Nine Presbyterians arrested at School of the Americas

Old hatreds fuel ‘peace’ offensive as Presbyterian peace activists march on Fort Benning

COLUMBUS, Ga. – Nine members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship were among 500 protesters arrested here Nov. 16 for trespassing onto Fort Benning property carrying crosses and coffins, and demanding closure of the US Army School of the Americas. Those arrested included Meta Ukena and Marilyn White, co-chairs of the independent Presbyterian group.

By Parker T. Williamson

The protesting Presbyterians are part of a coalition of leftist religious groups that, having failed to win support for Latin America’s Marxist guerrilla movements, are now rallying around legislation proposed by Representative Joseph Kennedy to shut down the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas. Re-named by its critics, "School of Assassins," the Fort Benning training center barely survived a Sept. 4 vote in the House of Representatives that would have cut funding for the facility.

 Lobbies back campaign

Supported by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its partner lobbyists from the United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Maryknoll Society and National Council of Churches, Presbyterian campaign leader Rev. Clinton Marsh argues that the school has been responsible for training right-wing military dictators "to wage war against their own people."

In 1994, its opponents were successful in getting the PCUSA General Assembly to call for the school’s closing.

Backers of the School of the Americas admit that some of the more than 60,000 Latin American military officers who graduated from the institution include former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the late El Salvadoran right-wing leader Robert D’Aubuisson. But they argue that no educational institution could stand to be judged by the actions of everyone it graduates. "If we were to close the School of the Americas for the few bad apples among its graduates," says Russell Ramsey, a professor at the school, "we would have to close several other institutions first. Heidelberg University produced Joseph Goebbels, spiritual architect of the anti-Jewish Holocaust. Edinburgh University, that bastion of Presbyterianism, produced Lord Palmerston, architect of the Opium War against China. And Harvard graduated Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."

Credibility challenged

Dianne Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, DC, noted in a September 23 press release that the groups aligned against the School had another activity in common : they were also aligned in support of Marxist forces in Latin America during the 1980’s. "The credibility of this campaign is seriously compromised by the profound disinterest that many of these same church groups have or had for human rights in Castro’s Cuba, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, or Grenada under Maurice Bishop," she observed. "They seem conscious only of human rights abuses by the Right, and they blame all of them upon the United States."

Backing losers

Allied with the church lobbyists in their current campaign are several groups that once funneled U.S.-based support into Marxist guerrilla forces. They include the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, and the Nicaragua Network, many of whom fell upon hard times when the Soviet Union collapsed and Latin Americans rejected Marxist candidates in free elections.

"Would closing the School of the Americas really help Latin America today?" asked Knippers. "The Religious Left campaign against the School looks like an act of personal spite. Instead of accepting socialism’s defeat and the victory of free-market democracies, critics of the school are bent upon vengeance against the U.S. military."