Reply #13: Quick summary of the "School of Assassins:"

[Judi Lynn]

School of the Americas / WHINSEC:

The School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" (WHINSEC) is a military training facility established in Panama in 1946, ostensibly "to bring stability to Latin America." In 1984 the SOA was kicked out of Panama and was quietly resettled at Ft. Benning, GA. Here it operates at a cost to US taxpayers of millions of dollars annually. During its 60 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, interrogation tactics, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, and military intelligence.
Frequently dubbed the "School of Assassins," graduates have terrorized, tortured, raped, "disappeared," and massacred tens of thousands of Latin Americans. Their primary targets being educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, indigenous populations, and those who advocate for the rights of the poor.

House Votes to Close the SOA
In 1999, Congress voted to cut funding to the SOA, but the effort lost by a single vote in a House-Senate Conference Committee. The following year the SOA was "closed" but immediately opened weeks later under its current name.

Nationally, hundreds of universities, editorial boards, legislative bodies, veterans, and church groups (including 300 Catholic bishops) have advocated for the closure of the school. In 1995, 13 people were arrested for peacefully marching onto the open base of Ft. Benning in an attempt to reach the School of the Americas. Today, over 20,000 people gather each November at the gates of Ft. Benning to celebrate our solidarity with our sisters and brothers throughout Latin America, to mourn those killed by SOA alumni, and to demand the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC.

"Democracy" -- SOA Style:
To date, more than 200 people have collectively served over 100 years in prison (sentences ranging from two - fourteen months) for nonviolently protesting against the SOA. While impunity prevails for those responsible for raping, torturing and murdering innocent people -- students, clergy, veterans, educators, and nuns are receiving outrageous jail terms for speaking out about the violence. What message does this send to Latin America?

What Does the SOA Say?
The SOA states that the training manuals, made public by the Pentagon in 1996, contained only a few egregious passages. In addition to recommending techniques such as torture, execution, blackmail, and arresting the relatives of those being questioned, these infamous manuals are brimming with anti-democratic content throughout.

From start to finish, they advocate spying on and infiltrating youth groups, human rights organizations, and opposition political parties--even political campaigning is viewed as subversive. In addition, anyone who supports "union organizing and recruiting" or who distributes "propaganda in favor of the interests of workers" was seen as a "target to be neutralized."

> The SOA says they are a key tool for US policy in Latin America. Ironically, of the ten SOA graduates who the school boasts became heads of States, not one took power democratically.

In addition, Panama's President stated that the SOA was the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America." -- There is absolutely nothing democratic about the military. Yet, advocates of the school state that the SOA is a vital tool for implementing democracy in Latin America. Democracy cannot be taught, nor viewed through the barrel of a gun.

> The SOA says they are needed for counter-narcotics operations. These courses are actually no different than the counter-insurgency courses taught at the SOA for decades.

More:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:mleDfxrm25wJ:www.soawne.org/SOAFacts.html+School+of+the+Americas+%2B+graduates+%2B+massacres&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

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Thank you, roody, for this information, and I hope so much that somehow someone will get a copy of this excellent speech the judge allowed, to reach the desk of Barack Obama. He needs to know everything which can be learned about this place, and the high caliber of people who are working so hard to close it, which should have been done so very LONG AGO, most clearly long, LONG ago. Should never have been opened in the first place. So many hundreds of thousands of people should never have been broken, destroyed, and their loved ones consigned to desperation, terror, endless grief due to the effects of this unforgiveable weapon turned against them.