5,000 JOIN IN PROTEST MARCH

Columbus --- In what organizers called the largest procession for the
annual School of the Americas protest, approximately 5,000 marched to the
gates of Fort Benning Sunday with flowers, banners and small wooden crosses.

At least 70 of the protesters also spent part of their day in military custody.

Protest organizers estimated the overall turnout for the final day of the
weekend event at about 10,000, which is roughly the same level as in the
past two years.

The "living river of remembrance," as the procession was termed by Jeff
Winder, program director for the event organizers, SOA Watch, took more
than two hours for its passage by the main gate of Fort Benning.

The march was accompanied by a dirge-like chant, in which the names and
ages of people killed in military-related violence in Latin America were
sung out. After each name, the crowd chanted the response "presente"
(present), and lifted the small crosses they carried, each with a victim's
name on it.

Then the marchers left their crosses and banners in the chain link fence.
Their signs carried messages, including "Disarm the Terror Machine" and
"New Name, Same Shame" which was in reference to the name change of the
Fort Benning training facility. It used to be known as School of the
Americas, but now is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation.

"This school provides the muscle for our foreign policy; they are the
enforcers," said the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch. He led the
procession wearing his priestly stole and walked just ahead of a group of
black-draped "pallbearers" carrying mock coffins.

From the other side of the security fence at the gate, Col. Richard
Downie, commandant of the institute, said his facility actually promotes
values that many of the protesters might be able to support.

The training programs at the institute are not focused on
counterinsurgency, he said. Instead, the main areas of emphasis include
peacekeeping, disaster relief and fighting drug trafficking.

"We promote democratic values, and that is central to everything we do,"
Downie said. "We feel that's what many of this group [the protesters] would
want us to be doing."

A small percentage of the protesters went so far as trespassing, according
to authorities, to demonstrate just how much they disagree with Downie.

At least 70 protesters were taken into military custody, and later
released, for entering the reservation, said Rich McDowell, Fort Benning
public information officer.

As many as eight protesters might be referred to the U.S. attorney's office
for prosecution, he said.