A voice for the voiceless

Going to the School of the Americas (SOA) has been a family tradition for the past seven years. I go with my sister, parents, grandparents, aunts, cousins, and family friends.

The SOA, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is a combat-training facility for Latin American security personnel located at Ft. Benning, Georgia. SOA/WHINSEC graduates return to their countries to utilize their training domestically and are consistently cited for atrocities against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA/WHINSEC graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others working for human rights and economic justice. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred and forced into refuge by SOA/WHINSEC graduates.

Despite a shocking human rights record, this school continues to operate with US taxpayer money. For the past 15 years, a broad movement of human rights groups, people of faith, students, veterans, unionists and others working to close the school continues to grow. This year 20,000 people gathered at the gates of the SOA/WHINSEC demanding to close this so-called "School of Assassins."

As the new leader of the Latin American Solidarity Group at Grinnell, I organized a group of 19 Grinnell College students to make the 17-hour drive from Iowa to Georgia this year. It was really important for me to share this experience with other Grinnellians. It is such a powerful spiritual experience where people of all different backgrounds come to remember all the victims of the SOA/WHINSEC. The gathering is a place where people come to share their experiences and be in community with people who are part of the same struggle for peace and justice.

Having grown up in El Salvador and traveled throughout Central America I have met victims of the SOA graduates and heard their stories. I have been called to struggle for justice and attending the SOA gathering is a small part of that larger struggle. It is my duty as a privileged person to do as Archbishop Oscar Romero, a Salvadoran martyr, said, "I must be the voice for the voiceless."