Special To The Ledger-Enquirer

SOA WATCH: NOW MORE THAN EVER

Sept. 11 ushered the nation into a difficult season for democratic dissent.

For instance, Fort Benning's commander recently asked SOA Watch to cancel
this year's commemoration of the notorious "Jesuit massacre" - committed in
November 1989 by graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA). Since 1990
that anniversary has served as a time to honor the many thousands of Latin
American civilians who have been murdered by soldiers using the low
intensity conflict tactics taught at the SOA.

Predictably, every November that grief gives rise to a resounding demand to
close the SOA (as of January 2001 re-named the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation). To protesters, it can be no accident that
hundreds of SOA graduates have been named as abusers in numerous human
rights reports from their homelands. (Indeed, the 1999 UN Truth Commission
Report on Guatemala specifically cited the SOA for its "significant bearing
on human rights violations.") And it can be no accident that the SOA/WHISC
has never censured a single graduate for abuses.

Perhaps SOA Watch's annual display of grief has puzzled some observers.
After all, notions like "human rights violation" and "crime against
humanity" can register as pale abstractions - if they register at all. Even
"massacre," at a distance, sounds vague.

But on Sep. 11, the human rights of U.S. (and other, visiting) citizens
were flagrantly violated by terrorists right here at home - and now our
national trauma and grief are anything but pale, abstract or vague.

In the tense aftermath of these attacks, Fort Benning's Maj. Gen. John
LeMoyne contends that SOA Watch should defer to security considerations and
cancel the November vigil. Columbus has given him nuanced support. Mayor
Bobby Peters refuses to issue a permit for what always has been a
disciplined, peaceable assembly outside the gate of Fort Benning; he
proposes moving the vigil away from the post. And Ledger-Enquirer editors
similarly have called for compromise, opining that while civil liberties
should not be abridged, "Discretion at this time (on the part of
protesters) would indeed be the better part of valor."

But in fact, SOA Watch's opposition to U.S.-sponsored terror in the
hemisphere (and, for that matter, to terrorism committed by anyone, against
anyone) has an added urgency in light of the Sept. 11 attacks. And
furthermore, SOA Watch's "security concerns" for the people of Latin
America are not merely hypothetical, but based upon a death toll mounting
daily on the receiving end of so-called low intensity conflict. But why the
"added urgency?"

Consider, first, that the "war of retaliation against terrorism" currently
being waged by the Bush Administration (with bipartisan support) will
undoubtedly take innocent lives in the Middle East. Even the most vigorous
euphemizing of such deaths as "collateral damage" cannot change that fact.

Second, there is a distinct possibility that the Sept. 11 attacks - however
unconscionable - were themselves motivated by a misguided desire to
"retaliate" for long-standing U.S. aggression in the Middle East. In that
case, a violent response by the U.S. likely will trigger even more acts of
terror against U.S. civilians.

Meanwhile, there is the ongoing agony of Colombia. Civilians there are
suffering increased repression under Plan Colombia, with the Andean
Regional Initiative promising even more death - both plans are heavy on
military aid. The Colombian Army has trained more soldiers at the SOA/WHISC
than any other country - and more than 150 of those Colombian graduates
have been cited for abuses (some of them horrific beyond imagination). That
same Army has been widely accused of collaborating with terrorist
paramilitary organizations - by the U.S. State Department, the UN, the
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and other
human rights organizations.

The result of the U.S. aiding and abetting such an army? In the year 2000
alone, there were 478 massacres of civilians, many committed by
paramilitaries and army units working hand-in-glove. No doubt the people of
Colombia would gladly recommend the SOA/WHISC to the Bush Administration as
one "harbor of terrorism" needing to be abolished - rather than, well,
harbored. (And SOA Watch would concur.)

So now, more than ever, SOA Watch feels a responsibility to call for
breaking the cycle of violence. This is violence at once militaristic and
economic; violence at home and abroad; violence no longer pale or abstract.
In a difficult season for dissent, "the better part of valor" recognizes
the need for a sensitive, nonviolent presence that exercises civil
liberties - while remembering all those whose liberties have been taken away.

So this November's vigil will remember those killed by SOA/WHISC graduates
- - including the Jesuits, their housekeeper Elba, and her daughter Celina;
the U.S. churchwomen Maura, Ita, Dorothy and Jean; Archbishop Oscar Romero
and Bishop Juan Gerardi; so many murdered laborers, campesinos and
unionists; teachers, lawyers and human rights workers; those who are dying
as this is written.

And this year the recent U.S. victims of terror - airline workers and
passengers, World Trade Center and Pentagon employees, children, and the
truly heroic police and firefighters - will be grieved for alongside those
Latin Americans. For while our countrypeople were not killed on Sept. 11 by
graduates of the SOA/WHISC, arguably they fell victim to the economic
system the school serves - one that creates gross inequity, widespread
deprivation and starvation, frustration and (sometimes murderous) rage.

But mere vengeance is the cheapest of honors. SOA Watch joins a number of
the parents and spouses of the Sept. 11 victims, who have asked that their
loved ones' deaths not be used as a pretext for the further killing of
innocents. Rather, we can honor the U.S. victims of terrorism best by
extending our national heartbreak even further, so that the death of any
innocent anywhere is equally intolerable.

Perhaps then - united as a conscientious and vigilant nation - we will all
insist upon bringing the September terrorists to justice within the
dictates of international law. Perhaps then we will all demand an economic
and foreign policy that no longer requires any U.S. school of terror.

Margaret Knapke works with SOA Watch and the Pledge of Resistance in
Dayton, Ohio. She served three months in 2000 at Federal Prison Camp
Lexington-Atwood, Ky. on charges of criminal trespassing at Fort Benning.