SIERRA VISTA — A retired Tucson minister says a civilian human rights commission is needed to oversee interrogation training on Fort Huachuca.

The Army says its training follows the law and the guidelines set forth in the Army Field Manual.

Today, a number of people are expected to “engage in a peaceful, non-violent protest in Sierra Vista and outside the gates of the Army post.”

This will be the fifth year for the “A No to Torture Rally.” People from 15 states are expected to be at this year’s protest.

(Herald/Review graphic)

The retired minister, Ken Kennon, said the event is an avenue to ask those in charge of training on the fort “to simply follow the law.”

The consortium involved in the protest also are seeking a congressional investigation and hearings on how soldiers are trained to become interrogators.

Since the rallies began in 2004, there have been counterprotesters who have challenged the accusation that courses at the Intelligence Center teaches methods of torture as part of the human intelligence collector course.

Fort spokeswoman Tanja Linton said the accusation of teaching methods of torture is not correct.

“The U.S. Army Intelligence Center trains Department of Defense human intelligence collectors in accordance with Army Field Manual 2-22.3,” she said.

That training is “consistent with the applicable laws and policies to include Senator (John) McCain’s amendment and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005,” Linton said.

In 2004 and 2005, 50 protesters each year were countered by 20 each year with no one being arrested for attempting to get on the post. The fort’s Main Gate was closed to traffic most of the years during the protests, as it will be this year.

The atmosphere was fairly peaceful on both sides in 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 heightened emotions began to show as the number of protesters reached about 100 and those countering them was about 50. That year, two Roman Catholic priests were arrested for attempting to enter the fort.

Last year, the number of protesters reached 300 and those against them increased to more than 100, There were individual and group screaming matches with threats thrown back and forth as Sierra Vista police officers kept a line of demarcation between the two groups.

Last year fort officials invited three people who were planning to protest to meet with the commander of the battalion that trains human intelligence collectors, formerly called interrogators, and some of his staff a couple of days before the rally. The two sides met, agreeing to disagree about the issue.

Two days later, two of the three protesters who sat down for more than an hour with the fort officials were arrested, along with another person, who attempted to illegally enter the fort during the rally.

Kennon said he and others were not impressed by what the post attempted to do to tell their side of the story.

“We are used to dog-and-pony shows,” he said, noting such briefings are useless.

Kennon said he doesn’t know if anyone this year will attempt to enter the post in an “attempt to talk to commanders and soldiers about our concerns,” noting that decision will be made by each individual.

Unlike the previous rallies across the street from the fort’s main entrance where the protesters used an empty lot to gather in, that will not happen this year, the organizer said.

Instead, the event will start at 10 a.m. at Veterans’ Memorial Park in Sierra Vista.

One of the speakers at the park will be the Rev. Louie Vitale, who was arrested for trespassing on the fort in 2006 and was  eventually sentenced to five months in federal prison, which was one of his several stints in confinement for anti-military protests over the years.

During his trail in federal court in Tucson, Vitale and co-defendant the Rev. Steve Kelly tried to turn the case into a trial on torture training, but the judge refused their efforts.

Army Reserve Col. Ann Wright, who is a retired U.S. State Department official, also is scheduled to speak. She, too, has been arrested a number of times for her anti-war stances, primarily involving the U.S. actions in Iraq.

After the rally at the park, the protesters plan to walk slightly more than two miles from the park to the corner of Fry Boulevard and Buffalo Soldier Trail, where the fort’s Main Gate is located.

Kennon said some protesters are expected to gather outside federal contractor offices in Sierra Vista, contending those businesses provide instructors to the fort and are part of the problem.

Kennon said the fort’s past association with the former School of the Americas in providing manuals to train Latin American military on how to use torture means the Intelligence Center has a history of teaching such unsavory practices and that, along with what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where Iraqi detainees were harassed, are the reasons for protesting the fort.

The Schools of the Americas no longer exists. It was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Kennon said a change in name doesn’t mean a change in what is taught at Fort Benning, Ga. There has been an annual protest outside that fort for many years, and it takes place next week.

Emphasizing the protest group wants to keep the event peaceful, Kennon said there will be trained peacekeepers from his organization wearing orange vests who will work to keep things nonviolent, and they will work with the Sierra Vista police.

The group is expected to leave the park around 1:30 p.m. and to be outside the fort about an hour later for “our vigil,” he said.

Linton said everyone on Fort Huachuca have taken an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution.

“We fully respect the right of Americans to express different opinions under the First Amendment,” she said.

Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.