I spent the weekend in Columbus, GA with a delegation of students, faculty, and staff from the Jesuit college where I work. We were there to attend the annual vigil and protest at the School of the Americas, known more pejoratively as the School of Assassins, where the U.S. military trains soldiers from Latin America who's main function seems to be the policing of their own people. The only Latin American country which is barred from sending soldiers to the School of the Americas is Cuba, and Cuba is the only country which has not had the type of paramilitary death squad activity experienced in Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, et cetera over the past few decades. This is not a coincidence. The fact that targets of these paramilitary death squads are usually those working to better the lives of the poor at the expense of the powerful is also no coincidence.
Labor organizers are a big target, as are agitators for land reform.
On more than one occasion priests and nuns who stood up for human rights were assassinated. The vigil itself falls on the anniversary of the assassination of several Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter. Founded by a Jesuit Father and constantly keeping that connection in mind, the movement to close down the School of the Americas is largely a faith-based movement. I knew this, having gone to the school and crossed the line last year. When I got to Seattle and started working at a Jesuit school, I immediately set about finding a group I could travel to Georgia with to ease logistics.