Fr. Roy Bourgeois, M.M. will speak on Wednesday, March 22 at 7 p.m. in the Saint Louis Room of Busch Memorial Center.
Bourgeois has preached peace for the people of Latin America for nearly three decades, advocating the halt of atrocities in Latin American countries.
Bourgeois is a Catholic priest and founder of SOA Watch, dedicated to closing the U.S. Army School of Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga.
SOA graduates have been associated with such incidents as the massacre of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter by military troops of the El Salvadoran government in 1989. Bourgeois started the SOA Watch in Nov. 1990.
A Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Bourgeois was ordained as a priest in 1972 and assigned to serve in Bolivia, where he learned about U.S. support for military abuses.
He later produced an Academy Award-nominated documentary about the School of Americas titled School of Assassins in 1995. Bourgeois spent a total of four years in federal prisons for his protests.
Last November, more than 130 students, faculty and staff from Saint Louis University joined Bourgeois and more than 12,000 people rallying at Ft. Benning.
The event is part of the Great Issues Speakers’ Series and is free and open to the public. The Great Issues Committee is a student-run organization that works to bring speakers to campus. For more information, call 977-2805.
