30 repeat offenders spent six months in federal 
prison for 
trespassing and were fined $3,000 each. 
 
    "Even six months in prison is a small sacrifice compared to the pain 
and suffering that the victims of the school have experienced," Marilyn 
White, co-chair of the PPF, said from her home outside Houston, Texas. 
 
    The School of the Americas is a familiar subject for Jenny Vial, an 
18-year-old freshman at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., which had 
80 to 85 students at the event. 
 
    "Personally, I was there because as long as I can remember my family 
has been involved in Central American issues, and I've been hearing about 
the School of the America's from the time I was little," Vial said. "I've 
always wanted to be able to go to them (the protests) and this is the first 
time I've really had the opportunity. A lot of it is from my Presbyterian 
background. I believe what they're doing at the School of the Americas is 
unjust and that is tied to my religious views." 
 
    She said the protest in Georgia had been a much discussed topic among 
Warren Wilson students for some time, even before school officials 
announced plans to charter a bus the demonstration. 
 
    Some students were enrolled in the school's 14-year-old peace studies 
program, which received the 1998 Peaceseeker Award from the Presbyterian 
Peace Fellowship. The college also received the International Understanding 
Award this year for promoting world peace. 
 
    For Jim Watkins, traveling to the demonstration was a "pilgrimage 
home." A staff member of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, Watkins 
received basic training in 1966 at Fort Benning.  He said individuals and 
groups, such as the School of the Americas Watch, which organized the 
demonstration, must continue doing their part to create awareness about 
important issues so lawmakers take notice and respond. Only then, he said, 
can enough federal support possibly be garnered to close the school. 
 
    "The arena is now Congress and the administration. It's important for 
persons of faith to make their opinion known through their congressmen, 
their senators and to the president of the United States," said Watkins, 
associate for public policy advocacy training for the Peacemaking Program. 
 
    The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, which is part of the 
Congregational Ministries Division, operates separately from the 
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. The Peacemaking Program is funded by the 
annual Peacemaking Offering, provides resources to congregations, 
presbyteries and synods for ministries of peacemaking in families, 
churches, communities and the world. It also conducts annual peacemaking 
conferences. 
 
    The PPF consists of at least 1,200 active members from across the 
nation and does not receive funding from the PC(USA), according to 
Bjorkman. The fellowship has been active in programs aimed at eliminating 
the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, and the peace process in 
the Middle East. The PPF headed the successful drive to prod this year's 
General Assembly into approving an overture stating its opposition to 
sanctions imposed against Iraq by the United Nations. The peace fellowship 
has been involved in the fight to rid the world of land mines, as well. 
 
    Others in attendance included Harry E. Smith, former president of 
Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and former General Assembly Moderator 
Clinton Marsh, who serves as chairperson emeritus for the peace fellowship. 
PPF member Al Winn, a former moderator and past president of the Louisville 
Presbyterian Seminary, was also present. 
 
    The PC(USA) became interested in the controversial military academy 
soon after Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll Father, who has served jail time for 
peaceful protests against the school, addressed the General Assembly's 
peace breakfast in 1994. The Vietnam veteran shed light on the brutal 
methods taught by the school and urged help in pressuring Congress to shut 
it down. He founded the School of the Americas Watch at the gates of Fort 
Benning in 1989 to fight for the school's closure. 
 
    The PC(USA) was the first mainstream Protestant denomination to call 
for the closing of the school, according to peace fellowship officials. The 
Episcopalian and United Methodist churches have since been among the 
growing number of denominations calling for an end to the school. 
 
    "It's had a religious thrust from the very beginning. We've just kind 
of carried it on," 
 Ukena said. "That's the strength that we have. To be active about this." 
 
    Background and Alumni 
 
    Established in the Panama Canal Zone in 1946 by the United States 
government, the School of the Americas (SOA) has trained more than 58,000 
soldiers from about 23 countries. Under terms of the 1977 Panama Canal 
Treaty, the school was moved in 1984 from left Panama to Fort Benning. 
 
    Besides Noriega, who is serving 40 years in prison for drug 
trafficking, graduates include former Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri, 
Haitian coup leader Raoul Cedra and Salvadoran death-squad organizer the 
late Roberto D'Aubuisson. 
 
    Opponents of the SOA have called for its closure since 1989, when some 
of its graduates were linked to the murder of six Jesuit priests, their 
housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador. The murders cast a macabre, 
high-profile twist to an old-story of oppression and human rights abuses by 
U.S.-trained soldiers throughout Latin America. Pressure to close the 
school has been 
mounting ever since. 
 
    School of the Americas graduates have been particularly brutal in the 
nation of El Salvador. According to several reports, they were involved in 
the 1980 assassination of El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and the 
rape and murder of four American church women, the same year. 
 
    Since the 1989 murders of the Jesuit priests, opponents have gathered 
at Fort Benning's main gate each November, sometimes marching onto the 
post, or throwing blood or red paint on the SOA building. Before this year, 
the acts had always resulted in arrests and media attention. The base is 
open to the public; however, federal law prohibits political protests on 
military property. 
 
    Opponents in Congress, led by Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, D-Mass., have so 
far failed to cut federal-funding to the school's $2.9 million operating 
and maintenance budget. 
 
    The Army acknowledges that some graduates - a few hundred out of the 
60,000 in over 50 years - mar the school's reputation, but officials argue 
that Americans shouldn't judge SOA by those extreme cases. School officials 
claim the program is largely responsible for the growth of democracy in 
Latin America and teaches its students about human rights in each of its 
courses. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to wfn-news-request@wfn.org