The St. Thomas Aquinas Student Service and Justice Team will hold a demonstration Friday to protest the School of the Americas from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. south of the Parks Library.

The School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHISC, located in Fort Benning, Ga., is a government-supported institution that educates Latin American militaries about democracy.

The school has been criticized because some of its graduates have been involved in human rights abuses in Central America.

Katie Elbert, senior in psychologyCQ and service peer minister at St. Thomas, said her group is trying to educate people about WHISC.

“The goal is to close the school,” Elbert said.

John Donaghy, CQSt. Thomas campus minister and philosophy and religious studies lecturer, said the students are trying to spread awareness.

“They are trying to make the local community aware of the School of the Americas and hope to pressure legislators to close it,” Donaghy said.

Elbert said people need to understand how their tax dollars are being used.

“If people knew what was going on they would want to close it,” she said.

At the demonstration, Donaghy said there will be posters and handouts about the school.

Elbert said every year there is a protest at Fort Benning.

In solidarity with that event, Elbert said the Student Service Team plans to have an informational meeting this Sunday at 8 p.m. at St. Thomas, 129 Ash Ave., where a video about WHISC and discussion and prayer will take place.

Elbert said several of the graduates of WHISC are involved in human rights violations and massacres.

“The classes aren’t promoting the goal of democratic values,” she said.

According to its Web site at www.benning.army.mil/whinsec, the U.S. Army School of the Americas was begun in 1963 to spread democratic ideals during the Cold War. The school officially closed in 2000, but WHISC took its place to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.

Its goals are to provide military education and training to the nations of Latin America, while promoting democratic values and respect for human rights and fostering cooperation among the multinational military forces, according to the WHISC Web site.

The School of the Americas Watch is an organization seeking to close the school. According to its Web site at www.soaw.org, School of the Americas graduates include Manuel Noriega and other Latin American dictators responsible for military coups, massacres and assassinations.