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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Local Opponents of the School of the Americas Under Way |
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by mce
Email: enslin (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified!)
Phone: 217-367-2804
Address: 207 w. indiana ave, urbana, il, 61801 |
15 Nov 2001
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Paint, thought, articulation, vision, solidarity, bodies brought to bear against militarism and US support for death squads |
About fifteen residents of Champaign-Urbana are on their way to Georgia to join the thousands who annually show up at the gates of Fort Benning to protest the continued existence of the School of the Americas, known as the US training camp for abusers of human rights in Latin America. The success of the yearly non-violent protest actions, initiated by Father Roy Bourgeois, can be measured by the increasingly repressive response -- 26 of the activists last year were jailed -- and by the fact that the closing of the SOA was debated and passed by Congress at the beginning of this year. The SOA was reopened under a new name (Whisc!) and new PR, but no provision for monitoring of its operations and no assurance that it will shed its old function.
The Urbana-Champaign activists are bringing with them freshly painted messages of opposition in English and Spanish on signs and recycled prom dresses. |