Rev. Roy Bourgeois, leader of the School of the Americas Watch effort to shut down the Fort Benning , Ga., U.S. training center for Central and South American military, will speak on Thursday, September 10th at 3:30pm in theOlsen Student Center, North Dining Hall A Conference Room UMaine Farmington campus map http://tinyurl.com/m4hg9j

Sponsored by UMF SEA-Change

For more info, contact Doug Rawlings rawlings [at] maine [dot] edu 778-7292, and

Thursday, September 10th at 7pm
130 Little Hall (near Union & Library)
UMaine Orono campus map http://www.umaine.edu/locator/

All events are free and open to the public.

His topic will be the Struggle for Justice in the Americas Against the Oligarchs and SOA Grads.

A Vietnam veteran and holder of a Purple Heart, the Maryknoll priest served as a missionary in Bolivia for five years before founding SOA in 1990 in response to the murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero and Catholic priests and nuns, as well as thousands of Nicaraguan and Salvadoran civilians, by graduates of the school.

The annual November protest at the gates of Fort Benning now attracts over 10,000 annually, an increasing proportion high school and college students. Each year a number of protesters enter Fort Benning; repeaters, often priests and nuns, are usually given six month sentences. Bourgeois has served four years altogether for his protests.

In response to the protests and growing support in Congress for closing SOA, the Defense Department in 2000 renamed it the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). But graduates continue implicated in coups, assassinations, torture, and military repressions as they were the recent military brutality in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the ousting of the Honduras president—led by SOA graduates. Bourgeois was in Honduras just after the coup.

In the last year he has met with presidents, defense ministers, and human rights and labor leaders in 15 countries urging them to stop sending their military to the school—with some success. Presently, Columbia enrolls the largest number of students.

Votes to close the school in the U.S. House of Representatives have, in recent years come close to a majority and the 2008 election should have produced a majority at the next vote. Both Rep. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen have voted for closure and Barack Obama’s campaign faulted the school.

In response to the Defense Department’s refusal to release the names of attendees during the last five years, the House has passed legislation requiring their release. The Senate has yet to agree.

The native Louisianan, who speaks with a strong Cajun accent, has recently come under fire from the Vatican after preaching the homily at the Catholic ordination of a woman who had volunteered in the SOA organization. Bourgeois has stood his ground, insisting that it is time for equality for women in the Roman Catholic Church, a view shared by most U.S. Catholics.

Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Peace in Central America, the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Maine Veterans for Peace, and various campus organizations are sponsoring Bourgeois’s three-day tour. For more information contact Bill Slavick at 773-6562 or william.slavick [at] maine [dot] edu