by LadyMadonna
Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008 at 9:32 PM
The story of the School of the Americas, or School of the Assassins is a disturbing tale of such organized and planned terrorism; one would never believe it was real. Every year in Fort Benning, Georgia the people protest. This year we brought it to LA.
The brutality caused by the School of the Americas is very much real. It is so real that several speakers at the vigil were victims of torture at the hands of SOA graduates. We carried crosses bearing names of those who were lost in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia, among others. Hector Aristizabal, a speaker at the vigil, held a cross bearing the name of his own brother who was brutally tortured and murdered in Colombia. It was so real, it was scary. And this story, though it did take place in Latin America, was completely caused by, funded by, and organized by the US government. We funded these murders, rapes, tortures. We are terrorists. The passionate efforts to close the School of the Americas (SOA) down included a yearly mass protest in November at its current location in Fort Benning, Georgia. (It was originally in Panama.) The school finally closed in 2001 but reopened one month later in the same location with the same staff teaching the same courses, but was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (WHISC). The vigil was a replica of the Fort Benning protest and was held at Los Angeles State Historic Park. It featured speakers Father Roy Bourgeois, Martin Sheen, Cindy Sheehan, Blase Bonpane, Eisha Mason, Fernando Suarez del Solar, Don White, Lucia Munoz, Dr. Jose Quiroga, Patricia Contreras, Josh Harris, Jim Lafferty, Hector Aristizabal, Maria Guardado, Mario Avila & Frankie Flores and music by Cuauhtemoc Azteca Dancers, El Salvador's Hip Hop Marmota Fu, Ross Altman, Maria Armoudian, Will B. & Dennis Davis. Several speakers told of their experiences as activists fighting to close the school down, others spoke of their experience as torture victims and survivors of murdered family members. Lucia Muñoz spoke about the aftermath of the SOA for women, most notably the femicide in Guatemala. The speakers urged us to teach about the SOA in classrooms, to go to the yearly protests in Georgia and to call our representatives. After the speeches and music we carried our crosses in a procession march while singers on the stage sang the names the crosses bore, and we held them up and sang “presente.” Once the march ended we placed our crosses down and participated in a “die-in” following a performance depicting “birds of destruction” turning a village into flames. Then puppetistas performed a “return to life celebration” using huge paper mache faces and hands to wake our dead bodies up as an allegory for the uprising that must take place atop the ashes of the brutalized. Then the celebration began and the day’s events were over.
The performance artists (the image "Liberty" were interesting. It was impossible to tell if they were a planned part of the spectacle or if they were free agents that decided to demonstrate in their own way.
The woman who was dressed as "Liberty lighting the Way," more commonly known as "The Statue of Liberty," wore a necklace with beads made of prescription pill bottles. At times, her eyes rolled back in her head. At others, she engaged in fetishistic pain rituals with "the enemy combatant", another artist dressed as a hooded, orange-jumpsuited Guantánamo detainee.
Free agents such as these are always, in my mind, welcome at public events, especially those convened under the auspices of "respectable" organizations such as the Catholic Church, as this one was. The performance artists definitely offset the ecclesiastical bent the presence of padres, sisters, and Catholic school teachers gave the demonstration.
Not that I wasn't pleased with my sister educator's exhortation for all of us to "teach peace in our classrooms." I was just hoping that we would make the demonstration a bit more public. In that little park, we were preaching to the choir. We needed to take that demonstration to the recently-officially-designated "Little Central America," or perhaps even to Gringolandia. To hell with them if they can't wait an extra five minutes in traffic for a cause as important as this.
Otherwise, a heart-wrenching but ultimaltely uplifting event. Can't wait for future SOAW West events.
by Vinnie
Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008 at 11:53 AM vaven@mac.com
The United States of America constantly extolls the virtues of western civilization and democracy to the rest of the world. After learning about the existence and purpose of the SOA, I am disgusted that my country fancies itself a moral leader and example to the rest of the world. Teaching our neighboring countries how to dismantle free speech through torture and intimidation is despicable. I am thankful to this country for my first amendment rights that allowed me to attend the vigil, but I will not be satisfied with my country if my government continues to deny freedom of speech in the rest of the world.
I recently watched Oliver Stone's Salvador for the first time in over 20 years, and some of the people mentioned at this event (e.g., Oscar Romero and the raped/murdered church women) were depicted.
After I watched it, I felt despondent. And I felt like the world was such an evil place, I questioned the value of any activism.
However, I then watched Salvador a second time to hear Oliver Stone's audio commentary, and this viewing made me feel angry and eager to engage in my regular activism.
The audio commentary on the DVD is very informative, and there is a behind-the-scenes documentary that, among other things, discusses the man upon whom the James Woods character was based and the sequel that Oliver Stone considered making.