School of the Americas Watch
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2002 Contact: Matthew Smucker 706.221.1672, media@soaw.org
Thousands to Expose Double Standard in War on Terrorism: Massive Convergence at Ft. Benning, Georgia, November 15-17 to
Close the School of the Americas
ACLU and SOA Watch Go to Court TODAY to Challenge Plan to Search Every Participant
NEWS CONFERENCE Saturday, November 16,9:30AM Directly outside of base, in front of stage Ft. Benning Rd., Columbus, GA
background footage available in DV format at www.soaw.org/newsroom
Columbus, GA As President Bush expands the “war on terrorism”, thousands are planning to take nonviolent direct action
to close 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. This weekend
thousands will gather at the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia, site of the school, to expose a double standard. SOA grads
continue to be implicated in egregious acts designed to terrorize and coerce civilian populations throughout Latin
America.
“Bush said we must uproot every known terrorist training camp,” said Abi Miller of Harrisonburg, VA. “We’re shining a
light on one operating with impunity in our backyard.” Miller is among 26 human rights activists serving three to
six-month prison sentences for their part in last November's peaceful procession.
Today at 1PM the ACLU of Georgia and SOA Watch will go to court challenging last minute plans by the City of Columbus to
conduct unprecedented mass searches of each of the anticipated thousands of participants in the vigil. Gerry Weber of
the ACLU said, “We have monitored protests for decades and this is the first time we’ve ever heard of a plan to conduct
mass searches of all demonstrators.”
SOA Watch founder, Fr. Roy Bourgeois added, “We must be vigilant in defending civil liberties when they are threatened,
both here and in Latin America.”
SOA Watch has a twelve-year history of disciplined nonviolent direct action to challenge oppressive U.S. foreign policy
in Latin America and to close the SOA. The weekend’s program will feature music and speakers from Latin and North
America, including The Indigo Girls. The gathering marks the anniversary of the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit
priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador by SOA grads. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release
training manuals used at the school that advocated the use of torture, extortion and execution. In December 2000
Congress authorized WHISC to replace SOA. The renaming was widely viewed as an attempt to diffuse criticism and
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.
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