Nashua Chantal of Americus,
Georgia crossed the line onto the
military base

Over the weekend I attended the annual gathering to close the School of Americas (SOA), now called The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) by US military and School of Assassins by those in Latin America targeted by graduates of the school. Since 1990 SOA Watch has had an annual vigil around the anniversary of the killing of Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador in 1989 by graduates of the SOA. Thousands of deaths, the many who have disappeared and tortured in Latin America have been attributed to graduates of the School of Americas.

After 22 years of resistance the SOA still exists and teaches military leaders from many countries in Latin America. In recent years the number of resisters has decreased but many still increase. Each year one or more persons ‘cross the line’, enter the base and thus are arrested’. This year one person, Nashua Chantal, who crossed the line was a man who annually appeared on the march as death with a sign all over his body saying Teach War No More.

This year I heard how, while the numbers of protesters has decreased, persistence resistance” has gone on. The Gospel at the all inclusive Catholic liturgy, concelebrated by two friends, one man and one woman, was about how a woman gets her way simply by persistently making a plea to a judge for her son till he finally gives in to her plea to rid himself of her. Persistence resistance works!

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