Despite a strong showing from Occupy protesters, the annual SOA Watch vigil drew its smallest following in recent memory on Saturday, the first of two days of demonstrations held to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
But the movement, which often attracts celebrities and voices from far away places, received a full-throated endorsement from Edward O. DuBose, the well-known Columbus activist who is president of the Georgia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. DuBose told the crowd he’d been asked by more than 100 people about why he chose to attend the vigil.
“Twenty-two years is a long time, but Dr. King said the arc of the universe is long and it bends toward justice,” DuBose said, referring to the beginning of the movement. “I’m here because I made a promise to Troy Anthony Davis, an innocent man killed on death row on Sept. 21, 2011, that I would continue to speak out against any system that takes innocent life, and I will continue to tell them, ‘Don’t kill or train others to kill in my name.’”
DuBose joined demonstrators in calling for the closing of the institute formerly known as the School of the Americas. Protesters claim the institute has trained militants who return home to Latin American countries and commit human rights violations.
Institution officials maintain the protest is unfounded, saying they teach a wide range of courses that includes democracy and human rights.
From a law enforcement standpoint, Saturday’s events were far less eventful than the first day of demonstrations just one year ago, when nearly two dozen people were arrested for protesting beyond their permitted area along Fort Benning Road.
“No arrests. No runs. No hits. No errors,” said Capt. J.D. Hawk of the Columbus Police Department.
Hawk put the crowd at 3,210, a 32 percent decrease from last year’s Saturday attendance.
A group of SOA Watch supporters seeking to distribute leaflets at Peachtree Mall was asked by management to leave, Hawk said, and did so without incident.
Hendrik Voss, the movement’s national organizer, disputed Hawk’s head count, saying organizers measured a crowd of about 4,300 at one point.
“We are excited about the turnout and about the atmosphere and vigil in general,” Voss said. “It went really well.”
The protest attracted a wide array of people and a commingling of messages.
Marcus Eagan, 22, of Detroit, arrived early and held a sign that read, “We are the 99%,” a slogan from the international Occupy movement.
“I brought the sign and want the momentum and vibrancy of the Occupy movement to be transferred to the protesters here,” said Eagan, a senior at Grinnell College in Iowa who joined Occupy movements in Detroit, Des Moines and Iowa City. “I want them to feel like their cause is not lost.”
Patrick Bonner, 73, of South Gate, Calif., said he has supported the protest since about 1998. Although the institute opened under a new name and curriculum in 2001 after the School of the Americas was shuttered, Bonner said the change made no difference.
“In Colombia, down there they have paramilitary, right-wing death squads,” said Bonner, who was handing out flyers on the Colombia Peace Project. “They also changed their names. Where did they learn that?”
Mingling about the crowd was Sharon R. Roberts, 56, a microbiologist and professor at Auburn University who came to the protest for the first time, attracted by the amalgam of activist movements represented at the protest.
“I think everybody should care regardless of what you do and what your profession is,” Roberts said. “The protesters aren’t evil, mean, wicked, bad and nasty. This is about being humans.”
Not everyone in the crowd denounced the institute as “the School of Assassins.”
Tammy Hart, 39, lives on Fort Benning and is married to a soldier who has served in Iraq. She said the protest is disrespectful for the soldiers who defend their country.
“They have the right to be here, but how did they get that right?” said Hart, who borrowed a large placard from anti-protesters and made her way deep into the crowd toward the stage. “I haven’t seen anything up here that says they support Fort Benning at all.”
But Bill Brittendall, executive director of the Peace & Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas, sees a distinction between the role of Fort Benning soldiers and the training institute being protested.
“I’m not against the military,” said Brittendall, who comes from a military family and arrived here Friday evening with 40 people on a bus from Wichita, Kan. “We’re here to protest the fact that my tax dollars are training Latin and South American soldiers to take torture classes and go home and oppress the population in their country. I want it to stop.”
As in previous years, tight security remained a staple of the event. Police officers and deputy sheriffs stood sentry on both sides of Fort Benning Road. Columbus police cruisers were also parked near the new $6.8 million Fort Benning Gateway.
The authorities briefly braced for an encounter with a marching procession of puppetistas. But unlike last year, the demonstration ended far short of the police barricade at Torch Hill Road, and the crowd peacefully dispersed.
One tense moment came toward the end of the vigil when anti-protesters with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property began distributing flyers.
“This protest here is a slap in the face of every American soldier that honorably serves his country,” said John Ritchie, a spokesman for the Spring Grove, Penn.-based group, which also opposes same-sex marriage. “WHINSEC is a program that’s run by American soldiers. You can’t separate them.”
A few heated conversations occurred between the two groups, but police said the situation never escalated.
“There might have been some stares and glares and maybe some questions about why you’re here,” Hawk said, “but I guess any one of them could have asked that.”
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