Twenty students and faculty marched through campus Tuesday evening, protesting the Fort Benning, Ga. based School of the Americas and commemorating victims of human rights violations. The procession ended in Red Square with a candlelight vigil.

Rev. Hugh Brown III, a Protestant chaplain at Georgetown and Barbara Humphrey McCrabb, a Catholic chaplain, led the vigil with a specific liturgy of prayer for the occasion as well as silent meditation. The vigil marked All Saints Day, a Catholic holy day of obligation.

The evening was a commemoration of the lives of those who have died, as well as a protest against the School of the Americas and its involvement in the training of South American soldiers. Participants discussed an upcoming protest that will be co-sponsored by the Georgetown Solidarity Committee and Campus inistry.

Vanessa Waldref (COL ’02), president of the GSC, said that the reason for holding a vigil was to “set a reflective mood for the reasons we are going to protest . at Fort Benning.” The group has set Nov. 17 to19 as the dates for its protest. “The School [of the Americas] violates human rights,” Waldref said, indicating the primary reason for the protest.

The protesters brought attention to the contested issue of training Latin American soldiers at the SOA, a United States Army training school. Participants in the vigil, through prayer, reflection and listening to stories and documents written about atrocities committed in South America, tried to show that “the [SOA] enables different governments to carry out human rights violations,” according to Michael Levinson (MSB ’02), campaign director of the GSC.

“This is something we need to look at, because . the United States has no accountability check,” Levinson said.

McCrabb agreed, saying, “Through silent witness and prayer, we resolve through working together to close the School of the Americas.” During the vigil she cited the importance of recognizing the violence occurring in Latin American countries and around the world, and praying for those who have died due to human rights violations. McCrabb focused her comments around a verse from the Talmud, which reads: “to save one human life is to save the world.”

Waldref, who attended last year’s SOA protest at Fort Benning, said it was “an amazing experience . there was an incredible feeling to be a part of thousands who agree wholeheartedly on this issue.” According to Waldref, Jesuit universities across the country will be sending delegations to protest, and she would attend each protest there until the SOA closes.

According to its organizers, the protest and vigil came about as a result of last Monday’s debate between Col. William M. organ of the army office of international affairs, and Jeff Winder, the head of SOA watch, a watchdog group focusing on the SOA.

In the debate Morgan defended the viability of the school, explaining that it provides competent, professional military education in all aspects, including human rights.

“What some people tend to overlook is that we also train U.S. military professionals in the identical courses taught at the SOA,” Morgan said. “There are no sniper training or advanced combat courses because we are trying to promote the American values of democracy and human rights.”

In the debate, Morgan acknowledged that the role of the military is extremely controversial in Latin America, and because these answers will not be more readily available anytime soon, the United States needs to work with these countries to improve their standards and capabilities to function in modern society.

“The U.S. government believes that certain norms are acceptable, and we want Latin America to conform to those standards,” he said. “Every state has the right to have institutions for security, but without instruction they are only thugs with guns. Closing the SOA isn’t the answer.”

Morgan said that while several of the school’s graduates have been linked to gross human rights violations throughout the world, it is illogical to correlate those activities with their education at the SOA.

“Individuals commit crimes, not institutions,” he said. “Just because they went to an advanced infantry course doesn’t encourage them to be killers. It is intellectually dishonest to turn this situation around.”

More myth than fact is circulating about the SOA, according to organ. The question is no longer one of responsibility, he says, but instead the school has been turned into a scapegoat for people displeased with U.S. foreign policy.

Staff Writer Liz McDonald contributed to this report.