Protesters call for closing of Benning school - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Protesters call for closing of Benning school

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Protesters who gathered Sunday to call for the closing of a controversial school for Latin American military and government officials said they’re optimistic the new president or a more sympathetic Congress will help them achieve their goal within the next year.

Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who has been leading the demonstrations outside a gate to Fort Benning since 1990, said his supporters view president-elect Barack Obama as the “president who stands for peace” and will request a meeting with him.

Bourgeois’ group, School of Americas Watch, holds the peaceful protests each November to mark the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador. A United Nations panel concluded that some of the killers had attended Fort Benning’s School of Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which has added mandatory human-rights classes.

The protesters blame the school for human rights abuses in Latin America.

Fort Benning officials had no comment on the protest or the allegations other than to say they worked with local officials to ensure a safe, peaceful gathering.

Bourgeois said he and his supporters are optimistic they can persuade Obama to close the school.

“Our movement has worked hard to get him into the White House,” Bourgeois said. “We think it is very reasonable to have a meeting with President Obama.”

Bourgeois said Obama could close the school by executive order or Congress could vote to deny funding, a proposal that was narrowly defeated earlier this year, he said.

“There is a good possibility we’ll shut the school,” Bourgeois said. “If we do, we’re going to gather here next year for a fiesta.”

Bourgeois has been threatened with excommunication by the Vatican for supporting the ordination of women as priests. But as of Sunday, he was still a priest, he said.

“I’m waiting to hear from Rome,” he said.

The protesters, many of them students from as far away as Minnesota and Washington state, listened to music, speeches and marched in a funeral procession. Some, dressed in black robes, carried mock coffins while the majority lifted white crosses as the names of alleged victims of human rights abuses were read.

At one point, the crowd cheered an announcement that the crowd had grown to 20,000. Most years, there’s a discrepancy between the numbers reported by the group and by officials.

Capt. Mike Massey of the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Department, said deputies had counted about 8,500 entering the area Sunday morning.

Although the protests have always been peaceful, a few demonstrators risk arrest, fines and federal prison sentences to trespass on the military reservation.

Eric LeCompte, an SOA Watch organizer, said six protesters crossed the line and were arrested Sunday morning.

Juanita Sherba of Canfield, Ohio, has been attending the demonstrations for 12 years.

“We believe that Obama’s words are true,” she said. “He seems to be a man of conscious and I think he’s going to look into the way our government does business and truly make it a democracy again.”

Lynda Mintz of Bensalem, Pa., said she had been an Obama campaign volunteer in Pennsylvania and decided to join the protest for the first time. She came with a church group and wore a sign that said, “Close the torture school.”

“People are desperate for change,” she said.

Rose Kloeckner, a 16-year-old high school student from Kansas City, Mo., carried a white cross in the funeral procession.

“Killing people is never OK under any circumstances,” she said. “There’s so much hope for everything with the new president.”