School of Assassins, USA
SOA Watch and Chasqui BartolinaSisa (15/11/2003 07:04)
Father Roy Bourgeois founded SOA Watch to inform the American public
about " the School of Assassins" and to close it down. But, he cannot
do it alone. He needs the support of all Americans who abhor the
training of terrorists and murderers in this country. Support SOA
Watch and Father Roy Bourgeois at:
SOA Watch
PO Box 3330
Columbus, GA 31903
706-682-5369
School of the Americas:
School of Assassins, USA
The School of the Americas
World War II was the "good war". After that conflict, most Americans
believed that US intentions in the world were noble -- the US was the
punisher of aggression and a warrior for freedom. This image was for
generations of Americans the measure by which they judged their
country in world affairs. The war in Vietnam ended the illusion that
America was always on the "right side". Today, America's image as a
defender of democracy and justice has been further eroded by the
School of the Americas (SOA), which trains Latin American and
Caribbean military officers and soldiers to subvert democracy and kill
hope in their own countries.
Founded by the United States in 1946, the SOA was initially located in
Panama, but in 1984 it was kicked out under the terms of the Panama
Canal Treaty and moved to the army base at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Then-President of Panama Jorge Illueca called it "the biggest base for
de-stabilization in Latin America," and a major Panamanian newspaper
dubbed it " The School of Assassins."
Today, SOA instructors and students are recruited from the cream of
the Latin American military establishment. The School trains 700-2,000
soldiers a year, and since its inception in 1946, more than 60,000
military personnel have graduated from the SOA.
If the SOA concentrated its training on protecting country borders
from foreign aggression or safeguarding citizens from invasion by
outside enemies, it would be considered an exemplary institution,
worth the cost of American tax dollars and US prestige. But, the SOA
has very different goals. Its curriculum includes courses in
psychological warfare, counterinsurgency, interrogation techniques,
and infantry and commando tactics. Presented with the most
sophisticated and up-to-date techniques by the US Army's best
instructors, these courses teach military officers and soldiers of
Third World countries to subvert the truth, to muzzle union leaders,
activist clergy, and journalists, and to make war on their own people.
It prepares them to subdue the voices of dissent and to make
protesters submit. It instructs them in techniques of marginalizing
the poor, the hungry, and the dispossessed. It tells them how to stamp
out freedom and terrorize their own citizens. It trains them to
destroy the hope of democracy.
The School of the Americas (SOA) has been given other names -- "School
for Dictators", "School of Assassins", and "Nursery of Death Squads".
And, countries with the worst human rights records send the most
soldiers to the School.
Countries / Graduates (since 1946)
Argentina / 931
Bolivia / 4,049
Brazil / 355
Chile / 2,405
Colombia / 8,679
Costa Rica / 2,376
Dominican Republic / 2,330
Ecuador / 2,356
El Salvador / 6,776
Guatemala / 1,676
Honduras / 3,691
Nicaragua / 4,693
Panama / 4,235
Paraguay / 1,084
Peru / 3,997
Uruguay / 931
Venezuela / 3,250
When they return to their home countries, graduates of the SOA hold a
rather unique and peculiar view of their countrymen. They look upon
priests, social workers, journalists, and liberal intellectuals, not
as assets to their societies, but as dangerous subversives, working to
undermine the system that keeps these soldiers, army officers, and
their sponsors in power.
Graduates of the SOA have been among the most repressive tyrants in
Latin America, and their actions have been some of the most cruel and
violent. In El Salvador, in 1989, a Salvadoran army patrol executed
six Jesuit priests as they lay face-down on the ground at Central
America University. According to the United Nation's Truth Commission
Report on El Salvador in 1993, 19 of the 27 officers who took part in
the executions were trained at the SOA.
In 1990, in El Salvador, populist Archbishop Oscar Romero was
assassinated. Three-quarters of the Salvadoran officers implicated in
the killing were trained at the SOA. Roberto D'Aubuison, the late
leader of El Salvador's Death Squad, was implicated in the plot to
assassinate Archbishop Romero. He also participated in numerous
murders, including a massacre in the village of El Mazote, where more
than 900 men, women, and children were killed. He graduated from SOA
as well.
The U.N. Truth Commission's statistics reveal the extent of the
School's murderous role in El Salvador .
Romero assassination 3 officers cited --- 2 were SOA graduates
Murder of US nuns 5 officers cited --- 3 were SOA graduates
Union leader murders 3 officers cited --- 3 were SOA graduates
El Junquillo massacre 3 officers cited --- 2 were SOA graduates
El Mazote massacre 12 officers cited --- 10 were SOA graduates
Dutch journalist murders 1 officer cited --- he was an SOA graduate
Las Hojas massacre 6 officers cited --- 3 were SOA graduates
San Sebastian massacre 7 officers cited --- 6 were SOA graduates
Jesuit massacre 26 officers cited --- 19 were SOA graduates
In other Latin American countries, graduates of the SOA have been
equally prominent enemies of human rights. Former dictators Omar
Torrijos of Panama, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Juan Velasco
Alvarado of Peru, all overthrew constitutionally elected governments
in their countries. Leopoldo Galtieri, the former head of the
Argentina junta defeated in the Falklands War, was responsible for
thousands of "disappeared" citizens who supported freedom and
democracy in Argentina, and paid the ultimate price with their lives.
