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I M P R E S S I O N S Homegrown Terrorism 12.4.02 | Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to George W. Bush, is on the Sunday morning propaganda programs saying — with a straight face, no less — that "the Iraqi people deserve a better president than Saddam Hussein." If I were watching at that moment, I might have shouted back to the screen with resigned irony, "And the American people deserve a better president than George Bush, toots." But I am not watching, and I am not my usual ironically detached self. On this particular cloudless and frigid mid-November morning, I am standing outside the gates of the U.S. Army’s Ft. Benning in Columbus, Ga., listening to the names of thousands of people — men, women, children, priests, nuns, bishops, labor leaders, land reformers, intellectuals — slaughtered in Latin America by soldiers trained right here on this patch of land in the Home of the Free. With my tax dollars. It is here, as thousands of pacifists march slowly toward the Army base’s heavily guarded perimeter, that America’s war on terrorism assumes, for me, the purest heights of hypocrisy. As Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al beat the drums of war and chime in with percussive notes about a shadowy enemy with no regard for human life, I think of the 900 residents of El Mozote, the El Salvadoran village that was massacred en masse in the 1981 by paramilitary forces. I think of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot in the head while celebrating Mass a day after appealing to soldiers to lay down their weapons and end the civil war. I think of the Sisters of El Salvador, Catholic missionaries who were raped and murdered for assisting the poor. All of their assailants had studied the finer points of torture and assassination right here in rural Georgia. With my tax dollars. Today, thousands of priests and nuns and young people and hippies and grandfathers and toddlers and bikers and musicians and poets and activists, writers, thinkers, scholars, homemakers, businessmen, farmers and students have converged in what has become one of the most beautiful, lyrical, humbling and mystical annual mass protests in America. They are each here physically representing the dead, carrying white crosses bearing the names and ages of SOA victims. "Ernesto Gonsalves, age 50," says one, carried by an elderly nun from Pennsylvania. "Unknown girl, age 3," says another, held by a massive biker with a balding head, tattoos and the words "Peace on earth" spray-painted on the back of his leather jacket. The crowd marches by solemnly, in rows up to eight people wide. The quiet parade stretches beyond my line of vision. From the dais, each name and age is called out over the loudspeaker. In the pause between names, the assembled crowd sings out in harmony, "Presente." Here. Accounted for. Not to be denied. Never forgotten. The heavily armed soldiers behind us, on the opposite side of the 15-foot fence, are unmoved. One repeats over and over at the top of his lungs that political protests are not allowed on U.S. Army property and that anyone trespassing will be arrested and prosecuted. A young woman shouts back, "Shut up! Can’t you see you’re interrupting a funeral? Have you no shame?" He clams up. So does she. The drone of the names carries on from the stage. The slow procession continues. As each contingent reaches the gates, they place their white crosses in the ground or lean them against the pilings. A few sneak past the perimeter fence and are quickly tackled, handcuffed and hauled away to be booked. Those arrested face up to 18 months in federal prison and fines of up to $5,000 for their civil disobedience. And yet as they are tackled by massive men in Army fatigues, I notice something about them: They are smiling. After three-and-a-half hours, I begin to head home. I walk against the tide, and it gives me a powerful impression of just how massive this protest is and, by extension, the sheer human toll of this place we are here to shut down. I have heard a thousand names already, and there are easily thousands more white crosses in this slow sea of humanity. It is boggling: I am inspired and deeply saddened. I smile with tears jetting down my face. * * * * The School of the Americas was founded in 1946 to share military know-how with American allies in Central and South America. It was quickly co-opted by the political ideologies of the military industrial complex and turned into a training ground for right-wing militias that the United States hoped would return to their home countries and undermine or overthrow left-leaning (albeit often democratically elected) governments. The School of the Americas had become a mill for despots and cold-blooded killers. It’s graduates include Manuel Noriega of Panama, Augusto Pinochet of Argentina, General Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia, and Roberto D’Aubuisson, the chief of El Salvador’s death squads. The United Nations Truth Commission report, which became public in 1993, revealed that 73 percent of El Salvadorans cited for human rights abuses in the 1980s were graduates of the SOA, including 19 of the 26 men who massacred six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her 15-year-old daughter in El Salvador in November of 1989. One remarkable man, Father Roy Bourgeois, has lost friends to the knives and guns of SOA graduates. In 1990, he founded the School of the Americas Watch and now every November — on the anniversary of the priests’ murders — he holds a vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning, pleading and praying that the school is shut down. The protests and vigils have grown beyond Father Roy’s wildest expectations; from a dozen people at the beginning to more than 10,000 in recent years. And the movement has scored some successes. The SOA actually was shut down in December, 2000, after the movement against it swelled its way right into Congress. But a month later, a new school opened on the same spot under a different name — the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation — but with much the same purpose. Although commanders now say the school teaches human rights, disaster relief and "anti-terrorism," Father Roy simply says, "New name, same shame." Indeed, the recent coup attempt in Venezuela was orchestrated by SOA graduates. And the warring and murderous factions in Colombia are rife with bullies and assassins who spent a summer or two in Columbus, Ga. Father Roy also has a new refrain, in this age of Condoleezza Rice, George Bush, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein: If America is truly interested in fighting terrorism and eliminating terrorist training camps, he says, it would do well to start in its own backyard. P O P F O R U M Brooke Shelby Biggs is a San Francisco-based journalist whose new book, Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits (featuring a chapter on Father Roy Bourgeois) will be published this spring by Anita Roddick Books. You can also visit her weblog, "The Bitter Shack of Resentment." Related Sites |
