SOA protest is personal for Kucinich

[Algorem]

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/179218.html

Presidential candidate said closing school would be doing 'God's work'



...The Ohio Democrat and long-shot presidential candidate will be one of the protesters gathering at Fort Benning's main gate Sunday to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- formerly known as the School of the Americas.

One of the martyrs in the SOA cause is Dorothy Kazel, a Cleveland nun who was raped and killed Dec. 2, 1980, by El Salvador National Guardsmen...

His relationship with the Kazels goes back to high school. He knew the family well enough to attend Kazel's going away party before she left for her mission work in El Salvador...

When Kucinich takes the Fort Benning Road stage shortly after 9 a.m. Sunday, he will do what he has been doing since he was elected to Congress in 1997 -- call for the closure of the U.S. Army school. This will be the first time he's attended the protest and the first time the protest has had a presidential candidate address a crowd that is expected to be more than 20,000 people...



McGovern to speak at Ga. protest

http://www.telegram.com/article/20071117/NEWS/711170337/1008/NEWS02

Critics claim Army school teaches abusive tactics

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[e-mail]

U.S. Rep James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, has spent years trying to shut down the Army school at Fort Benning in Georgia that, over the past six decades, has trained Latin American military officers in counterinsurgency techniques, interrogation tactics, commando fighting and psychological warfare...

Eighteen years ago yesterday, a group of soldiers stormed a rectory in El Salvador and pulled six sleeping Jesuit priests from their bedrooms. The troops ordered the groggy clerics to lie face down and shot them to death.

Nineteen of the 26 soldiers convicted of the brutal killings were graduates of the WHISC...

Mr. McGovern, who as an aide to the late U.S. Rep J. Joseph Moakley, D-Boston, led a congressional investigation into the deaths, knew three of the priests...