 December 2002/ January 2003
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Reports from Fort Benning, GA
The students who sent the following
reports were part of a group which traveled 26 hours by bus to
participate in the annual protest at a Fort Benning, GA military
facility where Latin American soldiers are trained in counter-insurgency
tactics. This institution, formerly called the School of the Americas
(and known to protesters as the School of the Assassins), has
trained many perpetrators of torture and other human rights abuses.
For more information on the campaign to shut the school down,
contact SOA Watch, Lindsey Gaydos is a junior at Manchester Central High School in New Hampshire. The School of the Americas, renamed the "Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation" in 2001, is a United States military-funded combat training school for Latin Americans. If ever there were a terrorist training school, our own SOA would be it. The SOA, originally established in 1946 in Panama, was kicked out in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty, and moved to Georgia. In its 56 years of existence, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in warfare and intimidation, ranging from such things as counterinsurgency techniques to sniper training to military intelligence and interrogation tactics. The list of victims and atrocities committed by SOA graduates over the past 56 years is astounding and seemingly endless. Furthermore, every single one of these graduates' knowledge was knowledge imparted by our country. Our tax dollars paid for these men to be trained and consequently for the murders of hundreds of thousands of educators, union organizers, student leaders, and religious workers, whose blood now lies in our hands.
If we as Americans believe that
terrorism is such a pressing issue in our society and country,
then why don't we take a real step on the road to abolishing
it? Hannah Zwirner is a sophomore at High Mowing School in New Hampshire. My trip to the School of the Americas protest in Georgia was one of the most motivational and meaningful experiences in my life. There were people there from all parts of the United States--rich and poor, young and old, black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. It was amazing to see how many people with so many different views and experiences could finally come together and show that we don't agree with the killing of innocent people.
We came together to show that we
do not support the United States' intervention in these countries'
issues. Thousands upon thousands of innocent people have been
tortured and killed by SOA graduates. The most moving part of
the protest was seeing the crosses with the names of the dead.
Pictures of small children who were killed were among the many
things that people had put on the gates of Fort Benning. It was
also very inspirational to see people committing acts of civil
disobedience by crossing the fence onto the Fort Benning property.
They did this to show that this cause means enough to them to
risk jail time and fines. Clara Hendricks is a sophomore at the Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts. On Sunday, we slowly marched to the gates, while each and every one of the tens of thousands of names of people who had been killed by a graduate of the SOA was chanted eerily from the stage. After each name, the crowd chanted the Spanish word "Presente," meaning that we recognized their lives, and we felt them there in spirit. Near the back of the line, I felt numb. I felt I was emotionless and even if I tried, couldn't put faces and lives to these names...and then a woman walked by with a baby. It struck me suddenly, as though I hadn't actually been seeing and hearing what was around me, and now the blind was lifted. We walked slowly toward the fence and I heard each name as a face and a life, with a mother and father, and dreams. I heard each name as a person whose life had been stolen away from them. And I knew that no matter what these people thought, or did, or what they were believed to think or do, they deserved their lives, as every one of us does. They did not deserve to be killed senselessly.
It was one of the most moving experiences
that I've ever had, from marching in the funeral procession,
to cheering on an elderly nun as handcuffs were placed on her,
to dancing in a basking sun with my sister while an Ecuadorian
folk band played. I only hope that everyone I know could get a
chance to have this experience. Because it is more real than hearing
or reading a number of people who were killed, on the news. It
is more powerful than just knowing about the atrocities that have
occurred, and it is more productive than just wishing the school
would close. It is up to us to protect future generations from
this US-sponsored terrorism. 
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