Peace, love and an economic boost

Majestic Gough sits in front of Torch Hill Apartments on Fort Benning Road. He eats sunflower seeds, waiting to sell food and canned drinks to the crowds of protesters at the Fort Benning gate down the road.

It’s quick cash at his doorstep one weekend a year. The annual School of the Americas Watch protest means a few extra dollars in addition to his pay check from a moving company.

“It’s just helping out — and for a good cause,” he said. “I’m struggling here by myself.”

The Maryland native said the cost of living is cheaper in Columbus, but the pay is less. The cash — about $500 for the weekend — helps with bills.

This may be one of the last weekends Gough and the other locals line the street selling food and parking places.

Hendrik Voss, communications coordinator for SOA Watch, said this could be the second to last time the group gathers in Columbus.

The election has bolstered hopes for a Congress and president willing to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), SOA’s replacement, he said.

“These all are indicators that we are nearing an end,” Voss said.

The protest is a fixture in Columbus, drawing thousands since its founding by Father Roy Bourgeois in 1990 after Jesuit priests and civilians were massacred in El Salvador. But nearly 20 years later, the annual gathering has become more than a call for change.

The protest is one of the larger events in Columbus, generating approximately $2.3 million during the weekend, according to Peter Bowden, president and CEO of the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau. Bowden said the bureau expects about 15,000 protesters.

The protest is repeat business for the city, filling a niche between the end of summer and the holidays, Bowden said.

On the other side of the fence, an average of 700 to 1,200 students from countries across the hemisphere attend WHINSEC annually, according to Lee Rials, WHINSEC’s public affairs officer. The school, which has a staff of 217 and an annual budget approaching $11 million, offers courses as long as a year and as short as three weeks, he said.

WHINSEC, opened in 2001, exists in the shadow of its predecessor and the alleged violence perpetrated by SOA graduates.

Rials credits SOA watch for creating political pressure in Washington that created the new school and increased the emphasis on human rights in the curriculum.

But the changes are superficial as far as the protesters are concerned. Signs at the gate still call for closing “the school of assassins.”

“They are protesting this as a symbol,” Rials said. “They cannot tell you what we teach; that’s not important.”

One class student are required to take is ethics, taught by the institute’s chaplain, Maj. John Kaiser. But Kaiser feels his relationship with the students transcends the classroom.

“I see this as a ministry,” he said. “I don’t see this as a job.”

Kaiser, who has worked at the institute for more than two years, said most of the students are religious.

“The accusations are taken personally,” he said. “It upsets them.”

Kaiser takes them personally, too.

“They throw out little bits and pieces of things,” he said. “It’s inconvenient to know what we do.”

With a practiced speech, he explained out of approximately 60,000 graduates, less than 600 have been accused of any criminal wrong doing.

While he doesn’t deny some abuses occurred in Latin America, he does defend WHINSEC.

“If the things that they said are true, the UN and the American Council on Education wouldn’t have anything to do do with us,” he said. “If the stuff that SOA Watch was saying is true, I wouldn’t be here.”

The relationship between the school and the protesters has changed as the same people see each other year after year.

“It’s all become rather cordial,” Rials said.

Bloggers have dubbed Rials “Robo Rials” for his dogged defense of the school.

“I have taken the position from the start ... They are not inherently anti-military; they are misinformed about what this place is and does,” Rials said.

Rials said one of the better tools is a tour. Rials said the institute has about 100 visitors throughout the year to observe classes.

Marty Roers, a staff member with campus ministries for Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, brought 17 students to Columbus for the protest weekend. The group met with Rials and Kaiser Friday.

“As an educator, I think students need to hear both sides,” he said. “This is a learning experience.”

It’s a chance to meet and network with other students, as well as have face-to-face conversations, he said. It’s also a chance to see the relationship between the military and Columbus.

There’s also an open house the weekend of the protest, including a panel discussion about the school, but it’s not the same, Rials said.

“It’s sort of the worst way to see us,” he said.

Elizabeth Hoppe is on her fourth trip to the protest. Her introduction to the issue was through books and another professor at Lewis University in Romeoville, III., who knew victims of the violence in Latin America.

Hoppe, 45, an associate professor of philosophy, is part of a group of six that drove down for the weekend.

Hoppe thinks the panel is an opportunity to see both perspectives.

The panel, while informative, doesn’t say enough about the curriculum, she said.

“The answers aren’t as specific as the audience would like,” she said.

She suspects only friendly countries get to send students, and U.S. foreign policy is part of the problem.

She also thinks the protest at Benning isn’t as effective as it used to be.

“Ultimately, if we meet to protest, we should protest in D.C.,” Hoppe said.

That’s where change will come from, she said. But that doesn’t mean the protest is pointless.

“I just think as a symbolic gesture it is still important,” she said.

Victims still need to be remembered — even if the protest ends.

“I’m here for a different reason now,” she said.