September 2000 Call to Action News

Set to receive CTA award, Bourgeois and SOA Watch broaden coalition

Why were college students marching alongside hundreds of Veterans for Peace, Catholic priests and sisters, and CTA members in Philadelphia during the Republican National Convention?

According to Sebastian Petsu, 21, one of nine activists arrested during protests against the School of Americas (SOA), it was because the abuses of sweatshops, the poverty caused by globalization, and the human rights atrocities by Latin American graduates of SOA are all linked.

Petsu told CTA News, “It’s a systemic thing. If you shut down the SOA everything will not be fine. The things that lead to oppression, sweatshops and intimidation are all connected.”

That explains why SOA Watch has been extending its coalition-building to incorporate activists working on sweatshops, human rights, indigenous rights, unfair labor practices, militarism and economic justice. “New alliances are being forged as it becomes clear that the SOA trains the military muscle to enforce the globalization of greed,” says SOA.

Last May, the House voted by a narrow margin to close the SOA and immediately reopen a clone tentatively named the Defense Institute for Hemispheric Security Cooperation. In response, SOA Watch conducted its own Peace Institute for Hemispheric Nonviolent Resistance in August to prepare 200 leaders for the November protests at SOA at Fort Benning, Ga.

SOA Watch and its founder, Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, will receive CTA's Leadership Award at the CTA National Conference in Milwaukee. Two weeks later, Nov. 17-19, he will be joined by hundreds of CTA members, and CTA staff, at the gates of Fort Benning, Ga., at the annual demonstration calling for the closing of the military school.

Petsu, a student at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, is an intern at SOA Watch-Northeast. A talk by Bourgeois on his campus last year inspired him to become active. “When people hear what happens at SOA, they are shocked,” he said. “Next year could be the end of the SOA.”

Does marching in coalitions make a difference? Petsu thinks so. “By raising our voices together, not only do we make a louder noise, but people see all the issues are connected.”

For details of the Nov. 17-19 vigil and protests, see www.soaw.org