There are two amendments to the military appropriations bill currently being debated in the House that would cut off funding for the School of the Americas. Until today, it seemed like they had a good chance to pass by a small margin, but it seems that now the Pentagon has gotten out its bag of dirty tricks to pressure Congress people who have previously voiced support for the bill to change their minds.
Below is a description of the school from the School of the Americas Watch Website
I don't know how aware you may be about the School of the Americas. It is a military training institute in Ft. Benning, Georgia where the U.S. military trains military personnel from Latin America. Originally the school was located in Panama, but under the terms of the Panama Canal treaty (thanks, Jimmy Carter), it was kicked out.
According to the School of the Americas Watch
The School of the Americas (SOA), now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is a US tax-payer funded military training facility for Latin American security personnel located in Columbus, GA.
Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.
An article in OneWorld, US notes that:
Among the School of the Americas' more than 60,000 alumni 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 Banzar Suarez of Bolivia.
According to School of the Americas Watch, graduates were also responsible for the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador; the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero; and the massacre of 14-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos, and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador; among hundreds of other human rights abuses.
If you don't think this is a problem inside the U.S., this spring two members of the Peruvian military were arrested in Baltimore and Florida after having fled Peru in the wake of being charged with leading four brigades that executed 69 civilians in 1985. These guys were dangerous criminals roaming free here in the U.S., and WE trained them!
The story becomes more current if we look at Columbia, where according to an SOA watch press release from May 16th:
Salvatore Mancuso, the former Commander of the right wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, testified Tuesday that the paramilitaries, branded "foreign terrorist organizations" by the U.S. State Department in 2001, were aided by high ranking Colombian military officers in training and logistics.
Mancuso, testifying in a closed hearing in the city of Medellin, said the Colombian state supported the paramilitaries since their creation in the 1980’s and that "paramilitaries are a state policy".
Among the military and government officials signaled by Mancuso as collaborators are General Rito Alejo del Río, General Martín Carreño Sandoval, General Harold Bedoya Pizarro, General Fernando Landazabal, Colonel Alfonso Manosalva Flores, and the current Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos. The six men received training or served as instructors at the U.S. Army School of the Americas and have been accused by Mancuso of inciting and promoting paramilitary intervention in certain regions of Colombia.
This is a national disgrace. We say we are against torture in Iraq, but the Pentagon is still desperate to keep training torturers in Latin America!
Luckily, the School of the Americas Watch has become increasingly successful in garnering support to close this school. In fact, in 2001, the Pentagon changed the name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to keep it out of the limelight and falsely say that the SOA had been closed. It became particularly embarrassing when a number of manuals that contained instructions in how to torture people were leaked to the public.
Last year dozens of Congresspeople became co-sponsors of a bill to defund the school, which of course, under the Republicans, went nowhere. This year, SOA Watch decided to also take the campaign to Latin America, where it went around meeting with leaders of those countries asking them to stop sending their military officers here for training. While the expected countries such as Venezuela immediately agreed to this request, other countries, like Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica also agreed to stop sending people to be trained there. It was a wonderful achievement.
Meanwhile, back in the Congress, momentum was building to defund the School. There is currently a bill, H.R. 1707 that would close the school. It's not really going anywhere, partly due to people like my own Rep, Carolyn McCarthy (D) who conveniently co-sponsored it last year when it wasn't going anywhere, but who isn't co-sponsoring it again. This is what we mean when we say we can't count on the Democrats....
Anyway, there is hope right now, and I mean like today, in the current Congress, through two amendments to the military appropriations. Again, from the SOA:
The first amendment, introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern, would close the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC). This vote is expected to be very close, and it's important that legislators be urged to vote YES on the McGovern amendment.
But a second amendment could un-do the first, by adding aid to the Colombian military, including training, onto the appropriations bill. The Colombian military has more soldiers trained at SOA/WHINSEC than any other Latin American military. Democrats in committee have shifted about $100 million from Colombian military aid to social and judicial programs, and Republicans are expected to try to reverse that shift on the House floor. The vote on this amendment is also expected to be close. Please urge your Representative to vote NO on any amendment increasing military aid to Colombia.
So things are close, and here is the latest lobbying report from the SOA lobbyist, Eric LaCompte:
Today on the Hill - 40 of us gathered to meet with representatives and amplify your calls and voices from across the country. In addition to union, religious orders, church groups and human rights organizations, we were joined by a group known as Libertad. A women's organization based in Bolivia and one of the groups organizing to get Bolivia to pull its troops out. The women brought translators and approached several Latino members who were on the fence and spoke to them in their native language - and they got them to join us.
Office to office, representative to representative we have had to fight. Many members on our swing list getting as many as 11 visits from our various partners. We are opposed by generals marching in the hall ways and right wing bishops telling Congress the school is important to a "moral" US foreign policy. As we get closer - they pull out bigger guns. Tonight we learned that WHINSEC has recruited more high ranking support that could impact us and even shift the firm commitments that we have - that you previously confirmed with your calls.
So, the Pentagon is desperate to keep training torturers!!!!
What do you say, can we move the activism from on-line to on the phone? If we're seriously appalled at the torture in Iraq and other places, the least we can do is to urge our Congressional representatives to stop training torturers and assassins in our back yard! What happens in Latin America has consequences for the rest of the world.
P.S. The Congressional switchboard is: 202-224-3121.