Two area residents join thousands in Georgia to rally

The small white crosses spread across the front lawn of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Circle Boulevard on Sunday looked innocent enough. But the conflict they represent is anything but.

Tracy Rupp, who poked each cross into the wet ground on Saturday, explained each one carried the name of an innocent civilian killed amidst ongoing violence in Latin America at the hands of soldiers trained by the United States.

At least three area churches — First United Methodist Church, the First Congregational United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Fellowship — participated in a local protest against the School of Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., while two Corvallis residents joined thousands protesting the program in person.

Joan Noyce and Alieta Hass-Holcomb planned to leave Georgia on Sunday night after spending three days at a vigil sponsored by the School of the Americas Watch at the gates of Fort Benning. Before they left, Noyce distributed about 130 homemade crosses for display here.

Since it was founded in 1990, the goal of School of the Americas Watch has been to shut down the military training program which, according to the SOAW Web site, has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques since 1946.

LoErna Simpson, a member of the Methodist congregation’s Active for Peace and Justice group, explained the foreign soldiers were originally trained to provide security and to fight against drug trafficking. “But unfortunately, many of the graduates have been waging war against their own people,” she said.

The annual vigil is held on the weekend closest to the Nov. 16, 1989, anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her daughter who were killed in El Salvador by graduates of the School of the Americas. About 20,000 attended the protest last year.

In 2001, the Pentagon changed the name of the training facility to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. During the years, Congress has frequently debated whether to close the school, but the program still exists.

Five countries, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, have already or are in the process of withdrawing their military personnel from the training program.

Simpson said her church agreed to display the crosses as part of its ongoing commitment to taking a stand on peace and justice issues. She posted the crosses at the corner of 11th Street and Monroe Avenue.

“I’m concerned about injustice anywhere in the world,” she said. “We don’t have a very good record in dealing with Latin America, and this just shouldn’t be happening.”