Pubdate: Tue, 23 Oct 2001
Source: Ledger-Enquirer (GA)
Copyright: 2001 Ledger-Enquirer
Contact:  http://www.l-e-o.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/237
Author: Margaret Knapke
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

Special To The Ledger-Enquirer

SOA WATCH: NOW MORE THAN EVER

Sept. 11 ushered the nation into a difficult season for democratic dissent.

For instance, Fort Benning's commander recently asked SOA Watch to cancel 
this year's commemoration of the notorious "Jesuit massacre" - committed in 
November 1989 by graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA). Since 1990 
that anniversary has served as a time to honor the many thousands of Latin 
American civilians who have been murdered by soldiers using the low 
intensity conflict tactics taught at the SOA.

Predictably, every November that grief gives rise to a resounding demand to 
close the SOA (as of January 2001 re-named the Western Hemisphere Institute 
for Security Cooperation). To protesters, it can be no accident that 
hundreds of SOA graduates have been named as abusers in numerous human 
rights reports from their homelands. (Indeed, the 1999 UN Truth Commission 
Report on Guatemala specifically cited the SOA for its "significant bearing 
on human rights violations.") And it can be no accident that the SOA/WHISC 
has never censured a single graduate for abuses.

Perhaps SOA Watch's annual display of grief has puzzled some observers. 
After all, notions like "human rights violation" and "crime against 
humanity" can register as pale abstractions - if they register at all. Even 
"massacre," at a distance, sounds vague.

But on Sep. 11, the human rights of U.S. (and other, visiting) citizens 
were flagrantly violated by terrorists right here at home - and now our 
national trauma and grief are anything but pale, abstract or vague.

In the tense aftermath of these attacks, Fort Benning's Maj. Gen. John 
LeMoyne contends that SOA Watch should defer to security considerations and 
cancel the November vigil. Columbus has given him nuanced support. Mayor 
Bobby Peters refuses to issue a permit for what always has been a 
disciplined, peaceable assembly outside the gate of Fort Benning; he 
proposes moving the vigil away from the post. And Ledger-Enquirer editors 
similarly have called for compromise, opining that while civil liberties 
should not be abridged, "Discretion at this time (on the part of 
protesters) would indeed be the better part of valor."

But in fact, SOA Watch's opposition to U.S.-sponsored terror in the 
hemisphere (and, for that matter, to terrorism committed by anyone, against 
anyone) has an added urgency in light of the Sept. 11 attacks. And 
furthermore, SOA Watch's "security concerns" for the people of Latin 
America are not merely hypothetical, but based upon a death toll mounting 
daily on the receiving end of so-called low intensity conflict. But why the 
"added urgency?"

Consider, first, that the "war of retaliation against terrorism" currently 
being waged by the Bush Administration (with bipartisan support) will 
undoubtedly take innocent lives in the Middle East. Even the most vigorous 
euphemizing of such deaths as "collateral damage" cannot change that fact.

Second, there is a distinct possibility that the Sept. 11 attacks - however 
unconscionable - were themselves motivated by a misguided desire to 
"retaliate" for long-standing U.S. aggression in the Middle East. In that 
case, a violent response by the U.S. likely will trigger even more acts of 
terror against U.S. civilians.

Meanwhile, there is the ongoing agony of Colombia. Civilians there are 
suffering increased repression under Plan Colombia, with the Andean 
Regional Initiative promising even more death - both plans are heavy on 
military aid. The Colombian Army has trained more soldiers at the SOA/WHISC 
than any other country - and more than 150 of those Colombian graduates 
have been cited for abuses (some of them horrific beyond imagination). That 
same Army has been widely accused of collaborating with terrorist 
paramilitary organizations - by the U.S. State Department, the UN, the 
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and other 
human rights organizations.

The result of the U.S. aiding and abetting such an army? In the year 2000 
alone, there were 478 massacres of civilians, many committed by 
paramilitaries and army units working hand-in-glove. No doubt the people of 
Colombia would gladly recommend the SOA/WHISC to the Bush Administration as 
one "harbor of terrorism" needing to be abolished - rather than, well, 
harbored. (And SOA Watch would concur.)

So now, more than ever, SOA Watch feels a responsibility to call for 
breaking the cycle of violence. This is violence at once militaristic and 
economic; violence at home and abroad; violence no longer pale or abstract. 
In a difficult season for dissent, "the better part of valor" recognizes 
the need for a sensitive, nonviolent presence that exercises civil 
liberties - while remembering all those whose liberties have been taken away.

So this November's vigil will remember those killed by SOA/WHISC graduates 
- - including the Jesuits, their housekeeper Elba, and her daughter Celina; 
the U.S. churchwomen Maura, Ita, Dorothy and Jean; Archbishop Oscar Romero 
and Bishop Juan Gerardi; so many murdered laborers, campesinos and 
unionists; teachers, lawyers and human rights workers; those who are dying 
as this is written.

And this year the recent U.S. victims of terror - airline workers and 
passengers, World Trade Center and Pentagon employees, children, and the 
truly heroic police and firefighters - will be grieved for alongside those 
Latin Americans. For while our countrypeople were not killed on Sept. 11 by 
graduates of the SOA/WHISC, arguably they fell victim to the economic 
system the school serves - one that creates gross inequity, widespread 
deprivation and starvation, frustration and (sometimes murderous) rage.

But mere vengeance is the cheapest of honors. SOA Watch joins a number of 
the parents and spouses of the Sept. 11 victims, who have asked that their 
loved ones' deaths not be used as a pretext for the further killing of 
innocents. Rather, we can honor the U.S. victims of terrorism best by 
extending our national heartbreak even further, so that the death of any 
innocent anywhere is equally intolerable.

Perhaps then - united as a conscientious and vigilant nation - we will all 
insist upon bringing the September terrorists to justice within the 
dictates of international law. Perhaps then we will all demand an economic 
and foreign policy that no longer requires any U.S. school of terror.

Margaret Knapke works with SOA Watch and the Pledge of Resistance in 
Dayton, Ohio. She served  three months in 2000 at Federal Prison Camp 
Lexington-Atwood, Ky. on charges of criminal trespassing at Fort Benning.
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