Near the Fort Benning base, a handful of women gathered with approximately six children, one… Near the Fort Benning base, a handful of women gathered with approximately six children, one ice chest, a few lawn chairs and one baby carrier.

Denise Partain and the other group members were not present to support the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, but to show their support, with homemade signs and patriotic shouts, for the soldiers in Iraq.

“We miss our spouses and we love them,” said Partain. “Our guys are out there protecting our right and their right to protest. They are our husbands, fathers and best friends.”

Most people present, however, were not there to show support. Pitt students converged with thousands of protesters at Fort Benning, Ga., this weekend to participate in a peaceful, nonviolent demonstration aimed at closing what they describe as “a terrorist training camp on U.S. soil.”

The 15-hour journey to Georgia brought the nine students and other Western Pennsylvanians to a rally on Saturday to raise morale among protesters.

The U. S. Army School of the Americas officially closed in 2000. It was replaced by the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, which offers many of the same courses as the SOA. The institute is “the U.S. Army’s principal Spanish-Language training facility for Latin American military personnel,” according to the Center for International Policy Web site.

According to the protesters, it is a “notorious” school with graduates who continue to be implicated in human rights violations.

When the group arrived, a long line of protesters was twisted around sawhorse barriers and yellow police tape, which led them to an opening lined with police officers obscuring the would-be protesters’ view of the actual event.

The officers, with metal detectors in hand, swept each individual “to ensure civilian safety.”

Assistant Chief of Police for Columbus, Ga., R.T. Boren said the police force was not there to block the demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, but that the police did not want anyone with a “private agenda” to create a hazard.

Inside the police boundaries, demonstrators on stilts, in costumes and under signs chanted a protest mantra. “The people united will never be defeated,” the crowd said in unison, immediately repeating it in Spanish.

Katie Emery, one of the nine Pitt students attending the protest, said that the attitude was “lively and exciting.”

“It’s always energizing to see a huge mound of people chanting,” she added.

Civilian army employee of the WHINSEC and retired Lt. Col. Lee Rials confirmed that counter-insurgency tactics are taught to students. He said that such tactics are a legitimate military subject.

“There’s absolutely no truth, in my opinion, that our military, in any school, has ever taught torture – the absolute crimes.”

Union leaders involved in SOA Watch joined the protest to stand against the counter-insurgency tactics and union-busting practices they attributed to SOA/WHINSEC graduates.

Janice Boyer, representing Sisters of Christian Charity in Chicago, said her reason for attending Saturday’s rally had changed since last year, when she attended to support the closing of the SOA.

“This year, I’m here to honor those victims,” she said. “It’s a different motivation.”

Many groups with differing religious affiliations attended the protest in “solemn remembrance” of six Jesuit priests, a worker and a teenage girl killed in El Salvador.

Sunday’s solemn procession marched down the open corridor lined with police officers. Those in the front were draped in black fabric and painted with white, holding eight cardboard coffins to represent the eight killed.

Other victims were named in song.

“Luis Olivas, 15 years old,” a leader sang.

“Presente,” all protesters and announcers sang in reply, with downward inflection.

Protesters participating in the funeral march also held white crosses listing the names, genders and ages of the dead.

David Corcoran, a 69-year-old SOA Watch veteran, marched with a white mask and black coffin. Finding a break in the chain link fence separating the 10,000 or more protesters from Fort Benning property, Corcoran and 50 others trespassed onto the property.

Corcoran willingly participated in the act of “nonviolent civil disobedience,” despite the risk of six months in federal prison and a $5,000 fine.

“Our tax dollars have paid to kill [the victims],”said Corcoran. “That’s why I feel it is important to remember those who are voiceless, nameless.”

This marked Corcoran’s second time crossing “the arbitrary line.” He refused to pay any bond or bail, which means he will spend six months in prison and pay the maximum fine.

The listing of victims, beginning at 11:33 a.m., did not finish until approximately 4:15 pm.

These acts of torture, rape, assassinations, disappearances and massacres led by SOA/WHINSEC graduates are “designed to terrorize and coerce” civilian populations throughout Latin America, according to a protester news release.

“There’s no question that there were lots of crimes, terrible crimes, atrocious crimes committed throughout [Latin America], and some of the people who committed those crimes did take some course at SOA/WHISC,” Rials said.

There were thousands of human rights violators committing horrific crimes, aside from those associated with the SOA, according to Rials. When asked if there was any connection between the school and acts of terrorism committed by its graduates, he responded, “absolutely not.”

Rials pointed out that there is, “nothing secret, classified, or otherwise hidden here.”