WILPF at School of the Americas Action

Odile Hugonot Haber, Co-Chair, Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Branch, Michigan

November 21-23 weekend protests against the Stewart Detention Center and the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) included members from the Washington DC and Triangle (NC) branches, and myself. The Sunday ritual of reading names of the disappeared, with cross-carrying marchers responding "Presente" was very moving.

SOA is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2001 it was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). They also learn how to control populations and torture people who are leftist and/or union organizers.

On Friday, November 21, I travelled on a United Auto Workers union bus to Georgia.  We stopped on Saturday at a rally at the Stewart Detention Center, which is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) as a prison for migrant workers, through an intergovernmental service agreement of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Stewart County, Georgia.

Stewart Detention Center has an extremely poor record, including abuse and death of prisoners. Men are kept there for years without conviction. This medium security prison holds 1752 -- mostly immigrants. Someone said: "The prison has more people than the town." (Lumpkin, Georgia)

We were about 1,000 people who marched to Steward Detention Center, on a nice sunny day. The country was beautiful with pine trees and oak trees, which actually made everything more eerie. Five were arrested Saturday and paid fines for passing the police line at the entrance.

On Sunday we went to Fort Benning and stood in front of the gates that lead to the School of the Americas -- and the ritual unfolded:

Someone on the stage read all names one by one of the disappeared. Persons with white crosses that each had one of these names marched in a procession. When a name was read, the person with that cross said "Presente." There were also puppets that led the march. Women dressed in black with painted white faces carried black coffins with flowers in top. Each coffin had the picture and the name of a disappeared, massacred, or killed person in Latin America. It is a solemn and very moving ceremony.

This was the 24th anniversary of this protest. Some years there were up to 25,000 people there, including many youths brought from Catholic schools. This year we were 3000 marching in the rain. Only one older woman got arrested, I believe.

Father Roy Bourgeois started this movement in 1990, working against the foreign policies of the U.S. that decimate many Latin American communities. We learned that there are now 5 million refugees in Colombia alone due to the so-called "Drug Wars."  In the last few years Father Bourgeois was canonically dismissed due to his support for the ordination of the Maryknoll Sisters.  Also, Jesuits who had participated decided not to be part of demonstrations anymore.

So over the years this demonstration grew smaller. It is followed by days of lobbying in Washington early in December.

WILPF did not have a table at the SOA demonstration. Ellen Barfield, Dick Paddock, Ruth Zalph and Peggy Misch and perhaps others were there this year.  I hope next year we can be a stronger contingent. Odile can be contacted at  734-761-7967 or odilehh@gmail.com.

PHOTO: Women in whiteface carry coffins at School of the Americas.             
Odile Hugonot Haber