SOA Name Change Protested
 
 

by Linnea Butterfield

Oberlin has long been active in the movement to close down the School of the Americas. In the past decade, the SOA’s activities have come into question as its graduates are widely believed to be responsible for numerous atrocities in Latin America. The relationship between Oberlin and the organization called SOA Watch has become strong, and two Seniors continued their active commitment to fight the SOA over Winter Term. 
Seniors Rebecca Johnson and Laurel Paget-Seekins spent most of the month of January in Georgia protesting the SOA’s new name, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which replaced its former name on Jan. 17. Paget-Seekins remained at the Ft. Benning school site for 19 days and Johnson remained protesting for 31 days. The two fasted for weeks, and held six hour long vigils eight times during the month of January. Both women were originally members of a group of seven protestors who were all arrested on Jan 17, as part of a non-violent act of civil disobedience, and were joined by 25 others throughout the course of the month, including Johnson’s mother. 
Three years ago Paget-Seekins became involved with the anti-SOA movement and helped found the College’s alliance with the SOA Watch. Johnson became involved with the SOA movement two years ago. Encouraged by Joshua Raisler Cohn (OC ’99) to watch documentary footage of atrocities in Latin America that have been linked to the school’s graduates, both immediately became fully invested in combating the SOA. 
“Well, we obviously scared the Pentagon, the military complex of our country, to change the name of the SOA — to make minor adjustments in policy — but we, as the SOA movement, don’t accept minor policy adjustments. It’s still the School of Assassins under whatever name, and we want it shut down for good.” Johnson said about their recent protest. “Why they think we’re going to forget the atrocities just because they put a new flag over the door is beyond me.”
The change of name to WHISC was approved under the Clinton administration, but otherwise, nothing about the school’s structure has changed. The late Senator Paul Coverdell, who was in favor of keeping the SOA open, said the change of name was a “cosmetic” facelift, which attempts to alter the SOA’s bad reputation. 
“WHISC will not only teach everything the SOA did; it now has the added open-ended mission to teach ‘Any other matter the Secetary of Defense determines appropriate,” said Major Joseh A. Blair as quoted on the SOA web page at www.soaw.org.
“They obviously had on-going public relations to try to fool us that the school is changed, and it’s obviously directed toward the movement, because if they claimed all along that the school wasn’t associated [with civil turmoil in Latin American countries] why change the name?” questioned Paget-Seekins.
WHISC is a 50 plus year old institute based out of Ft. Benning, Georgia that trains high-ranking officers from various Latin American countries, including Columbia, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in unconventional warfare tactics. SOA graduates have allegedly been linked to political unrest in such developing countries.

“Hundreds of graduates have been involved in thousands of deaths and disappearances. In El Salvador, SOA graduates assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero and raped and murdered four U.S. churchwomen. Among the SOA’s more than 60,000 graduates are dictators Manuel Noriega of Panama, Rios Montt of Guatemala, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia.” said Father Roy Bourgeois, head of SOA Watch on the web site. 

One of many problems protested by SOA watch and others, is that no tracking guide exists for graduates. SOA graduates become new military leaders in remote countries where they utilize the terrorist tactics learned at Ft. Benning. Those in favor of sustaining human rights and protecting the people in other countries have no warning. Insurgency and bloodshed occur suddenly. 
“They close the school and say, ‘okay, it’s dealt with.’ but they’ve never dealt with past atrocities, and before they can say ‘okay the school’s closed’ they need to deal with the past in some way,” Paget-Seekins said.
Protestors around the country asked that the school reevaluate its mission, which it purports is an emphasis on democracy and advocacy of human rights in Latin America. They also asked that the school close its doors temporarily for a Congressional investigation. An amendment went to Congress last year, but was overturned by a slim margin of 10 votes, and resulted in the change in name. 
According to Major Blair, “[The new school still] fails to establish criteria for selecting foreign students, it places no policy limits on how the school will be used to promote sales of U.S. military equipment, has no limits on teaching state-of-the-art military technology, places no restrictions on using WHISC to man mobile training teams that would operate in Latin America, places no limits on the selection of Latin American military faculty and has no requirement to use English as the primary instructional language.”
A report from the SOA Watch news release claimed, “Nearly 50 supporters of SOA Watch have served a combined total of roughly 30 years in federal prison for nonviolent civil disobedience on Ft. Benning.” Johnson and Paget-Seekins have both been arrested before, and were again detained while the re-opening ceremony took place at Ft. Benning. 

“We already have [warning] letters, and the federal prosecutor will decide whether to press charges against us. They have months to decide,” Paget-Seekins said.
Finishing the thought, Johnson said, “if they press charges we’ll go on trial in Georgia. We’ll probably be found guilty. It’s a three to six month sentence in federal prison for this.” 

 

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