In a small village in El Salvador, called El Mozote, over a thousand innocent civilians were brutally massacred by the Salvadoran army. Ten of the 12 members of the troop responsible are found to have been trained here in America; in Fort Benning, Georgia, to be specific. Located therein is a clandestine organization operated by the U.S. government known as the School of the Americas. It is because of atrocities such as the one in El Mozote that Oberlin students will be heading south to Fort Benning to protest the school responsible for a lion's share of the human rights abuses of central and south America.

Throughout the Cold War, the School of the Americas was a training ground for covert military operations to curtail Soviet and Cuban influence over central and South America. However, instead of promoting democracy, the school has instead accrued a notorious alumni network of assassins, drug smugglers and tyrannical dictators. Students receive training in commando operations, military intelligence and counter-narcotics. The Department of Defense recently condemned the school for also teaching courses in extortion and torture.

With the Cold War over, we do not need the School of the Americas. Furthermore, we did not need it during the Cold War either, as it never promoted democracy, just puppet dictatorships. The federal government spends approximately $3.7 million of our tax dollars annually to train people like Manuel Noriega, an alumnus, to later spend millions more on the military operations and massive speakers blaring Def Leppard to apprehend such international criminals.

Looking back: Ture at Oberlin

Kwame Ture brought his words, fire and quick responses to Oberlin College three years ago. Those of us who are nearing the time to leave this liberal bastion of relative safe spaces and politicized rhetoric remember the controversy that anticipated his entrance and hung long after he left.

He spoke twice. One discussion was about pan-Africanism and another dwelt on his feelings about Zionism and the position of Jewish and Palestinian people in the Middle East. His ability to wrap words around thoughts was amazing; those words at once incendiary and inspiring, depending on whose ears they fell.

In his wake, he left people who were hurt. During the anti-Zionist speech, some students protested, rising from their seats and turning their backs on Ture. The day he spoke, President Dye issued an all-campus mailing, basically absolving her and her office of the responsibility of fall-out from Ture's visit. His speech was painful to some; Dye's response injured others.

However, there were pockets of discussion among groups that didn't often converse. People talked, persuaded, cried, yelled; chances are, minds weren't changed, but people actually spoke to each other about the things that pulled them apart.

As the man credited with coining the term 'Black Power,' Ture actively shaped the racial climate of the U.S. since the 60s. Over his life, he gradually metamorphosed from a adolescent who dated white classmates in high school to a black separatist who relocated to Guinea and urged other African- Americans to do the same. Ture has been as turbulent and changing as race relations themselves.

Ture succumbed Tuesday to the prostate cancer that plagued him since before his Oberlin visit. He alleged that he was given the disease by "forces of American imperialism," and even brought up that theory in his talks at Oberlin.

What can we learn from Ture, his metamorphosis, his passion, and, microcosmically, his visit to Oberlin? He certainly stood for what he believed, and bellowed his doctrine with little concern about the potential adverse effects to him or others. He was a confident, sure speaker and left a lasting impression at Oberlin; it may have been in the form of a bad taste in some students' minds (placed there by Ture or by Dye's response to his presence) but he definitely impacted this campus.

We learned about the power of politics from the Dye-sponsored all-campus mailing and the subsequent subdued apology directly to black students at the Afrikan Heritage House. We learned about passion from his speech, the responses of the protesters who turned their backs to him and the dialog that ensued after his appearance here. For these gifts, Oberlin must remember him, even if some didn't respect his views.