Twenty Thousand Protest at Fort Benning: Eleven Face Federal Criminal Trials

[RiverStone]

By Bill Quigley
t r u t h o u t | Report
November 19, 2007


In what has become the nation's largest annual gathering for peace and human rights, over twenty thousand people protested outside the gates of Fort Benning, GA, on November 18, 2007. Eleven people were arrested on federal criminal charges and face up to six months in prison.

Fort Benning is the site of the internationally notorious US Army training school for Latin American military and security personnel. For decades it was called the School of the Americas (SOA) - it is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The school has graduated hundreds of military officers who have led or participated in nearly every human rights atrocity in the hemisphere. Organizations across the world, including Amnesty International USA, have called for its closure since discovering copies of torture manuals used at the school. In June 2007, 203 members of the US House of Representatives voted to close the scandal-ridden school - six votes shy of the margin of victory.

Thousands listened quietly as Adriana Portillo-Bartow told how her father, stepmother, sister, sister-in-law and two daughters, ages nine and 11, were "disappeared" in Guatemala in a war directed and carried out by graduates of the US Army School of the Americas. Thousands moved towards the gates of the Fort and called out "presente!" as the names of hundreds of other victims of graduates of the school were sung out.

Veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the never-ending Gulf Wars marched side by side with Catholic sisters and Buddhist monks. Flowers, posters, pictures and thousands of small white crosses bearing the names of people executed by graduates of the school were put on the closed padlocked gates topped with barbed wire. Thousands of college and high school students chanted and prayed Grandmothers for Peace as military loudspeakers blared warnings and law enforcement helicopters hovered overhead. Huge puppets, singing children and drum circles alternated with the spirited calls of priests, rabbis and ministers of many faiths and races. Songs in many languages, indigenous chants, guitars, horns and mountain flutes filled the air.

The eleven people who crossed onto the grounds were arrested by military police. The eleven, ranging in age from 25 to 76, are scheduled for federal criminal trial January 28, 2008, for trespass - punishable by up to six months in federal prison. Over 200 people have served federal prison time for civil disobedience at prior protests - dozens of others arrested have served years of supervised federal probation. The movement to close the school started in 1990 when about 20 people held the first protest outside Fort Benning.

more:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111907C.shtml

[ORDagnabbit]

1. It would be nice to see all 20,000 move onto the grounds and take back what is rightfully ours.

we the citizens.....

the feds cant arrest us all and until the day we move as a mass movement things will remain the same.

[gratuitous]

2. And the lead story this morning on the Today show?

Another tiresome interview with the husband of Stacy Peterson as he mugged and preened for the camera. I don't know what has happened to Mrs. Peterson, but does this investigation really merit the prime first story position day after day on the Today show?

Now, 20,000 people gathering at Fort Benning seems like it would be a pretty good story. Nice visuals, citizen involvement, all that sort of stuff. But GENBC apparently doesn't think its very newsworthy. I wonder why not?

[Red Zelda]

3. They ignore real news every day