School of The America’s Vigil

This year’s School Of the Americas’ Vigil in Fort Benning, Georgia marked the twentieth anniversary of the murder of the Six Jesuit Priests, and two housekeepers, Elba and Celina Ramos , by military men trained by the U.S. Government. These men and women and countless others (an estimated 75,000 people) were remembered while we processed toward the fences guarding the SOA (recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). These metal barbed wired fences were turned into a holy place of prayer and memory with crosses and other symbols that carried the names of the victims. There where twenty thousand (plus) people present for the vigil, who came from different religious and non-religious backgrounds. We all had, however, the conviction that the exportation of violence by training (of men) people in techniques  of torture and warfare (and who will) in order to go back to their countries  to use against their own citizens has no place in our Country.

“These metal barbed wired fences

were turned into a holy place

of prayer and memory”

As we advocated in this public way to transform our Country’s Swords into Plowshares I experienced overwhelming feelings and memories. As I walked in procession with thousands of others holding the victims and victimizers in my heart, the presence of Christ Crucified kept reminding me that the past is still present for the people of Central and South American where, unfortunately, our Country has had a military presence. This reminded me what Sister Dianna Ortiz, a survivor of torture by the U.S. backed Guatemalan Government, said in an interview. An act of violence keeps having repercussions across generations. She explained this as the backdrop of her own story as a victim of State sanctioned torture. Her words brought to mind many of my Salvadorian childhood friends whose past was kept in silence by mom and dad, because it involved heinous acts of terror too hard to put into words. Unfortunately, this silence became protection for the young but also limited knowledge of self as survivors of war.

“An act of violence keeps having repercussions across generations.”

The bloodshed and horror endured by past generations has continued to victimize many of these people, even thousands of miles away from their own war, devastated land. Gangs like Mara Salvatrucha, which became one of the most violent gangs in California and now across the Continent, was founded by young Salvadorian men, who fought along with the paramilitaries or the guerrillas during and before the Civil War (1980-1992). The segregated neighborhoods of Los Angeles became the breeding ground through which the violence exported by the U.S. came back home. The new comers from Central America, who were seeking refuge after experiencing the horrors of war, were confronted by the local cycles of poverty and social disenfranchisement in their new home.    The Clinton Administration in the mid 90’s, as it toughened-up immigration policies, enabled the exportation of this gang. Thousands of Salvadorian young men, who had committed crimes where deported back to El Salvador, many of  whom had come to the U.S. as infants. The Clinton Administration ignored the fact that El Salvador had just signed a peace treaty, which ended the same civil war that the U.S. had participated in.  Ignored too was the obvious systematic inadequacy of El Salvador to be able to contain, much less reform, these young men. As a result, we have a group of young-men, children of violence and poverty, manifesting what they know best, atrocious acts of self-destruction.

“No more one-minutes of silence,

only lives working for the struggle!”

While the consequences of an act of violence cannot be contained or measured, one’s actions can. “No more one-minutes of silence, only lives working for the struggle!” This was the call that Afro-Indigenous Organizers from Colombia made as they denounced paramilitaries and systematic governmental abuses, and announced the commitment of hundreds of Colombians working against these injustices. In many ways, this call is the synthesis of my pilgrimage to the School of the America’s. The movement created by a few committed people has awakened the conscience of many and it has had international attention. During the closing of the vigil it was announced that Fr. Roy Bourgeois, MM was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Price.  The best part of it all is the number of young people who are being involved advocating for this issue. Whether or not the U.S. Government will close down the SAO/WHINSEC or whether or not the new administration will adopt new policies to deal with the interests of the Country, the Vigil did not harm the commitment of countless people to dedicate themselves to current and future processes of social structural change through non-violence.