CPTnet
November 28
FORT BENNING, GA: Present with Hope

by Charles and Carol Spring

[Note: To "disappear" someone in Latin America means to kidnap and murder
the victim. Often the victims' families never find out what happened to
their loved ones.]

On Sunday, November 23, 2003, dozens of CPTers and supporters joined ten
thousand people to vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. We gathered
to remember the victims of the military's School of the Americas (SOA) based
there, and to raise awareness about the nature of the "school" in the hopes
of shutting it down for good.

Both of us spent over two years working with CPT's Chiapas, Mexico and
Colombia projects. We'd met military and paramilitary members with ties to
the SOA. Some of our Colombian friends were killed by paramilitaries. For
us, there was a very real connection.

Name after name after name. For over three hours, musicians sang out names
of civilians killed in Latin America by SOA graduates. After each name, the
crowd of thousands responded "presente" and raised their small wooden
crosses inscribed with names of victims. Charles wrote on his cross the
name David Guzman, a campesino that we accompanied several times in
Colombia. David was openly threatened and eventually "disappeared" by the
paramilitary, some of whose commanders are retired army officers who had
studied at the SOA. Fellow CPTers carried names of slain women's leader
Esperanza Amaris, and teacher and community leader Nelcy Cuesta Cordoba,
both of whom the team knew.

We all processed, ten abreast, toward the gates of Ft. Benning where CPTers
conducted a brief vigil of prayer and song, finally hanging our crosses on
the front fence. By the end of the procession, white crosses, photographs,
flowers, and other remembrances obscured the chain-link gates, transforming
them into a vast memorial and sign of hope. At day's end, more than thirty
people from many groups committed civil disobedience by crossing the fence
onto the base, choosing to face three to six months in federal prison.

Eighteen CPT Corps members and Reservists were present at the witness along,
with more than a dozen delegation members and other CPT supporters.
Thirty-five gathered for prayer and sharing on Saturday evening before the
action.

Military officers and soldiers come from all over Latin America to take
classes at the SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. They study torture and interrogation techniques. They also
learn a military strategy called "low intensity warfare" which encourages
the formation of paramilitary groups to carry out assassinations and other
human
rights abuses. We have witnessed armed paramilitary groups in Colombia
harassing, threatening, extorting, and requiring forced labor from
civilians. The Colombian army, meanwhile, looks the other way while
secretly sharing intelligence, supplies, and even troops with the
paramilitary.

We had known about atrocities by SOA graduates and have participated in
local protests before, but after our time in Colombia, the violent tactics
taught at the school weigh on us much more heavily. For this, we had to be
present, to chant "presente" for all those whose spirits were present.

Pictures of the event can be found at www.cpt.org/gallery