-Caveat Lector-
I got the following last month but have heard nothing from any other quarter.
Does anyone else remember hearing about this protest? It seems to me that
1700 people protesting should get a mention, but nothing more has been
forthcoming. Prudy
Subject: 1,700 arrested at Georgia soldier-training school
1,700 arrested at Georgia soldier-training school
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb1075995
School of the Americas
http://www.benning.army.mil/usarsa/
School of the Americas Watch - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.soaw.org/
By ELLIOTT MINOR, Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ga. (November 19, 2000 8:57 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Civilian and military police arrested
1,700 protesters who had marched into Fort Benning on Sunday demanding
the closing of the Army's School ofthe Americas, a training center for
Latin American soldiers.
About twice that number, including actor Martin Sheen, had entered the
west-central Georgia post, chanting and carrying cardboard coffins and
crosses, while others continued the protest outside the gates.
The demonstrations have been spearheaded for 11 years by Roy Bourgeois,
a Catholic priest who served in Bolivia. Bourgeois blames the school
for human rights abuses committed by some of the school's former
students.
Army officials termed the charge absurd.
"I'd characterize it as false and as propaganda," Maj. Gen. John
LeMoyne, the post commander, said at a news conference Sunday. "Roy's
thesis is based on emotion and falsehood."
Wearing plastic parkas, many of the protesters shivered in near-freezing
temperatures and occasional rain as they marched to a point where they
were halted by military and civilian police.
Police officials estimated 6,500 people gathered outside the gate for
the protest, about half the number that appeared last year. The group
School of Americas Watch organizes the demonstrations each year near the
anniversary of the Nov. 16, 1989, killings in El Salvador of six Jesuit
priests. A United Nations panel found 19 Salvadoran officers involved
in the slayings had been trained at the school, the group said.
Col. G.T. Myers, Fort Benning's provost marshal, said most of the
protesters arrested Sunday were charged with trespassing, given a warning
and released. Some who poured fake blood on the street were charged with
damaging government property, he said. A few of those charged may be
prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office, Myers said.
Sheen, who plays the nation's president in the television show West
Wing, was arrested, Myers said, but the colonel said he did not know
what laws the actor was accused of breaking. Sheen has joined the
protests for the past three years.
All those arrested were given letters barring them from visiting Fort
Benning for five years. Those barred from the post who are charged with
trespassing there again within that period could be subject to a year
in prison.
Bougeois and Sheen gave brief pep talks before the march.
"I have a directive I mean to share with you," Sheen said. "To the
secretary of Defense: Dear Mr. Cohen, as the acting president of the
United States, I want you to declare the School of the Americas closed."
Although it is still unclear who will become the next president,
President Clinton's term has not concluded.
The School of the Americas is scheduled to close on Dec. 15 and be
replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
The new school will be run by the Defense Department, under guiding
principles of the Organization of American States. Bourgeois has said
the name change is just cosmetic and his group will continue to protest
against the school.
Shortly after Sheen's speech Sunday, he joined a procession that marched
slowly through the post's main gate. At the front of the procession were
demonstrators wearing white death masks, black robes and carrying coffins.
After they had advanced about one-quarter mile, they poured fake blood
on themselves and "died" in the street.
Police rushed in to tag them, photograph them and cart them off on
stretchers to waiting buses.
Sister Mary Johnalyn, 68, of West Allis, Wis., said she was
photographed, fingerprinted and given a "ban and bar" letter, meaning
she is barred from Fort Benning for five years. She said she was charged
with damaging U.S. property for spilling fake blood.
"I was a missionary in Mexico and I found those people so loving," she
said. "I don't want them to come up here and learn to be ugly murderers.
I'm also here to honor those who suffered and died."
Processing the large number of demonstrators could take until early
Monday, Myers said.
That wasn't good news for John Dunn, 27, of Cleveland.
Dunn said he drove a charter bus with 50 passengers to Fort Benning and
was expected to drive them back on Sunday night. He joined the
demonstration impulsively.
"I'm taking my chances like everybody else," he said. "It's a little
more chancy for me because if I'm not there to drive them back,
I'm in trouble."
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