On Nov. 17-18, 8,000 veterans, labor unionists, college students, anarchists, nuns, Jesuits and members of other religious groups traveled to Columbus, Ga. to protest at Fort Benning, one of the largest military bases in the country, and home of the School of the Americas.

Among them were eight Macalester students, who drove more than 20 hours each way. They endured the threat of arrest and a bus that smelled like a toilet to participate in the non-violent actions against the SOA.

The School of the Americas exists to train Latin American military and paramilitary personnel in counter-insurgency tactics. According to critics, the school is essentially a training ground for terrorists, supported by taxpayer dollars.

Two years ago, in response to increasing criticism, the U.S. government changed the SOA’s name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). But the public can access the school’s curriculum and training manuals, and activists say that the school has not changed at all.

Among SOA/WHISC’s 60,000 graduates are dictators Manuel Noriega of Panama and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Former SOA/WHISC students have committed numerous atrocities in Latin America, including a massacre of 900 people, the entire population of the town El Mozoté, El Salvador. SOA trainees were also responsible for the killing of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter in 1980, and the protest is held on the anniversary of that tragedy.

The protest began 10 years ago, as a hunger strike by ten people with no media coverage, according to Jordan Pender ’02. It expanded into an event attracting thousands every year.

Saturday was filled with speakers and music on a nearby baseball field. One of the speakers was a woman whose four daughters were killed by SOA trainees.

“It was very educational,” Jordan Engler ’02 said. “Because I’m a Latin American Studies major, I feel like I should know this stuff.”

On Sunday, the protest began with a “reverent, somber funeral procession,” according to Emi Baldoni ’02, who has been to Fort Benning four times and organized the Macalester group. Each of the 8,000 participants held a white cross with the name and country of someone who had died in an SOA atrocity. The procession made its way to Fort Benning. When protesters arrived, a speaker read hundreds of names of people who had been killed. After each name, all 8,000 raised their crosses and said, “Presenté” (“I am here”).

The protest was guided by a philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience. Organizers stressed that any one who could not remain non-violent should not attend. Baldoni said that most successful social movements have been non-violent and used civil disobedience, a tactic that involves challenging laws and taking over space to disrupt activity and make a statement.

Engler and Baldoni said that the protest took on extra meaning in the wake of September 11th. Terrorism against the U.S., they said, is intimately related to terrorism perpetuated by the U.S.

“[Terrorism] is obviously not going to stop, because we keep pumping it out,” Engler said.

The Macalester protestors also stressed connections between the SOA and the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, all of which have been subject to mass protests in recent years.

“They’re all working to further U.S. interests and crush everything in its way,” Baldoni said.

Federico Helfgott ’03, who also attended the protest, agreed. While the WTO, IMF and WB do not directly sanction violence, he said, “violence has often been used to suppress opposition to economic conditions and policies that are either encouraged by or given tacit approval by the WTO, IMF, and WB, not to mention the U.S. government. I don't think it's so much these institutions by themselves that are the problem, it's all part of a larger web.”

There is currently a bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 1810, to close the WHISC. But Helfgott notes that if the school is closed this year, it could be opened again under another name, or in a different location.

“The U.S. government will still be sending money and weapons to dictators and paramilitaries. Closing the SOA should be part of a broader campaign to change U.S. foreign policy, to stop protecting the powerful against the poor, and to stop undermining the ideals that this country preaches but does not usually practice abroad,” Helfgott said.