COLUMBUS, Ga. A thousand protesters marched on Saturday outside a Georgia military base to demand the closing of the U.S. army school of the Americas, where opponents claim Latin American soldiers learn torture. The protest outside the sprawling Fort Benning military base, about 85 miles (136 km) southwest of Atlanta, has been an annual event since 1990, held each year to mark the Nov. 16, 1989 massacre of six jesuit priests in El Salvador. The school of the Americas (SOA) trained 19 of the 26 Salvadoran officials implicated in the massacre by a United Nations investigation.

The school trains more than 900 U.S. and Latin American soldiers each year. (Reuter)