SOA protest draws attention

"I hate Martin Sheen," someone said as Sheen addressed the press at the School of the Americas protest, held the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Though the School of the Americas (SOA) protest drew 7,000 people and resulted in an act of defiance toward the U.S. military by 2,400, "Martin Sheen Protests SOA" was the most popular headline in the national press. Not only was Martin Sheen there, mind you. According to many articles, he boldly led the procession of protesters, dropping to his knees in a defiant prayer when read the law by a mean, muscular police officer. He was dragged away kicking and screaming, shouting "Amen!" over his shoulder as he was forced onto a bus. Sheen went through all this turmoil, he said, "to win my own freedom."

The focus of the other 7,000 protesters was simply to close the SOA. Coming from as far away as California and Washington, as well as from other countries, to make the largest crowd ever to demand closure of the SOA. Over 40 Oberlin students traveled to Georgia to participate in the protest the weekend before Thanksgiving.

The protests began in 1991, on the anniversary of the deaths of six Jesuit priests whose murders were linked to graduates of the SOA. The protest started off with merely a handful of people. Gradually opposition towards the school has grown, fueled by reports that it included courses on torture techniques.

Thousands of murders have been attributed to the SOA since its founding. The School, located at Fort Benning, Georgia, trains about 22,500 Latin American men each year in what the military contends are professional military skills. They are then sent back to their countries to, the military says, help maintain democracy. The School insists that it has cleaned up its act since the torture classes were first discovered, and contends that the public view of the school is distorted.

The protest began with a rally outside of the School, were protesters sang songs and waved banners. In response, the administrators of the SOA brought out bullhorns and a speaker system to announce that partisan protests were not allowed. They then sent out buses. People who boarded would be taken to an information session to find out more about the SOA. It seemed an obvious attempt to break up the rally, and the protesters stood firm, forcing all the buses to leave completely empty.

After the rally, the organizers of the protest held classes on non-violence training for the protesters who would be "crossing the line." Crossing the line meant walking over a white line that marked the beginning of the Fort Benning property. This was a federal offense, and could result in the arrest of the offenders. For repeat offenders, the arrest can result in a six-month prison sentence and a fine of $5,000. Reverend Ray Bourgois, the organizer of the protest, has spent close to six years in prison for repeatedly "crossing the line." In 1997, 25 people were sentenced to six months in prison for being repeat offenders.

The second day of the protest included a funeral procession onto the grounds of the School of the Americas. Protesters at the front of the procession carried caskets representing the six slain priests. The rest of the members of the procession were to be given white crosses, each bearing the name of a person murdered by graduates of the SOA. Since 600 people marched in the procession last year, a little over a doubling in numbers was expected, so 1,500 crosses were made.

The crosses quickly ran out, as 2,319 people crowded on a grassy knoll to await their turn to cross the line. The procession began. Names of murder victims were read out over a loud speaker. The crowd responded "Present," to signify that the people were present in our hearts and memories on that day. When the line finally began moving forward, a tinge of excitement and anxiety began shooting through the crowd, and a nearby couple hugged each other. Each protester was crossing the line with the full knowledge that they would be arrested, and 73 were crossing knowing that they were giving up six months of their lives.

As it turns out, not one protester was arrested. Though the military had made it clear at the beginning of the gathering that the line-crossers would all be arrested, they did not live up to their threat. As the military had not anticipated so large a turn-out, they were not prepared to handle over 2,000 arrests. Arresting 2,400 people would have generated too much publicity.

Instead, protesters were taken by bus to a baseball park a mile and a half away, given photocopied notices banning them from the premises until midnight, and told not to come back again. The procession, now broken up into three parts by the military, marched the mile and a half back into town, occasionally breaking into chants of "North and South, the people say, close the SOA!"

The procession walked all the way back to the original starting place outside of the school. The other 4,400 protesters, who had gathered but not crossed the line, welcomed the other protesters back. The line-crossers were greeted with hugs, handshakes, hi-fives, thank you's, and lots of love in general. Like coming home from war, except the battle is not over.