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Volume CXXXIII, Number 9 |
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Students will journey south to protest free trade, military
BOBBY GUERETTE
ORIENT STAFF
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| Seniors Alissa Cordner, Becky Bogdanovitch, and Bryony Heise distribute literature about the School of the Americans and globalization to students in Smith Union on Thursday afternoon. (Bobby Guerette, Bowdoin Orient) |
Four Bowdoin students may be heading into harm's way next week as they attempt to improve human rights and make their voices heard.
"We expect to be tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed," said Alissa Cordner '04. "We're expecting it to be rough."
Becky Bogdanovitch '04, Bryony Heise '04, and Amanda Escobar-Graminga '07 are joining Cordner on a trip south next week. They will be protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami and the School of the Americans military training facility at Fort Benning, Georgia. Thousands of other activists are expected to be at the teach-ins and protests. Their goal as they take to the streets and protest outside a military base: change United States foreign policy.
On Wednesday they'll be in Florida, learning about world trade and participating in a protest. The activists say that free trade hurts Latin American countries that do not have strict human rights standards. Unions are not permitted to organize in many countries, and wages are considerably lower than those in the United Sates.
"We're mainly opposed to [free trade] because of the extremely high levels of exploitation," Cordner said, also saying that free trade takes jobs away from Americans. The activists point to a Cornell University study which said that two-thirds of companies in some industries have told their American workers that they will move jobs abroad if the workers try to unionize.
However, little of their time in the Sunshine State will be spent outside protesting. "It's important to stress that the march is a small component of this," Bogdanovitch said.
The group plans to spend most of its days in workshops. It hopes to come up with a plan of action; such a plan could include pushing legislation and influencing politicians.
On Friday, the four students will take a bus to Columbus, Georgia. Every year, activists protest the School of the Americas (SOA), which is now officially known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
The SOA is a combat training school located in Fort Benning. Activists charge that the SOA teaches Latin American soldiers "to wage a war against their own people."
A protest takes place at the SOA annually. "This is a huge annual event," said Cordner.
Thousands of people usually attend the protest; some plan on storming the gates of the military base in an act of civil disobedience.
The Bowdoin students attending do not currently plan on participating in this disobedience. "We are students and have intense academic obligations," Cordner said.
They indicated that they are there to provide support and to learn.
"My goal is to spend these days learning through doing," said Bogdanovitch. "I'm just so excited to think of all the people I'm going to meet."
While there, they will also remember all the people who, they say, have died because of abuses by soldiers trained by the SOA. "It's also a day of remembrance for those who have been killed," said Bogdanovitch.
Some of the travelers feel that they have close connections to the issue. Bogdanovitch spent time in Mexico last year and spent time with mothers and wives who had loved ones who were killed, they charge, by SOA soldiers.
"We sat and spoke with people who were directly impacted by American military involvement," she said. "It's hard to turn away once you've been exposed."
People do not know what is happening in Latin America, and, she said, they need to.
Cordner spent time at a globalization protest a few years ago, and the lasting impression it made on her is driving her to go to this event. "I was struck by the power behind the cause," she said.
The students are bringing a piece of Bowdoin with them. Yesterday, they sat at a table in Smith Union trying to inform members of the community about their cause, and also had a giant cloth poster which read, "Bowdoin students say: close down the S.O.A." Students could sign it in support. By midafternoon, over 50 students had signed the poster.
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