20 arrested in protest at Army school for Latin Americans [View All]

COLUMBUS, GA. -- At least 20 people, including two Minnesotans, were arrested Sunday while protesting at a U.S.-run military school for Latin Americans. Those arrested were among a record 16,000 people who demonstrated outside the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, calling for the school to be shut down.

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"We gather to revive the memory of those who have died at the hands of this combat school," said the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest. "How do you teach democracy behind the barrel of a gun? If they are so concerned about teaching democracy, then why not close this school and send these students to some of our fine universities?"

Bourgeois is head of SOA Watch, which monitors the institution formerly known as the School of the Americas. The group has staged annual protests since 1990.

SOA Watch and other critics allege the school's graduates have committed murder, rape and torture, including the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador in 1989.

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