An Ames 6-year-old participated with her father and several others in a protest at the School of the Americas in Georgia during the past weekend.

Ella Lubienski traveled with her father, Chris, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, to the protest. They were among about 10,000 protesters at the school, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, in Fort Benning, Ga.

The institute is a U.S. government-supported institution that educates Latin American militaries about democracy and has come under attack because some of its graduates have been involved in human rights violations in Latin America.

The demonstrators were protesting the Nov. 19, 1989 killing of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by officers trained at the school.

“The symbolic anniversary funeral is what the event is built around,” Chris said. “We wanted to present the students with the result of their training.”

This was his third year attending the demonstration, and the second with his daughter.

Chris said three years ago Ella tagged along, and they were with a group detained for going on the base. “They chose not to arrest us,” Chris said.

He said they were put on a bus with “celebrities and children.” Martin Sheen was one of those celebrities.

At this year’s protest, Chris and his daughter did not cross the fence and go onto the base.

“If you go past the fence, you get arrested,” Ella said.

Chris said the people that crossed the fence were aware of what they were doing.

Nate Jacobi, a 2001 ISU graduate and current Romero House Faith and Justice Coordinator at Regis University in Denver was in Fort Benning, and five members of his group were arrested.

“It was an act of civil disobedience,” he said. “They crossed onto the base knowing they would be arrested.”

The Lubienskis decided to stay on the outside of the fence where protesters placed crosses to remember the victims.

Ella said she made a sign that read: “We do not like war. We like love. Killing is so, so, so, so bad.”

Chris said his daughter wanted to attend the event.

“She was pushing to go down there,” he said.

But Chris said Ella was worried about the repercussions if they were arrested. He said it has been a positive experience for her and she learned a lot.

“It’s a bad thing,” Ella said of the school and its practices. “I like peace.”

Chris said it was interesting to see the diversity of people involved, from military veterans to nuns.

“They are drawing attention to the issue,” he said.

Chris said the government doesn’t look good when it puts 80-year-old nuns in jail.

John Donaghy, St. Thomas Aquinas campus minister and philosophy and religious studies lecturer, said he is glad people are learning about the school.

Iowa State held its own School of the Americas demonstration last Friday, sponsored by the St. Thomas Aquinas Student Service and Justice Team. Donaghy said it went well and several people were interested.

Ninety-six protesters were arrested for trespassing on the school’s grounds last weekend, according to the School of the Americas Watch, an organization seeking to close the school.

The trespassers face federal charges for illegally entering a base, which is federal property.

“For the first time in our 13-year history of nonviolent civil disobedience, people are being held on $5,000 bond,” according to the School of the Americas Watch’s Web site at www.soaw.org/new. They could also face six months in prison.

Jacobi said it was a powerful experience. “The courageous act of those five made an effect on our group in deep ways,” he said.

Jacobi said he and his group have worked on his campus in Denver to spread the word about the School of the Americas.

“It inspired us to reach out to the broad community and educate people about the school,” he said.