 |
|
 |
| Index | E-mail | Resources |
June 1998 |
|
|
|
|
| Index | E-mail | Resources |
June 1998 |
MADE IN AMERICA
The School of the Assassins
Since the end of World War II, militaries in Latin America have been responsible for grave human rights abuses, usually directed against the very people that they were supposed to protect. Coincidentally, since 1946, the U.S. Army has trained thousands of Latin American soldiers at its School of the Americas.
The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) was founded in 1946 at Fort Amador in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1950, it was moved to Fort Gulick. In 1984, the SOA was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. During its history, the SOA's mission has gone from professionalizing Latin American militaries to countering Soviet and Cuban-inspired "subversion" and now to promoting democracy, respect for human rights, and providing military education. Most recently, the US Department of Defense has claimed that the SOA is crucial in fighting drug trafficking in Latin America.
Among the thousands of students who have graduated from the School of the Americas are some of the most notorious human rights abusers, dictators, and criminals of Latin America. Manuel Noriega of Panama, Roberto D'Aubisson of El Salvador, Vladimiro Montesinos of Peru, Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and Luis Bernardo Urbina Sanchez of Colombia are just a few of the notorious thugs that have passed through this institution.
Courses at the SOA have included Urban Counterinsurgency, "Irregular Warfare Operations," Psychological Operations, Military Intelligence, and Nuclear War and Military Pedagogy. In 1997, the most popular classes at the SOA were Training for Instructors, Combined Arms for Cadets, Military Intelligence, and Anti-Drug Operations. A human rights course was offered, but none of the Latin American countries sent any students to that course.
The abuses committed by graduates of the SOA galvanized Maryknoll father Roy Bourgeois to protest at Fort Benning beginning in 1983. Later, he formed SOA Watch with the goal of closing the SOA and monitoring the activities of its graduates. As a result of his protests against the SOA, Father Bourgeois has spent more than three years in federal prison. The increased public scrutiny on the SOA created by Father Roy and SOA Watch has resulted in a significant public relations effort by the SOA and the Department of Defense to justify the existence of the SOA. Even the name SOA has become so synonymous with human rights abuses that the School felt compelled to stop using SOA as an abbreviation and has been using USARSA (for US Army School of the Americas) since early 1998.
On July 4, 1996, in response to an Intelligence Oversight Board report, School of the Americas spokesman Major Gordon Martel stated that "All of the manuals used by the School of the Americas are approved by the Army, and the school has never done those things [executions and physical abuse], ever, in its history... I'm flabbergasted. I don't know how they could say such things without ever having come down here to the School of the Americas." Just two months later, the U.S. Defense Department admitted on September 20 that manuals used to train soldiers at the SOA included practices that were outlawed in the 1980s. According to the Pentagon, the manuals suggested that informants could be controlled with fear, beatings, truth serum, and death threats.
Charles T. Call, who had been hired by the Army to teach human rights, reported that students he tried to teach snickered at him and did not pay attention to the lectures.
While the SOA/USARSA has not yet accounted for its past activities, it continues to train Latin American police and Latin American military who often function as police. Unlike Latin America militaries, the US military does not conduct searches of private homes within its borders, it does not stop people and ask for their identification cards, it does not operate road blocks and military check points, and its active duty officers do not serve as presidential cabinet secretaries or ministers.
Recently, twenty people were sentenced to six months in prison and each fined $3,000 for a peaceful protest in which they crossed onto Fort Benning in an attempt to deliver petitions to the SOA/USARSA.. These prison sentences demonstrate that freedom of expression is not tolerated by the US military and likewise should not be tolerated by Latin American militaries.
Anti-SOA/USARSA activists have taken their battle to the US Capitol every year since 1993 and each time they have come closer to passing legislation to close the School. In this Congressional session, the House of Representatives bill HR 611 has 139 cosponsors. For the first time, a companion bill was issued in the Senate, S. 980. It has 14 cosponsors.
If you are in the US, you can help to close the SOA/USARSA by writing to your Congressional representatives and asking them to support HR 611 or S. 980. If you are in Latin America, you can ask your government not to send members of its military to the SOA/USARSA. If you are outside the US and Latin America, you can write to the US Ambassador in your country and express your concern about the SOA/USARSA.
