SOA vigil - 1st Amendment rights under assault at Ft,. Benning

[carols]

Atlanta Indymedia
Call Fort Benning - Turn Off the Noise!!  The U.S. Military is blasting anthems and martial music at high decibel levels from inside Ft. Benning, directed at our peaceful, permitted demonstration outside of the gates of the base. The military is attempting to drown out an annual vigil to close the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC), the notorious combat-training school for Latin Americans. Meanwhile Columbus Police are using metal detectors to search every person attending the demonstration. The City of Columbus has set up a perimeter and demonstrators must enter and exit through access points. Last year Columbus Police took an action that had until then been unprecedented in the United States when they forced people to undergo searches as a condition for their participation in a public demonstration. Late last week, SOA Watch and the ACLU filed an emergency brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to get them to rule on the appeal from the 2002 mass-searches, and to enjoin the police from searching today. There has been no response from the Court.You can act now by calling the following base officials and asking them to turn off the music:
Ft. Benning Post After Duty: 706-545-2218
WHINSEC Public Affairs: 706-545-1923
General Ft. Benning Info: 706-545-2011
Carol
CLG Actions
The Fallout Shelter

[seafan]

1. Over 10,000 protest at School of Americas, demand its closing.

This happened over the last couple of days.

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Over 10,000 people from all over the Americas gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning today to demand the closure of the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). Over 3,600 risked arrest by crossing onto the base in a massive act of civil disobedience. Of those, more than 2,100 were arrested and processed, including clergy, students, veterans, grandparents . They were given letters banning and barring them from entering the base for five years. The protesters were taken to local parks and released. The last bus load of protesters was released shortly before midnight.

The civil disobedience began Sunday morning as over 3,400 people "crossed the line" onto the base in a solemn funeral procession, carrying thousands of crosses and other sacred symbols inscribed with the names of victims of SOA violence in Latin America. They were led by a group dressed in black shrouds and white death masks who carried coffins to commemorate the assassination of six Jesuit priests and their two co-workers in El Salvador in 1989 by SOA graduates. When met by military police a half mile inside the gate, the lead group fell to the ground, reenacting a massacre. They were among the first to be carried away by the military police.

<snip>

The SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American military in skills including psychological operations, military intelligence, and counterinsurgency operations. The SOA costs U.S. tax payers millions annually. Hundreds of SOA graduates have been among the worst human rights violators in our hemisphere, including those responsible for the execution of six Jesuit priests, the rape and murder of four U.S. church women, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the massacre of over 900 civilians at El Mozote.

Recently,both Colombia and Chiapas, Mexico have been targeted for massive U.S. military aid and counterinsurgency training. Colombia has more SOA graduates (10,000) than any other nation. Paramilitary death squads are a key element of civilian targeted warfare as it is taught at the SOA. In Colombia, former Defense Minister Gen. Harold Bedoya, SOA graduate and guest instructor, has advocated the use of paramilitaries for years. In Chiapas, Gen. Jose Ruben Rivas Pena, who took the elite Command and General Staff course at the SOA, has also called for the use of paramilitaries. Paramilitaries, in collaboration with the Colombian and Mexican militaries, are now cited for the vast majority of human rights abuses in these conflicts.
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http://www.soaw.org/new/pressrelease.php

And more at this link...

http://www.soaw.org/new/pressrelease.php?id=60

[alphafemale]

2. Look at the date on the link provided. It's "2000"

No such thing happened this year. I was there.

I'm not even sure the link is valid at all. Because this is the largest attendance ever at the SOAW, with 10,000. But only 30 were arrested.

On Edit:
Poster is mixing two years. 2000 and 2003 - perhaps not intentionally.

[G_j]

3. go here

http://www.soaw.org/new/index.php