Backpacks at the ready for the 'Day Navigation Examination" out in the field for trainees at WHINSEC, held at Fort Benning, near Columbus, Mar. 2007. (Dave Bender)
This weekend marks 18th anniversary of the protest against a school on Fort Benning that teaches soldiers from Latin America. Protest organizers expect a smaller turnout because of the economy. But they are hopeful that the incoming Obama administration will work in their favor.
Trainees check water, and have a fast lunch of MRE field rations before setting out on the examination. (Dave Bender)
WHINSEC trainees getting final instructions from their trainer before setting out on the land navigation field examination. (Dave Bender/Mar. 2007)
Several dozen Latin American soldiers in camouflage, and holding maps and compasses are tearing through the brush and piney woods of the sprawling army post.
Two trainees check compass readings against a map of the area, during a land navigation portion of a medical field training course held at Fort Benning in March, 2007. (Dave Bender)
Instructors are putting them through the final exam of a land navigation course.
The soldier's are taking the class at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It's housed at Fort Benning.
Two trainees make one last check of a map of the area, during a land navigation portion of a medical field training course held at Fort Benning in March, 2007. (Dave Bender)
Just outside the post demonstrators are gearing up for an annual protest marking the killing of six Jesuit priests, and others in El Salvador in 1989.
WHINSEC trainees during a classroom lecture on administration, held at Fort Benning in Mar. 2007. (Dave Bender)
Some of those responsible for the killings had attended the school – then known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas.
Lee Rials is WHINSEC's Public Affairs Officer. He says there's no direct correlation between their training and the graduate's deeds:
"There is not a single example of anyone who has taken a course at the School of the Americas or at WHINSEC, who has used that information to commit a crime. Not a single example has ever been shown. This whole movement is based on the false premise that mere attendance at a U.S. course has a cause-effect relationship on later behavior. And that's not been indicated; no evidence of that anywhere."For the U.S. the school is an important foreign policy tool. But opponents are adamant about closing it down. They say WHINSEC's mandatory human rights courses are only cosmetic.
Their protest has been growing from year to year – organizers say 20,000 took part last year.
But a deepening recession may rein in those numbers.
Father Roy Bourgeois is a Maryknoll priest and founder of School of the Americas Watch. He's worried about the turnout this year:
"I have a little concern with the economy, as we all do. I was in Austin recently giving a talk. For eight years they've brought a chartered bus here filled with people from Texas. Well, the cost has doubled. Some, simply, out of Des Moines, Iowa, cannot get on that chartered bus, so they're bringing a couple of vans. I mean people are struggling."On top of that, Bourgeois is in the midst of a wrenching personal struggle. He's facing excommunication for publically supporting women joining the Catholic priesthood.
But despite the clouds hanging over the event, supporters are still preparing workshops, giant puppets and posters, crosses and caskets for a symbolic funeral procession commemorating the deaths.
SOA Watch organizer instructs marchers in mock funeral procession outside the gates of Fort Benning during 2007 protest. (Dave Bender)
While fewer protesters may be lining the streets for that solemn event, Bourgeois feels that President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20 will bring his goal a little closer:
"One thing I admire about President-Elect Obama is his openness to other leaders. I think he's got much more respect for other countries coming from his own background and experiences. I think he's much more sensitive to other cultures, their leaders, their people, their histories, and less aggressive as a leader."
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, at his office-apartment located in a small complex several hundred feet from one of Fort Benning's entrance gates, and the site of the annual protest. (Dave Bender/file)
SOA Watch hopes an online petition calling on Obama to issue an executive order closing WHINSEC will gain steam.
But school officials say WHINSEC is established by law and it would take a lot more than an online petition to change that fact.
Lee Rials during a tour of the former WHINSEC headquarters at Fort Benning. (Dave Bender)
Spokesman Rials is also doubtful that Obama will have any time or interest, in the face of a morass of problems awaiting him in the Oval Office on January 21st:
"I would think a national petition would require millions of signatures to get any serious thought, and I just don't believe this organization - because it seems to be getting smaller in the last year or so - will have the ability to draw those kinds of numbers."There's been talk by organizers of moving the annual rally from Columbus to Washington, D.C., where they might have a better chance of reaching those numbers.
But Bourgeois believes that the soul of the protest should remain where it began in 1990 - at ground zero: outside his tiny apartment at the gates of Fort Benning.
The protest concludes this afternoon.
Click here for more GPB News coverage about SOA Watch and Fort Benning.
(All trainees shown in this photo essay are intended as an illustration of WHINSEC operations, and are unconnected to the events described in the article)
