1. Rita McDonald, CSJ, Mary Vaughan, Marguerite Corcoran, CSJ, Patrice Neuberger, CSJ and Kate MacDonald, CSJ stand at the gates of Fort Benning Army Base in Columbus, Georgia - November 1997. The five women had traveled with a contingent of over 200 Minnesotans to join with 2,000 others from across the country demanding the closure of the U.S. army's School of the Americas (SOA) - located at Fort Benning.

An army combat training school for Latin American military personnel, the SOA is funded by U.S. taxpayers and includes courses focused on commando operations, sniper training and interrogation techniques. Graduates of the school, however, have used those tactics not against foreign invaders but against their own people, especially individuals and groups advocating land reform, better wages for workers, and adequate housing and health care for the poor.

2. A protester displays her creative banner at the gates of Fort Benning and the SOA - November 1999. Founded in 1946 by the U.S. Army on its base in Panama to help Latin American governments promote stable democracies, the SOA soon began losing its credibility when a number of its graduates - Gen. Hugo Banzer in Bolivia and Gen. Manuel Noriega in Panama, to name just two - seized control of their governments and established brutal military dictatorships.

In 1984, the SOA was moved to Fort Benning because Panama expelled the school from its territory. With SOA graduates wreaking havoc throughout the hemisphere, Panama's President Jorge Illueca described the school as "the biggest base for destabilization in Latin America". In El Salvador graduates of the SOA had directed the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and ordered the murder of four U.S. missioners, Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and Lay Missioner Jean Donovan. Such atrocities prompted a major Panamanian newspaper to dub the SOA the "School of Assassins."

The SOA moved, but the record of its graduates did not improve. The U.S. media gave little coverage to the many massacres until SOA graduates brazenly led a midnight raid on the Central American University campus in El Salvador in 1989 and murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter. As concerned persons in the United States finally began voicing their outrage, the SOA dismissed the abuses as the work of "a few bad apples," and maintained that the school steadfastly promoted democracy and human rights. The facade, however, crumbled in 1996 when the U.S. Intelligence Oversight Board revealed that the SOA from 1982 to 1991 used instruction manuals condoning execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment. Since then virtually every major newspaper in the U.S., including The Atlanta Constitution, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, has written editorials calling for the closing of the SOA.

3. Rita Steinhagen, CSJ, at the gates of Fort Benning - November 1997. Rita crossed the line onto the army base with 600 others in an act of civil disobedience to protest the SOA. The majority of the protesters were arrested and released with a warning. Yet for 22, including Rita, it was their second year of crossing the line. Accordingly they were trialed and sentenced to jail - in Rita's case for six months. At her sentencing she declared to the judge: "When decent people get put in jail for six months for peaceful demonstration, I'm more scared of what's going on in our country than I am of going to prison."

4. Cari Witcher enroute to Washington D.C. for a rally against the School of the Americas - April 1998.

5. The Justice and Peace Street Theater perform their play School of Assassins in Lafayette Park opposite the White House - April 1998. Lenore Burgard is playing Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador confronting the specter of violence and death: the legacy of U.S. foreign policy and the School of the Americas' curriculum.

Postscript: Lenore Burgard died on June 22, 2002. Click here for her obituary in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

6. The Justice and Peace Street Theater prepare to perform in the shadow of the Capitol Building - Washington, D.C., April 1998. The troupe's play School of Assassins lasts only 15 minutes yet powerfully conveys the brutal legacy of the School of the Americas. Incorporating large puppets and invoking a surreal and captivating atmosphere, the play follows a group of Central and South American generals from their SOA graduation back to their home countries, where each interacts with a specific group calling for social reform and justice. Members of these groups are then either led away in chains, killed or "disappeared". Death is a character in the play and first appears immediately after the generals receive their diplomas (Photograph 7).

Off-site Link: Justice and Peace Street Theater.

8. Tom Bottolene (center) "crossed the line" at Fort Benning in November 1999. A few months later, before serving a 3-month prison term for his act of civil disobedience, Tom noted, "I wish I could say I crossed the line at Fort Benning last November for some great and moving spiritual or moral reason. But the fact is I believe our government currently lacks any morals or any indication of a soul. When this is the case, attempting to appeal to our leaders on moral or spiritual grounds is useless. Quite simply, I crossed the line to irritate. Being one of ten out of the 4,405 people to cross the line and subsequently prosecuted, I apparently succeeded."

9. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Assistant Professor of Justice and Peace at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Harvest of Cain, School of Assassins: Guns, Greed and Globalization, and Jesus Against Christianity, speaks at the 1999 protest to close the School of the Americas.

10. Actor Martin Sheen, a vocal critic of the School of the Americans and U.S. foreign policy - Fort Benning, November 1999.

11. Marty Roddy, one of many Minnesotans who regularly make the long bus trip to Georgia for the annual protest calling for the closure of the School of the Americas.

12. Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch--a network of activists dedicated to documenting the numerous atrocities committed by graduates of the SOA--records an interview in the studios of KFAI Radio - Minneapolis, October 9, 2000.

In the summer of 2000, Congress closed the School of Americas for a day, reopening it under a new name. "They call it the Western Hemispheric Institute for Professional Education Training," notes Roy, "but nobody's fooled by this. It's like taking a bottle of poison and simply writing 'penicillin' on it. It's still deadly."

13. Roy is quick to make the connection between the SOA and the flourishing, corporate-led global economy: "In the 1500s you had the Conquistadors from Spain and Portugal [who] came to exploit the indigenous people of Latin America, to enrich themselves from cheap labor and vast resources. Today the new Conquistadors are those coming with sweatshops. They're the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, economic giants coming for the same reasons--to enrich themselves. What the new Conquistadors get away with simply couldn't be done without the men with guns. The SOA provides the muscle for that economic system." One month after his visit to Minneapolis, Father Roy Bourgeois was joined by 20,000 people at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia--home of the SOA--for the 11th annual action to call for the abolishment of the "School of Assassins."

"What I'm finding is many people living out the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero," says Roy. "Before being killed by SOA graduates, he said, 'Let those who have a voice speak for the voiceless.' This movement [to close the SOA] is about people learning about the School of Assassins, using their voices for those killed. The truth cannot be silenced."

Off-site Link: SOA Watch.