SOA Watch broadens protest
More focus put on closing Stewart Detention Center
By BEN WRIGHT
benw@ledger-enquirer.com
On the 25th anniversary of the annual School of the Americas Watch vigil against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, organizers plan to broaden actions this weekend to shut down the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga.
The focus to close the country's largest prison for immigrants means there will be fewer protesters Saturday at the Benning Road entrance to Fort Benning, Hendrik Voss, national organizer for the SOA Watch said Wednesday. The annual protest starts Friday with workshops at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center and ends Sunday with a funeral procession to remember victims of human rights violations in Latin America.
Voss said the group aims to show a connection between the use of military force and Latin America with Corrections Corporation of America, the operator of the private prison.
"People are coming here and confronted with racist immigration laws," Voss said. "We want to make that connection to stand up for people incarcerated at Stewart on Saturday."
Three men and two women were arrested outside the lockup in Lumpkin last year and charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing.
Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, said the Stewart Detention Center currently has about 1,800 migrants. "We have to address the root causes of migration, which to a major part lie in the deplorable economic and military policies, which the United States has imposed on Latin America," he said.
Bourgeois said the institute at Fort Benning still operates with taxpayer dollars. "Closing the SOA would send a strong human rights message to Latin America and the world," he said in a statement.
Police Lt. J.F. Ross said the
department is aware of the change in the group's schedule. "It's not something they have been keeping a secret," he said.
The organization has protested outside Fort Benning since 1990 to raise awareness of the facility after the 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter in El Salvador. The School of the Americas trained soldiers at the post for 16 years before closing in December 2000. Some soldiers trained at the school were linked to the slayings. The institute under its current name opened in January 2001 but the annual protests continue.
After the rally at the prison, Voss said the group will return to Columbus for workshops at the trade center. At the Benning Road gate, Buddhist Monks will arrive in the afternoon from Atlanta, but there will be no speakers on the stage.
Voss said the vigil will include buses from Minneapolis, Minn., Toronto, Canada, and Detroit, but he didn't know how many protesters will be at the gate. Police estimated the crowd at more than 1,330 last year.
"It's hard to say what the exact number will be," he said. "We are very hopeful it will be a very good showing."
This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 10:10 PM with the headline "SOA Watch broadens protest ."