December 3, 1998
Local activists travel to protest School of the Americas
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Would you risk arrest for people you will probably never meet, who live in a distant country you may never visit? March illegally into an Army fort to say that activities there are unacceptable, ready to serve jail time to make your point?
For city residents Tom and Darlyene Shea, the risks involved in doing these things are negligible compared to the price of silence. Dedicated peace activists for decades, the couple traveled to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, on November 21 and 22 to participate in a prayer vigil and protest against the School of the Americas there.
"In Latin America it is called the School of the Assassins," said Tom Shea, who owns a mediation and conflict resolution service in Traverse City. "The school has been training dictators and their officers since 1948. Closing it would tell people in these countries that we know what is going on."
The School of the Americas is a United States Army training facility based at Fort Benning. Started in 1948 as a Cold War strategy to contain the perceived threat of communism in that region, the school teaches military techniques to soldiers, officers and political leaders from Latin American countries. All classes are conducted in Spanish and an estimated 1,000-2,000 soldiers train there annually.
The fourth annual peaceful protest march at the school was sponsored by the School of the Americas Watch, a nationwide grassroots movement working to close it. More than 7,000 people came to protest this year, up from 2,000 the previous year. The Sheas also met two others from northwest Michigan there and were pleased to see that the protesters spanned all age ranges, from high school students to senior citizens.
"We were very encouraged to see everyone there," said Tom Shea. "It was very positive and peaceful, you feel the energy of people who are seeking a better way to do things."
The School of the Americas Watch was started seven years ago by a decorated Vietnam Veteran, Ray Bourgeois, who lived in Bolivia for a few years after returning from that war. The human rights violations he saw there perpetrated by the military and dictatorial government prompted him to look into the matter and later start the Watch program.
In addition to the protest marches, Bourgeois' program educates about the school and actively lobbies Congress to close the school. Last year's Congressional vote of 211-206 narrowly kept the school open another year.
Through their involvement in the Michigan Peace Team, which Tom Shea helped to found, the Sheas have been aware of these efforts for years. Both have been interested in Latin American politics for nearly 20 years and have written to their representatives supporting the school's closure. This year when they found an opening in their schedule, they decided to attend the march.
"It will close, it's just a matter of time," said Tom Shea, who traveled to Hebron last December as a guest of the Christian Peacemaker Team. "The votes have been so close and these protests keep the pressure on."
The two-day vigil and protest culminated with a funeral procession onto Fort Benning property. Organizers slowly read the 2,000 names of those killed under mysterious circumstances or by torture or violence. These are deaths they attribute to 500 School of the Americas graduates whom they have documented as human rights abusers. During this solemn reading, protesters slowly marched four at a time into the fort, trespassing on federal property. Tom Shea was one of 2,316 protesters who crossed the line, risking arrest to denounce the school and its graduates.
"We make such a big deal about people being killed here for any reason and people all over the world are dying like this," said Darlyene Shea. "It's just horrendous, what goes on. There's so much money going into that school, something that is so destructive."