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		Points of View Sue Ellen Kingsley December 16, 2003 Text and Photos © 2003 Sue Ellen Kingsley Published with Permission

School of the Americas Protest: November 2003

HANCOCK -- The crowds of police gathered at the entrance to the cordoned-off street that led to the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, were cordial, even friendly, as they scanned us, the other crowd, one by one with their airport wands. Were they nervous, singing in the dark? Whistling past the graveyard? Later, we noticed them hauling load after load of helmets, gas masks, billy clubs and plastic shields into the nearby designated police headquarters. Hard to believe that they might have been afraid of us, a crowd that consisted of nuns, youth in beads and slogans, parents with children, and grey-beards carrying crosses. (Although there was also quite a scattering of Latinos among us, I was disappointed not to see more people of color.)

A crowd of protesters gathers around the giant peace puppet -- part of the Close-the-SOA procession at the School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning, Ga., the weekend of Nov. 21, 2003. The puppet's message is "A better world is possible." It was escorted by marchers with signs representing such wants and hopes as food for all, universal health care, an end to fear. (Photo by Sue Ellen Kingsley)

Still, I had wanted to go to the annual School of the Americas (SOA) protest rally for years, and the sheer size of the crowd brought a lump to my throat. To think, this many people all gathered together with one purpose, to call for an end to the study of war. It is at the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) (They can try to fool the world by renaming it; we know it for what it is) that our taxes pay for the training of military leaders from Latin America -- the very leaders that ordered the massacres in the jungles of Guatemala, military officers who continue to direct violent operations in Colombia and elsewhere.

Those Guatemalan military leaders had a direct effect on the lives of my friends in Guatemala, those people of Fronterizo who lost friends and family and their homes and all their possessions as they fled to refuge in the jungle or in Mexico. I have heard their stories, knowing that they carry memories with them like scars that have never completely healed.

Protesters hold banners and signs during Close-the-SOA funeral procession at Fort Benning, Ga., in late November 2003. (Photo by Sue Ellen Kingsley)

The first time that lump in my throat turned into tears that spilled over was when I listened to Pete Seeger, 84 years old, hero of my child-of-the-60s youth, singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." His voice is shot, of course; but his spirit still infused the crowd with the same lament that we sang during the Viet Nam war. We sang for him, "Gone to graveyards every one" and I cried.

Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness spoke briefly of her intention to cross the line into the grounds of Fort Benning to be arrested. Then she sang "We Shall Overcome" in Arabic as she had learned it from a young boy in Iraq.* 

Fortunately, both Pete Seeger and Kathy Kelly were featured from the main stage later in the afternoon on Saturday. Before that, the soldiers of Fort Benning had been blasting "patriotic music" -- military marches and country songs -- from behind the gates, using the same method they had used on one of their graduates who displeased them (Noriega in Panama) to disrupt our gathering.**

There were thousands of us: Some estimate around 10,000. On Sunday, Nov. 23, we formed a column to proceed down the street, about 3/4 of a mile to the gates of Fort Benning. We carried small wooden crosses, each inscribed with the name of a Latin American victim of violence: Guatemalans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Peruvians and more. Even if every single one of us of 10,000 people had been assigned the name of a victim, there would still be innumerable names of the fallen unassigned. From the stage, each name was sung out, and the crowd responded, singing together "Presente!" as we raised our crosses. The procession moved very slowly, and the chanting went on for hours. I once again felt that I was on the verge of tears the entire time, and this time the tears flowed when I finally neared the gates and saw there the piles of crosses -- thinking of the people, the sadness and suffering that the crosses represented.

After the funeral procession, protesters pile crosses, each inscribed with the name of a Latin American victim of violence, against the fence at Fort Benning, Ga., Nov. 23, 2003. (Photo by Sue Ellen Kingsley)

Later, as we milled about the area, every once in a while we would hear a cheer go up from the crowd of people pressed up against the fence around the Fort, and we'd know that another person had crossed the barrier and had been arrested. There were some thirty people who had decided to commit civil disobedience, a nonviolent method of protest approved by Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau.

I wasn't crying anymore at the end of the day -- a sunny, warm, gorgeous day, by the way. I was feeling exhilarated and grateful that there are so many others dedicated to righting the wrong that is the School of the Americas. I left, singing along with the thousands, "No más! No more! We must stop the dirty wars. Compañeros, compañeras, we cry out, NO MÁS! NO MORE!"

Author's Notes: *Read about Kathy Kelly's treatment after being arrested. ** Read about how the music was stopped. Editor's Note: Read more about Keweenaw Now contributor, Sue Ellen Kingsley, the author of this article, who is also the founder of the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP).

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