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What is
the School of the Americas/WHINSEC?
The School of the Americas is a
combat training school
founded in Panama in 1946 as the Latin American Training
Center-Ground Division. Renamed the U.S. Army
School of the Americas in 1963, it moved to Fort Benning,
Georgia after the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty in 1984.
As a response to intense pressure on Congress to cease funding
of the School, it was briefly "closed" in December 2000, before
re-opening the next month with a new name - the Western
Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).
Despite the variations in name and location, the SOA's mission
has remained the same since its inception.
What is
the SOA/WHINSEC's real mission?
The U.S.
Army's official position on the SOA/WHINSEC is
that it exists to provide Spanish-language "professional education and training
for civilian, military and law enforcement students from nations
throughout the Western Hemisphere," in order to promote "peace,
democratic values, and respect for human rights through
inter-American cooperation"
[1]. Its motto is "Libertad, Paz y Fraternidad"
("Liberty, Peace and Brotherhood"), and WHINSEC insists that "all
students and instructors - without exception - receive
comprehensive human rights instruction and training"
[2].
However,
an objective analysis of historical events over the past 60 years
strongly suggests that the U.S. Army's official position on the
SOA/WHINSEC is entirely deceptive. Graduates of the School
- of which there are roughly 60,000 total - include notorious
dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos (Panama), Leopoldo
Galtieri and Roberto Viola (Argentina), Juan Velasco Alvarado
(Peru), Guillermo Rodriguez (Ecuador), and Hugo Banzer Suarez
(Bolivia)
[3]. The School's graduates have committed many of the
worst human rights violations in recent history - from
individual acts of murder, torture, and assassination to
outright massacres, leading critics to nickname it the "School
of Assassins." In September of 1996, public pressure
forced the Pentagon to release seven training manuals -
featuring material gathered from Army and CIA manuals written in
the 1950s and 1960s - used at the SOA between 1987 and 1991.
These manuals revealed the type of education students received:
execution, torture, blackmail, false imprisonment, and other
brutal tactics were taught as methods of suppressing dissent in
countries with oppressive dictatorships favored by the United
States government
[4].
What is
the SOA Watch?
The
School of the Americas Watch is an independent, grassroots
organization - composed of a national body and subsidiary
branches at local/regional levels - that works to permanently close the SOA and change
U.S. policy towards Latin America. Founded in 1990, SOAW
pursues these goals by "educating the public, lobbying Congress,
and participating in creative, nonviolent resistance"
[5].
Every November, the SOAW organizes a convergence, just outside
Fort Benning, which features creative, nonviolent direct action.
This event commemorates the anniversary of a massacre on
November 16, 1989, in which six Salvadoran Jesuit priests and
two civilian women were killed at the University of Central
America. A United Nations Truth Commission found in 1993
that of the 27 soldiers cited for the massacre, 19 were
graduates of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas. More than 16,000 activists attended the convergence
at Fort Benning in 2004.
The
Western PA School of the Americas Watch (WPa-SOAW) is a local
branch of the SOAW working to educate and organize people
throughout western Pennsylvania.
For more information
on the SOA/WHINSEC and School of the Americas Watch, please visit
the following links:
-
School of the Americas Watch
Website
-
U.S. Army's
WHINSEC Website
-
Hidden in Plain Sight
- Documentary that examines U.S. policy towards Latin America
through the prism of the SOA
-
"Backyard
Terrorism" Article written by George Monbiot and published in
Britain's The Guardian
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Contact your legislators and ask them
to support legislation to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.
Visit SOAW for the latest update on current legislation (http://soaw.org/article.php?id=96)
Join us in educating and organizing
people in Western Pennsylvania about the School of the Americas.
Contact us at
soapittsburgh@gmail.com, Michael Drohan at 412-271-8414 or drohanmichael@yahoo.com
, or
Edith Wilson at 412-371-9722 or
edithwilson0@gmail.com to find
out about our next meeting or event.
Consider traveling to Ft. Benning, GA for the annual convergence
to CLOSE THE SOA on November 21-23, 2008.
Join thousands for a weekend of nonviolent
resistance in remembrance of victims of the 1989 massacre
and countless others murdered, tortured, and oppressed by SOA
graduates. The Western PA SOAW has traveled to Ft. Benning for
several years. Travel plans for this year’s trip are still being
made. Check back here for more news or contact us to help with
planning the trip.
Visit the
SOAW's Website for a timeline
of events, information on what to expect during the convergence,
fliers for distribution, etc.
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