Close the School of the Americas!
by Jason LydonYRUU (Young Religious Unitarian Universalist) Programs Specialist and former prisoner of conscience
School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) is an organization of committed people working to increase awareness about U.S. Foreign Policy regarding Latin America, specifically involving the SOA (renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). SOAW began in a small apartment right outside the gates of Ft. Benning, GA where the school is stored away. Father Roy Bourgeois founded SOAW after learning of the six Jesuit Priests (whom he had known), their housekeeper and her daughter who were massacred by graduates of the SOA. Father Roy was not alone in his desire for reform and many more people joined on with this new organization. The SOA is responsible for the massacre and disappearance of hundreds of thousands of people in Latin America. Many of the people of Latin America have been working to raise awareness about the school since its inception in 1946 in Panama; Father Roy brought the movement to life in the U.S.
Small vigils began happening outside the gates of Ft. Benning as well as the Capital building in Washington, D.C. This small group of people became extremely devoted and began taking part in nonviolent direct action in order to bring awareness to the atrocities committed by graduates of this terrorist training school. Father Roy was the first to be arrested for an anti-SOA action after sneaking onto the grounds of Ft. Benning and climbing a tree by the barracks where the students of the school slept. He then played through a loudspeaker the last speech written by Monsignor Oscar Romero who was assassinated by a graduate of the School. This resulted in Father Roy’s first prison sentence of six months—certainly not his last—he has served over three years for actions related to the SOA.
SOAW has continued to grow over the years and there are over sixty local SOAW organizations all over the U.S. as well as one in Canada and the UK. Organizations keep establishing as this school continues to be infamous. Every year on the anniversary of the massacred Jesuit priests, housekeeper, and daughter thousands gather at the gates of Ft. Benning for a vigil/protest. This is a time for many to come together, be they anarchists, Catholic nuns, UU (Unitarian Universalist) youth, labor activists, or simply peace-loving people, and raise their voice to cry out for justice for the people of Latin America. The parent SOAW organization located in Washington D.C. coordinates this action each year. SOAW D.C. is staffed by a group of committed people who work, on a mostly volunteer basis, a more than full-time job. Not only do they plan the action every year but they maintain the SOAW website and keep track of the prisoners of conscious who are serving sentences for actions they took to increase awareness about the SOA.
SOA Watch is truly a living organization that is growing all the time as more and more people learn about the SOA and the need for reform in U.S. Foreign Policy around Latin America. Father Roy was the beginning of SOA Watch but it has grown to include so many more and will continue to grow until that school shuts its doors for the last time. You can find out more information about the SOA and the movement to shut the school down on the SOA Watch website.
THE PEOPLE SAY, “CLOSE DOWN THE SOA!”
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
