More than 50 Marquette students will travel to Ft. Benning, Ga., on Thursday as part of an annual trip protesting the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), which opponents claim is a new version of the School of the Americas.

The trip, organized and sponsored by Jesuit University Students Together in Concerned Empowerment, or JUSTICE, and by University Ministry, involves a teach-in, a vigil and a protest calling for the school to be shut down, according to JUSTICE member Dorota Pruski.

Pruski, a College of Arts & Sciences junior, said students and graduates of the SOA "have been linked to numerous human rights violations in Latin America, ranging from assassinations to massacres."

Such SOA students include Juan Lopez Grijalba, a Honduran intelligence officer accused of torturing and killing Honduran citizens in the 1980s, and former Salvadoran air force captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia, who was linked to the 1980 murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, according to SOA Watch, a group dedicated to the school's closure.

Neal Styka, a College of Engineering junior and a member of the planning committee for this year's trip, said he first learned about the SOA and WHINSEC through JUSTICE during his freshman year.

"I was really shocked" to learn the United States trained soldiers from other countries who have been linked to atrocities, said Styka, who is making his second protest trip. "It made me really angry."

He said JUSTICE has been excited about strong student interest in this year's trip.

"We have a full bus and a waiting list," he said.

Annie Leff, a College of Arts & Sciences junior who this year will be making her third protest trip with JUSTICE, said the trip is "a time of reflection on what exactly our government is doing."

SOA graduates "suppress their own people using techniques that they learned in America," Leff said.

The closing of SOA in December of 2000 and subsequent opening of WHINSEC in January 2001 did little to change the school's mission or impact, she said.

"The change was basically cosmetic," she said. Aside from a new human rights course, "they're still doing exactly the same things."

The JUSTICE group will leave for Ft. Benning on Thursday night, according to Leff.

On Friday night, groups from Jesuit high schools and universities will gather for the Ignatian Family Teach-In, featuring speakers, music and demonstrations of solidarity, she said.

On Saturday, protestors will gather at the gates of Ft. Benning to call for the SOA to be shut down.

On Sunday, up to 15,000 protestors holding crosses bearing the names "of victims that have been murdered by SOA graduates" will march down the road outside the fort, Leff said.

"It's like a funeral procession," she said.

Leff said the protest aims to confront U.S. policies of intervention in Latin America that have hurt the region.

"Our government is using taxpayer dollars to train these soldiers" who return to Latin America and commit atrocities, she said.

Styka said increasing public awareness about the SOA and WHINSEC puts mounting pressure on lawmakers to shut the school down.

"(People) need to know that there's a way to stop it," he said.