SOA Watch protesters begin annual vigil

Just before 5 p.m. Friday, orange barricades went up along Benning Road at Torch Hill Road as hundreds of protesters filled the Columbus Convention & Trade Center downtown for the annual vigil to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Police Maj. J.D. Hawk said officers are prepared for visitors at the Stone Gate entrance to Fort Benning, although most protesters will join a caravan at 7:45 a.m. today for a trip to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. The private prison, operated by Corrections Corporation of America, houses about 1,800 immigrants for hearings.

Hendrik Voss, national organizer for the Washington-based organization, said hundreds are expected for the rally to close the prison. The crowd will return to Columbus this afternoon for workshops at the trade center and to prepare for the mock funeral Sunday at Stone Gate.

Some supporters may be at the site.

Crowds have flocked to Columbus for the vigil since 1990, a year after the Nov. 16, 1989, slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter in El Salvador. Soldiers trained at the School of the Americas, which operated at Fort Benning, and some were linked to the deaths before the school closed in December 2000. It reopened with its current name in January 2001.

Paul Fitch of Washington said he was living in El Salvador and working in a church-run refugee center in a school when the slayings occurred during the civil war.

"Something very significant to me is these events take place close to Nov. 16, which is a day in 1989 when many terrible things happened in El Salvador," he said.

Fitch said he was helping to operate the center but there were a lot of misunderstandings, tensions and fears that the government may be losing the war. He was thrown in jail but was released later.

Fitch said he enjoys sharing his stories with other people.

"I wasn't there with a political agenda or anything," he said. "I love my country and I think we can do much better. We can be a much better example and we can break barriers we have between countries and people and share more. When we work together like this, it is a beautiful example of working together. We can do what we can and should do as individuals, as a country and as a world."

Joan Gerig, a retired teacher from Chicago, said she supports shutting down the Stewart Detention Center. She plans to attend the rally today and the funeral on Sunday.

"The government spends much money to keep men in detention who would prefer to be working and providing for their families," she said. "When they work, they pay taxes, they pay into Social Security. I'm getting Social Security. I want to see this whole system work for them and for me. Their children can grow up to be citizens who are supporting our community."

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM with the headline "SOA Watch protesters begin annual vigil ."