SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS EXPOSED!

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS EXPOSED!
By: Mike Rhodes (with significant parts of this article taken directly from the SOA Watch web site)
September 6, 2003
Fresno California

Father Roy Bourgeois says that the United States government sponsors a school that trains terrorists. The “School of Assassins (SOA)” Bourgeois says, is located at Fort Benning, Georgia and trains Latin American military personnel in the techniques of torture and terrorism. He claims that the graduates “return home to wage war against their own people, with disastrous consequences. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, ‘disappeared,’ massacred, and forced into refugee camps by those trained at the School of Assassins.”

Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians.

Peace Fresno sponsored the talk by Father Bourgeois on September 5, 2003 at the Mennonite Community Church. The meeting hall was filled to capacity and extra chairs had to be brought in to accommodate all of the people wanting to hear the talk. Over $1,000 was raised to continue the educational and organizing effort of the School of the Americas watch.

Father Bourgeois told us about his life and how it was changed by his experience in Vietnam. He said he went to Vietnam as a “hawk” but returned with a few dove feathers sprouting. He joined the Maryknoll order of Jesuits and soon joined protestors in anti-war demonstrations. Bourgeois ended up in Bolivia and worked among the poor and oppressed. Standing against injustice, he soon found himself arrested and deported - unable to return to Bolivia, he became angry that his country (our country) supported the dictator and the military who oppressed the poor.

He soon turned his focus to El Salvador where 16 families owned 60 percent of the land. He was appalled when the military killed Archbishop Romero for his support of the poor. Nuns and priests were brutally murdered to maintain the oppression of the poor and protect the privilege of a small minority. When he read that 525 soldiers from El Salvador were coming to the United States for training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he knew he had to do something. He and several friends went to an army surplus store where they bought high ranking officers uniforms. Entering the military base at night, they carried with them a large boom box. When they arrived at the barracks where the Salvadoran soldiers were stationed they climbed a nearby tree and blasted the last sermon given by Archbishop Romero before he was murdered for the soldiers to hear. In this talk, Romero pleaded with the military to lay down their weapons, stop the killing, and disobey their superiors when they tell them to kill their sisters and brothers. Bourgeois and his friends were arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to a year and a half in jail for that action.

Far from stopping the movement to close the School of Assassins the arrests and imprisonment inspired others to focus on shutting down the facility. Every year the demonstrations get bigger and more people are arrested. Congress almost shut down the school but the military changed the name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and convinced Congress that it was needed to win the “War on Terrorism.” School of the Americas Watch thinks that “School of Assassins” is a more accurate name for the school.

School of the Americas Watch encourages you to join thousands of people from across the Americas from November 21-23, 2003 at the gates of the U.S. military base at Fort Benning, Georgia - to stand in Solidarity with the victims of the School of Assassins and to speak out against terror and violence. Engage in nonviolent direct action to make your voice heard, to close the SOA/WHISC, and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy.

For over a decade, students, religious, labor, veterans, human rights, and social/global justice groups have been converging every November at the gates of Fort Benning, GA to speak out in solidarity with the people of the Americas and to engage in nonviolent direct action. They will gather again this year on November 22 and 23, 2003 and continue together in the struggle until the School of the Americas is closed and the policies it represents are changed forever. The events this year will be preceded by teach-ins, trainings, and caucuses on Friday, November 21.

The spirit of liberation is rising up in the people all around the globe. It cannot be silenced by threats and violence any more than it can be contained by prison walls. Our friends who were prosecuted for their witness against the SOA in November 2002 will continue to speak out during their sentences of prison and probation. SOA Watch calls on everyone to speak out against the continuous atrocities perpetrated by graduates of the SOA/WHISC throughout Latin America and to come to Georgia in November.

To find out more about School of the Americas Watch, go to http://www.soaw.org. For more information about Peace Fresno go to http://www.peacefresno.org or call (559) 487-2515.