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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Contingent to Protest at Fort Benning
 Joseph Gerth - The Courier-Journal
| | Protesters carry crosses honoring alleged victims of human rights abuses in Latin America at a gate to the Army's Fort Benning, in Columbus, Ga., on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006. Each year thousands gather to protest a Fort Benning school that trains Latin American soldiers. (AP/Elliott Minor |
About 80 people from Louisville will join some 19,000 people from around the United States at Fort Benning, Ga., this weekend to protest against U.S. foreign policy and to call for closing the training facility once known as the School of the Americas.
"Every year, they say we are that many votes closer to shutting it down," said Dotti Lockhart, who organized the local contingent and has gone to Fort Benning, where the school is located, for the past 10 years.
"We pretty much know that when they close it, they'll move it offshore," she said. "But one of our slogans is, 'Not in our name, not in our country.' "
The facility was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001. Protesters claim the school, which is operated by the Department of Defense and trains military officers from South and Central American countries, encourages torture, extortion and execution.
The annual protest has led to scores of arrests - especially since Sept. 11, 2001, after which the federal government took a harder line on protesters who cross under a fence and get arrested for trespassing.
Last year, a Roman Catholic nun who is a Louisville native served a six-month sentence in a federal prison after her second arrest protesting at the military facility.
Lockhart said the nun, Sister Lil Mattingly, will protest again this year but will not cross the fence line.
In fact, Lockhart said no one from Louisville plans to be arrested this year. (Lockhart said protesters who plan to be arrested are encouraged to take money with them so they can pay the $1,000 bail.)
Two buses were scheduled to leave Louisville at 12:30 a.m. today for the nine-hour trip to Fort Benning.
The trip is sponsored by the Kentucky Interfaith Committee on Latin America and the Caribbean and will include students from Centre College and Bellarmine University.
As part of this year's protest, a group called 1,000 Grandmothers is gathering at the military base to call for the school's closure.
Nancy Jakubiak has been going to the Fort Benning protest since the late 1990s. She'll be one of the 1,000 grandmothers.
Jakubiak had been involved in protesting U.S. policy in Central America for years and was concerned about the School of the Americas.
Now, she said the protest is spiritual for her.
"You can go right down to the fence," she said. "I kneel, meditate and pray and I feel the souls of those who have been killed in Central America. It's like they are all there with us."
Jakubiak, 57, said the 1,000 Grandmothers effort is important because her two granddaughters are the reason that she continues to protest.
"I want them to know that I love them so much that I did this to make this world a better place for them," she said.
Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at jgerth@courier-journal.com. |
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