Maryknoll priest to speak on U.S. foreign policy in Latin America

By the Standard Staff

Father Roy Bourgeois

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic Maryknoll priest, peace activist and founder of the School of the Americas Watch, will speak in Montana Tech's auditorium at 2 p.m. Thursday.

He will address U.S. foreign

policy in Latin America and will also offer reflections on his recent trip to Iraq.

For more than three decades of his life, Bourgeois has worked on behalf of social justice and peace in Latin America. He has lived in and visited much of the continent and is a critic of American foreign policy toward that region.

In 1990, Bourgeois

founded the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) to protest the U.S. training of military from Latin American countries at the School of the Americas located in Fort Benning, Ga. The school was recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Bourgeois has spent more than four years in U.S.

federal prisons as a result of his non-violent protests. He has also produced a

documentary film about the School of the Americas, which received an Academy Award nomination. Bourgeois was an officer in the Navy and received the Purple Heart.

He's also slated to speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the University of Montana's Urey Lecture Hall, Missoula; and 6:30 p.m. Thursday at

St. Mary's Parish in Helena.

Local sponsors are the Montana Tech Peace Seekers Club and Butte's community peace seekers, Taking Action for Peaceful Solutions.

Bourgeois' visit is

organized by the World Affairs Council of Montana, a non-profit and non-partisan organization located in Missoula, which organizes community events about international issues of

concern to Montanans.

For details about the program, call Mark Johnson, executive director of the Montana World Affairs Council, 728-3328. For details on the Schools of Americas Watch, visit on line www.soaw.org.