Columbus, GA – This afternoon members of School of the Americas Watch, including founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois, filed an injunction in federal court to prevent a plan “to prohibit 10,000 plus people from exercising their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble, speak, and petition the government in a public forum unless they each first submit to law enforcement searches without consent, without warrant, without probable cause and without individualized suspicion.”

Attorneys Gerald Weber, Legal Director of the ACLU of Georgia, and William Quigley filed the civil action case against Columbus City Mayor Bobby Peters and Columbus Police Chief W.L. Dozier. Columbus police plan to use metal detectors and possibly more comprehensive searches on every participant in the vigil outside Ft. Benning.

A hearing is scheduled in Judge Clay Land’s courtroom for Friday at 1PM.

“We must be vigilant in defending civil liberties when they are threatened, both here and in Latin America,” said Fr. Roy Bourgeois.

Thousands are anticipated to arrive in Columbus this weekend to call for the closure of what they call a terrorist training camp on U.S. soil – the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC), a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. SOA grads continue to be implicated in egregious acts designed to terrorize and coerce civilian populations throughout Latin America.

SOA Watch is an umbrella for thousands of concerned people, including students, veterans, people of faith, unionists and others. In its twelve years of nonviolent protest to close the SOA this movement has without exception maintained a respectful and peaceful presence. Last year, on the eve of the gathering, the City of Columbus lost in federal court a last-minute request for an injunction prohibiting the legal protest within fifty yards of the base.

The November 15-17 event marks the anniversary of the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter in El Salvador by SOA grads. In December 2000 Congress authorized WHISC to replace SOA. The renaming was widely viewed as an attempt to diffuse criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation. SOA Watch maintains that the underlying purpose of the school, to control the economic and political systems of Latin America by training and influencing Latin American militaries, remains the same.

# # #

As an educator in my late 50's, once I learned of the protests at Fort Benning, I was compelled to add my voice, and my presence, to the movement. Twice in Columbus, and once at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

I volunteered in the role of Peace Keeper, and I can attest to the firm commitment that Fr. Bourgois and the SOA Watch leaders bring to the event. Participants are repeatedly urged to reflect on the Pledge of Non-Violence that is formally recited at the end of every training session.

Those charged with enforcing the rule of law in Columbus face a difficult task: balancing the Constitutional rights of peaceable protestors against the risk of violence posed by potential out-lyers, activists with similar goals, but differing philosophies from the SOA Watch leadership, as well as the new post-9/11 threat of Terrorism that is always just beneath the surface of consciousness.

Those gathering in Columbus this weekend have my respect and admiration. Some young, some old, some in groups and some traveling alone, they will face the unfavorable weather, the unpredictable fringe groups, and the uncertainties of a deteriorating relationship between the protestors and the local (civil and military) law enforcement.. Some will decide to "Speak Truth to Power," placing their personal freedom and financial stability at risk to speak for those who have no voice.

In solidarity with all of them, I cry out to the newly-aliased SOA, No Mas! No More!