By Gretchen Keiser

Nine people, including Father Brian Pierce, OP, a young priest serving in the Atlanta Archdiocese, began a water-only fast Sept. 3 outside Fort Benning, GA, where soldiers from El Salvador are trained by the U.S.

In an open letter to friends and fellow Dominicans, Father Pierce said the other eight include three other priests, two Salvadorans and three lay people from the U.S. He serves Hispanic youth in the archdiocese and is bilingual.

The fast is taking place during a time when military aid to El Salvador by the U.S. is under debate in Congress. Fort Benning is where the "School of the Americas," a training ground for Central American military personnel, is located.

Father Pierce's letter said the fast would begin after a three-day retreat by the groups and would last "an indefinite time." They will be under a doctor's care and "no one will fast to a point of serious health hazards," he said.

He linked the action to the unresolved case of six Jesuit priests and two Salvadoran women killed last November. Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristinani said in January that the Salvadoran military was responsible for the slayings, which took place on the grounds of a Jesuit-run university in the midst of a strict overnight curfew enforced by the military. The site is within one mile of the headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces.

Nine military men have been indicted, but the investigation has been impeded, according to a U.S. Congressional Task Force.

The group fasting is protesting U.S. aid of over one million dollars a day to El Salvador, including military training, which has continued despite the military involvement in the killings of the priests and civilians. Since 1980, 75,000 people have died in El Salvador's civil war.

"Our guns and bullets are killing our brothers and sisters in Christ," Father Pierce said. "I cannot be silent, for silence is only a participation in the violence and destruction of a whole people."

He cited the story in Scripture of Jesus telling his disciples "some evils ... can only be cast out with prayer and fasting," and invited other people to join in striving for a negotiated solution to El Salvador's civil war, either by praying and fasting for a day, or by contacting U.S. Senators and opposing military aid to El Salvador and continued training of Salvadoran officers at Fort Benning.

The other eight taking part are listed by the group as Dominican Father Jim Barnett, Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, who has previously been sentenced for actions of civil disobedience outside Fort Benning, Jesuit Father Jack Seery, Salvadoran refugees Miguel Cruz and Rene Hurtado, and Americans Kathy Kelly of Chicago, Charlie Lietky and Peter Eaves.