Holy Cross Students to Fast in Call for Closing of U.S. Army's School of the Americas

WORCESTER, Mass. – Beginning this week, 15 Holy Cross students will give up eating all solid food and drink only natural fruit juices as a means of drawing attention to the allegations of atrocities committed by the graduates of the US Army's School of the Americas and the plight of the poor and the oppressed in Latin America.  The fast, sponsored by the Pax Christi chapter at the College, is scheduled to continue for 13 days (April 6 - 19).

An additional group of at least 15 students will participate in a "relay" fast.  Each person will fast for a day or two, coordinating their efforts with others to assure that during each day, there will be at least one or two people fasting.

The students will be observed by trained medical personnel throughout the fast.

Students will be holding nightly prayer vigils for people who have suffered at the hands of the graduates of the School of the Americas. "Graduates of this ‘school' have perpetrated some of the most horrific acts of genocide and oppression in recent decades," says Thomas Pavlovich, a sophomore at Holy Cross.

"Included in the long list of the deceased, killed at the behest of these graduates, are Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, nine-hundred civilians in the El Mozote massacre, and six Jesuit priests, their maid and her daughter in El Salvador," continued Pavlovich.  "Most importantly though, this juice fast will be a means for us to call attention to the horrors perpetrated upon the poor by the graduates of the School of the Americas."