Luis Eduardo Guerra, Human Rights Activist, Assassinated with Six Others in Colombia

SOA Watch received the terrible news this week from the Colombia Support Network of the murder of Luis Eduardo, one of the leaders of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia. Luis died with seven other civilians, including three children, at the hands of the 11th Brigade of the Colombian Army.

Luis Eduardo was a founding member of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community, a nonviolent community that has stood up to incredible paramilitary and military repression and to targeting by all armed actors in the region since its inception in 1997. Click here to read more about the community: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1025

In November of 2002, Luis was a featured speaker at the Fort Benning Vigil to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC. Click here to read more about Luis, and to find out what actions you can take TODAY to demand accountability for these brutal murders: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1024

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SOA-Trained Zetas Working as Drug-Related Mercenaries in the U.S.

Yesterday the Washington Times reported that former Mexican soldiers, police and federal agents, originally trained as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, are working as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers, bringing a new wave of drug-related killings into the United States. At least one-third of this "well-armed gang," known as the Zetas, was trained at the School of the Americas, according to the Mexican Secretary of Defense.

This isn't the first time that the Zetas have been in the news. In 2003, the Brownsville Herald reported that the US-trained Zetas were the Gulf Cartel's new "rare weapon" in the war for drug-trafficking supremacy. The article continues:

"The Zetas, hired assassins for the Gulf Cartel, feature 31 ex-soldiers once part of an elite division of the Mexican army -- the Special Air Mobile Force Group. At least one-third of this battalion's deserters was trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., according to documents from the Mexican secretary of defense."

Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said the Zetas are linked to hundreds of killings and dozens of kidnappings on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly over a wide area of southeastern Texas from Laredo to Brownsville and in cities throughout Mexico.

Read the whole article: http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=708