Students to risk arrest at protest

Students from the Collins Living-Learning Center and Global Village at Foster Quad are planning to drive to Ft. Benning, Ga., this weekend, risking the possibility of arrest to protest a military-run school located on the 289-square-mile Army base.\nThe facility, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, replaced the School of Americas, a training center with notoriety among human rights groups for its possible connections with human rights abuses in Latin America. SOA faced criticism since its creation in the late 1940s and was shut down in 2001. Human rights advocates fear WHINSEC is simply SOA in disguise. \nThe school received much criticism during its more than four decade existence because students were sometimes implicated in human rights violations. \nFreshman Tim Gross and sophomores Brian Pike and Carley Knapp are planning to attend the demonstrations.\nGross, who represents Collins, said his interest in the human rights issues presented by antagonists of the School of Americas began because of a class he took while attending high school at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis.\n"This demonstration is important to me because it represents a way for me to do something to make a change in the world," Gross said. "By educating myself and by participating in such an event, I hope to contribute to causes that I feel are very important, such as the pursuit of peace and the availability of basic human rights to everyone."\nAccording to Center for International Policy, a private center studying U.S foreign policy, training manuals used at the SOA from the early 1980s through 1991 promoted techniques that violated human rights and democratic standards. \nFor years the School of Americas faced accusations that students who attended the school went on to commit human rights violations similar to the Jesuit murders, or work for corrupt Latin American governments supporting the violations. \nThe School of Americas Watch was founded in 1989 after six Jesuit priests were killed in El Salvador. Since its beginning, SOAW has committed itself to closing the SOA and ending what it calls "oppressive U.S. foreign policy" through non-violent protests. \nThe protests might have worked.\nIn 2001, Congress shut down the School of Americas replacing it with WHINSEC. The school is located in the same building as its predecessor and it's mandated by Congress to focus on leadership development and counter-drug operations. It has also mandated students receive at least eight hours of human rights courses. \nThe weekend schedule includes a Sunday event where demonstrators commit what they call an act of civil disobedience, and trespass onto the base drenched in fake blood and carrying dummy coffins to symbolize what they think are the results of SOA training. Participants deliberately get themselves arrested for trespassing as a way of making a point.\n"I think most of us who have anything to do with Fort Benning just see the protests as an expression of American-style democracy, although one that is misguided," said Lee Rials, a public affairs officer at Ft. Benning. Rials said the protests are misguided because it takes Congressional action to close WHINSEC, so SOAW's efforts should be directed toward Congress. \nRials also said the sight of the protest is near a gate that no longer serves as the main entrance to the post, so the protests aren't expected to disrupt access to Ft. Benning.\nGross said he doesn't plan on getting arrested, even though it is a possibility.\nIt isn't known yet how many students living in Foster Quad's Global Village or the Collins Living Learning Center will be taking part in the protest. It is equally uncertain how many IU students will face felony charges this weekend when they cross the line into civil disobedience by trespassing onto a U.S. military installation.