School of the Americas Watch
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School of the Americas Watch is an advocacy organization founded by Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois and a small group of supporters in 1990 to protest the training of mainly Latin American military officers, by the United States Army, at the School of the Americas (SOA). Most notably, SOA Watch conducts a vigil each November at the site of the academy, located on the grounds of Fort Benning, a US Army military base in Columbus, Georgia, in protest over myriad abuses committed by graduates of the academy, including murders, rapes and torture and contraventions of the Geneva Accord. Military officials deny the charges. Responding to mounting protests spearheaded by SOA Watch, in 2000 the United States Congress renamed the School of the Americas the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), rather than closing the academy.
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[edit] Origins
Inspired by the call of slain Archbishop Óscar Romero, who said "we who have a voice must speak for the voiceless.", in 1983 Father Bourgeois and two companions climbed a tree in front of the School of the Americas and used megaphones to broadcast Romero's message. Bourgeois and his companions were pulled from the tree, stripped and beaten. Bourgeois was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trespass. Bourgeois or his supporters have repeated the act regularly ever since. By 2002, 71 demonstrators had served a total of 40 years jail time for protesting the School.[1]
Bourgeois' group began to research the School of the Americas, educate the public, lobby Congress, and practice creative, nonviolent resistance at the School of the Americas facilities. In order to comemorate the November 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador, SOA Watch began organizing protests on the very first anniversary of the massacre the next year. A congressional panel eventually concluded that some of the killers were School of the Americas graduates.
[edit] Objectives
The SOA was established in 1946 with the purpose of training Latin American men to promote democracy in their native lands, but, according to SOA Watch, graduates of the school have perpetrated many of the worst human rights violations in recent Latin American history, necessitating its immediate closure.
In addition to conducting its annual vigils and educating the public about abuses committed by graduates of the academy, the SOA Watch continues to lobby Congress to shut down the school.
In 2004, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez agreed to withdraw all troops from WHINSEC, which has trained over 4,000 Venezuelan soldiers. Several of the officers involved in the failed 2002 coup d'etat were School of the Americas graduates[2]. On 2006, the governments of Argentina and Uruguay decided to stop sending soldiers to the School of the Americas as well [1]. SOA Watch is pressing other South American leaders to follow the examples of these countries.
[edit] Non-violent demonstrations
Protest demonstrations are staged by SOA Watch at the main gate of Ft. Benning in November each year, in comemoration of the anniversary of the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) massacre. The growing annual protest has remained a major focus for SOA Watch and the grassroots movement to close the SOA/WHINSEC, which likewise has grown throughout the Americas since the first protest in 1990. The original band of ten resisters who marched onto Ft. Benning and vandalised the School of Americas by splashing blood into it that year, to commemorate the first anniversary of the UCA massacre, has grown in recent years to a teeming resistance community of 10,000. People come from across the country and around the globe to honor victims of the School of the Americas, as well as their survivors, with music, words, puppets and theatre.
Traditionally the legal vigil and memorial service concludes with a mock funeral procession, using the Presente litany, onto Ft. Benning, with all who choose to march onto the post trespassing on federal property and subject to arrest. Subsequent to 9/11 and the erection of a security fence at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 2001, protesters who wish to take their mourning onto the post need to go over, under, or around that fence, as opposed to the simple marching of the past. Additionally, members of the organization frequently mimic their group's founders' act of vandalism by throwing large amounts of blood onto public and federal property.
At the 2002 protest, the city of Columbus began requiring all attending the event to submit to a metal detector search at the designated entrance. After a lengthy legal battle, however, in October of 2004 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the forced search was unconstitutional.
In 2004, the Army added a second fence topped by razor wire, and erected a third fence in 2005.
On Sunday, November 20, 2005 nearly 20,000 protesters attended the Ft. Benning vigil, "remembering those who have been silenced by SOA violence." Forty protesters climbed over or under the fence and were arrested by military police. Columbus police also arrested bystanders, including some who lifted the fence. Since protests against the school began, 183 people have collectively served over 81 years in prison for their civil disobedience
Sunday, November 19, 2006 marked the following year for the School of the Americas protest. Over 22,000 protestors attended the vigil--a record high since the protests began.
[edit] References
- ^ Gareau, Frederick H., "State Terrorism and the United States", Zed Books, 2004
- ^ SOA Watch Scores Victory in Venezuela, Apr 08, 2004, Venezuelanalysis.com Link
[edit] External links
- SOAW.org - 'Shut Down the School of the Americas', SOA Watch homepage
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- [2] - 'Concern about Iraq war and torture fuels record attendance', Elliott Minor, Associated Press (November 20, 2005)
- Benning.army.mil - 'Libertad, Paz y Fraterndad', Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC home Page)
- Carlisle-www.army.mil - 'The US Army School of the Americas Officially Closed its Doors at 1200 Noon on December 15, 2000 After a long Tradition of Service to the United States of America. This Site is Available Only for Historical Purposes.', School of the Americas (official site, last updated December 20, 2000)
- Hartford-HWP.com - 'History of the School of the Americas (SOA)', World History Archives
- InfoAnarchy.org - 'School of the Americas' (wiki), InfoAnarchy
- HiddenInPlainSight.org - Hidden in Plain Sight, 'Feature-length documentary that looks at the nature of U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas, the controversial military school that trains Latin American soldiers in the USA'
