On November 21-23, the School of Americas Watch staged a protest against the SOA. The school, which is located in Fort Benning, Georgia, was established following World War II and was supposed to be a place where democracy was taught to people of Latin American nations. However, it has instead been a starting point for some of the most notorious human right violators on this side of the world, such as brutal leaders Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Manuel Noriega of Panama. An estimated 61,000 soldiers and policemen were been trained at SOA between 1946 and 2001. There were about 12,000 people on the second day of the protests, which were elaborately planned and were made in honor of all those who have died at the hands of SOA graduates, who have their education funded and provided by the U.S. government. The Ithacan covered a story on the protests earlier this month.
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