By Wadner Pierre- originally published by The Maroon

For the first time in two years, a group of Loyola students traveled to a US military- sponsored school in Fort Benning, Ga. to protest the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests and their two workers.

Hundreds of thousands protesters continue as rally against the U.S.-sponsored military school in the Fort Benning, Ga. Photo by Wadner Pierre

It has been 23 years since six Jesuit priests and their two workers were murdered at the Creighton University in El Salvador. The perpetrators of this crime were alleged to be trained at the School of Americas. For more than two decades the School of Americas Watch, a national organization, has begun a campaign to close the military school. The School Of Americas Watch annual protest coincides with the anniversary of the death of the six Jesuit priests.

Business sophomore, Katie O'Dowd had no idea about the protest until her freshman year at Loyola through her involvement in LUCAP. She said she was struck by the many young people engaged in the movement. “I always want to advocate for the School of Americas Watch. I’ll continue to ask students to go in this protest,” she said.

O’Dowd said she hopes the school will be closed. In 1990, former naval officer and Catholic priest Roy Bourgeois started School Of Americas Watch in a house near the gate of the US military school in Fort Benning, Ga.

Twenty-two years have passed, but the goal has remained the same. Some progress has been made with a half-dozen Latin American countries like Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, which withdrew their troops from this school.