By Dan Sullivan
Catholic Herald
Local group participates in demonstration
SUPERIOR -- About 60 people from Superior, Ashland and Duluth, Minn., traveled some 2,500 miles last month to Fort Benning, Ga. Once there, they joined thousands of others in a protest against a United States Army training center. The protest was aimed toward the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas.
Since 1946 some 60,000 Latin American and Caribbean soldiers have been trained at this combat-training facility.
The event attracted young and old alike. Among the local protesters was a group of students from The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. The Benedictine sisters at the St. Scholastica Monastery held a prayer and send-off service for these students.
Karen Barschdorf, a parishioner of Holy Assumption Parish in Superior, was also among those who traveled to Georgia. Barschdorf said she decided to attend after completing extensive reading on Iraq, Iran and on other global events.
"As we approached the second war with Iraq, I grabbed and read anything I could." she said. "I wanted to know more."
Barschdorf's reading led her in many directions, including having many concerns on issues in Latin America and with the WHISC.
"I had unending questions on many things," she said.
"I knew for years we were involved in Latin America. I remember hearing about priests and sisters killed in Latin America."
Barschdorf said there always remained the question of why this happened. "Why were these people killed?" Barschdorf asked.
She became personally saddened learning about the life and death of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
"More than anything, that led me to want to go to the School of the Americas," Barschdorf said.
Among her readings was a book of homilies given by Romero, "The Violence of Love." "I kept picking that book up and reading it over and over again," Barschdorf said. "The book is a collection of homilies that Archbishop Romero spoke at his church. Many of them are very short. It starts with homilies given in 1977 and ended with March 24, 1980. That was the day he was assassinated saying Mass."
In reading these homilies, Barschdorf became aware of the spiritual depth that Romero had. "He wasn't for one side or the other," she said. "He simply pleaded with people to give up arms and change their lives. He was a spiritual revolution. He spoke to all people in El Salvador. In every way, he served the poor."
After reading about Romero and hearing a presentation at Scholastica on the WHISC protest and social justice concerns in Latin America, Barschdorf became motivated to attend the protest rally. The Duluth presentation was given by Jack Nelson- Pallmeyer, a professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
At the rally, Barschdorf said, she took part in a mock funeral procession to the gates of Fort Benning.
"It represented a fraction of the people who died in Latin America," she said.
"I have been raised a Catholic and it brought back to me the Litany of Saints that we chant at Easter time. It chants the persons' names, just like the martyrs are done at Easter. Martyrdom has never left us. People continue today to give their blood for others."
The experience of attending this rally was a reaffirming experience for Barschdorf. "I met people that I read about," she said.
"I met Neris Gonzalez, she was a catechist in El Salvador who was beaten and left for dead in a ditch. Meeting her brought all my reading on Latin America to life."
Gonzalez was one of at least three people who testified against two Salvadorian generals who were involved in torturing and murdering numerous of El Salvador residents.
"Every part of this trip was a learning experience," Barschdorf said.
"I don't think I will ever be the same again."
SOA Watch, a grassroots organization working to close this school, has gathered at the gates of Fort Benning every November since 1990. Since these protests began 14 years ago, 170 people have served prison time for civil disobedience.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2004