Opposing America’s School of Assassins [View All]

Wednesday, December 8, 2004


Point of View:

Opposing America’s School of Assassins
Frank Dorrel
Special to the Mirror

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 19, 20 and 21, I had the opportunity to take part in the annual protest/demonstration against the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) located at Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia. This was the third year in a row that I have traveled to Georgia to protest the SOA. This year, over 16,000 people of all ages, races and backgrounds came together from all over the country, asking to close this school down.

The SOA, now known as the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (the name was changed in 2001), is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. Initially established in Panama in 1946, the School of the Americas was kicked out of that country under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty in 1984 and transferred to Fort Benning. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, has called it the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America." For years, the SOA has been referred to as the "School of Assassins."

During the last 58 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 refuge by those trained at the School of Assassins.

The SOA Watch was started in 1990 by Maryknoll priest Father Roy Bourgeois and a few other activists. On November 16th, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. It was later discovered that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. In recent years anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 people have come to Fort Benning every November to protest the SOA.
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http://www.smmirror.com/volume6/issue26/opposing_americas_school.asp