School of the Americas vigil

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CLINTON – The Sisters of St. Francis, their Associates and Sojourners, and students from Ashford University are inviting the public to join in a prayer vigil in solidarity with the thousands of persons who will gather at the gates of the U.S. Army base at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., this month.  Fort Benning is home to the U.S. Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA).
The vigil will be held in the chapel at The Canticle, home of the Franciscan Sisters, 841 13th Ave. N., Clinton, and begins at 6 p.m. Nov. 15.
Nov. 16 marks the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of San Salvador, El Salvador.  A U.S. Congressional Task Force reported that those responsible were trained at the SOA. Since 1990, the organization SOA Watch has been holding prayer vigils outside the gates of the base to draw attention to the evils perpetrated by SOA graduates and to lobby for an end to U.S. funding for the program.
Clinton Franciscans have been participating in the vigil since 1996.


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