PROTESTERS MARCH ON

Army Institute's Officials Say Opponents Are Focused On The Past

Splattered with fake blood and carrying placards condemning recent alleged
atrocities in Colombia, 11 demonstrators Wednesday crossed into Fort
Benning protesting a revamped post school considered a vital component of
U.S. drug war policy.

About 20 people, recently returned from a nine-day trip to Colombia,
converged outside Fort Benning before the crossing, asserting that the
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - formerly the School
of the Americas - continues to adopt human rights violations they link to
its predecessor.

"We're seeking to bring back the stories of the campesinos who have
experienced the repression of graduates of the School of the Americas,"
said Eric LeCompte, 25, the Washington, D.C.-based outreach director for
SOA Watch. "We're bringing those stories back here to the source."

Protesters and institute officials mingled together, exchanging ideas, as
the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch founder, hammered white crosses into the
ground outside the main gate bearing the names of Colombian towns
associated with massacres. The protesters criticized the defoliation
associated with the U.S.-backed, $1.3 billion "Plan Colombia" anti-cocaine
effort. The fumigation destroys the country's food crops in addition to
coca plants, they said.

"We found entire banana plantations destroyed by fumigation," LeCompte said.

Institute officials, meanwhile, said the protesters were using arcane
arguments to criticize an institute with a new mission.

"We're not trying to be the regional hegemon," said Joe Leuer, chief of the
institute's training management division. "We're trying to ensure that
everybody in the region is part of the objective of peace and prosperity.

"The story they're telling is a critique of history. What we're about is
the future."

"We're an open post and we welcome anyone to come and see what we're
about," said Maj. Milton F. Mariani, the institute's public affairs officer.

Last year, Congress voted to close the School of the Americas, which many
in government considered had been tainted by continuing public disclosure
of atrocities committed in Latin America by some of its graduates. The
school reopened earlier this year under a new name, structure and
curriculum, including human rights courses. The institute provides
leadership training for military officers, police and civilians who work
for public safety agencies in 17 Latin American countries.

Of the 700 students expected to attend the institute this year, 148 of them
are from Colombia, Mariani said.

Protesters planned Wed-nesday's action to coincide with Tuesday's jailing
of 19 people convicted of trespassing on the post during a mass protest
last November and U.S. congressional debate expected today on expanded
fumigation of Latin American coca fields.

The march began when a young woman poured fake blood over her body, draped
herself in a Colombian flag and led 10 others onto the post. The group was
detained about 30 yards inside the main gate. The 11 were issued
ban-and-bar letters, prohibiting them from entering the post for five
years. They were then taken outside the post and released on their own
recognizance, said Elsie Jackson, a Fort Benning spokeswoman.

Two members of the group had previously received ban-and-bar letters and
post officials were considering Wednesday whether to prosecute them for a
trespassing violation, Jackson said.

With some members of Congress considering an amendment that will reallocate
toward education money initially earmarked for drug eradication, an SOA
Watch spokeswoman said protests by groups returning from Colombia is having
an effect.

"It's because people like this - the people who have been to Colombia and
who have seen what's happening - that the amendment is being offered," said
SOA Watch spokeswoman Jackie Downing.