He was an SOA graduate.
In Honduras, General Humberto Ragalado Hernandez, was trained at the
SOA at the same time that he was linked to Columbian drug cartels, and
the highest ranking officers in the Honduran Death Squad were trained
at SOA as well.
In Peru, the most senior officers convicted of the February 1994
murder of nine university students and a professor, were graduates of
the SOA. In Columbia, a 1992 human rights tribunal cited 246 officers
for crimes against the people of Columbia. 105 of the officers were
trained at the SOA. In Panama, ex-dictator Manuel Noriega, formerly on
the CIA payroll, graduated from the SOA. He is now in a US prison,
convicted of trafficking in drugs.
In Guatemala, a country of 10 million, the indigenous Mayan population
of 6 million have endured the greatest suffering in Latin America.
During more than 30 years of civil war, tens-of-thousands have been
slaughtered, with the total killed estimated to exceed 200,000. Most
of the ranking generals involved in the numerous coups and acts of
terror and murder during this period were trained at the SOA.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, in Guatemala, thousands of political
activists and opponents of government policies were assassinated.
General Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas, Chief of Army Intelligence
at the time, was cited by the UN as the individual responsible for
most of those murders. He graduated from the SOA. One of the most
vicious tyrants in recent Guatemalan history is Jose Efrain Rios
Montt. General, dictator, and a former president from 1982-83, Rios
Montt was proud of his political philosophy of "beans for the
obedient; bullets for the rest". He was also a graduate of the SOA.
The impact of SOA graduates on Latin American freedom has been
devastating. Armed with sophisticated training, modern weapons, and
up-to-date techniques of control and surveillance, graduates of the
SOA have terrorized their own countrymen for a generation.
In the name of its citizens and using American taxpayer dollars, the
United States, the most-democratic of countries, has for decades been
training some of the most anti-democratic leaders in the world.
Administrations that have decried terrorism abroad, have encouraged
terrorists right here at home -- at the SOA.
Our country, for generations, a beacon of liberty and democracy to the
world, should play no part in subverting democracy and killing hope in
other countries. Americans who condemn world terror should condemn
just as strongly America's training of Third World terrorists. It is
time for all of us to demand that the School of the Americas be
closed.
What you can do
Call, fax, or write the President, and your Senators and
Representative. Ask them to end funding for the SOA and stop training
terrorists and murderers in America.
Ask them to support House of Representatives Bill -- HR 2652 --
introduced by Representative Joseph Kennedy (D-MA). This bill would
close the School of the Americas and establish in its place an Academy
for Democracy and Civil-Military Relations, to identify the proper
role of the military in a democratic society and bring about civilian
control over military matters in Latin America.
Father Roy Bourgeois founded SOA Watch to inform the American public
about " the School of Assassins" and to close it down. But, he cannot
do it alone. He needs the support of all Americans who abhor the
training of terrorists and murderers in this country. Support SOA
Watch and Father Roy Bourgeois at:
SOA Watch
PO Box 3330
Columbus, GA 31903
706-682-5369
Foreign Policy and Pentagon
Terrorism watch
School of the Americas Watch
"life is like a mushroom, they feed you ***** and keep you in the dark"
.
|
|
| User: "Woodswun" |
|
| Title: Re: School of Assassins-USA |
15 Nov 2003 12:26:20 PM |
|
|
In article <t8qcrvob66fh72jmgif1ls2aih7huadjce@4ax.com>, wrote:
School of Assassins, USA
SOA Watch and Chasqui BartolinaSisa (15/11/2003 07:04)
Father Roy Bourgeois founded SOA Watch to inform the American public
about " the School of Assassins" and to close it down. But, he cannot
do it alone. He needs the support of all Americans who abhor the
training of terrorists and murderers in this country. Support SOA
Watch and Father Roy Bourgeois at:
SOA Watch
PO Box 3330
Columbus, GA 31903
706-682-5369
SOAW has a website at http://www.soaw.org/
The news was starting to get in the US, so they've changed the name to "Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation". I guess they can "truthfully"
tell Americans there is no "School of the Americas".
BTW - most Americans are not aware of this school. I didn't know about it
myself until my daughter was told about it by a foreign student at her high
school about 7 years ago. Apparently, most foreigners who are subjected to the
graduates of this school are under the impression that Americans know about it
and support it - when, in fact, neither is true. (Well, for most of us, anyway)
Woods
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
