Prelude to independence: the oppressed, the priest, not the SOA (Part II of IV)

Image compliments of SOA Watch

Part I.    Torture-kidnapping terror: stop hiding it, say 'sorry,' be accountable, quit it

Part II.   Crimes and culture of impunity, SOA 

Part III.  The prophetic priest 

Part IV. Courage to admit: American heroes say no more SOA/WHINSEC terror

Part II: SOA crimes and culture of impunity

In 1946, School of the Americas (SOA) opened in the Panama Canal Zone with the stated goal of training Latin American troops to fight Communism.  The Panamanians were first to call it "La Escuela de los Golpes" (School of Coups) and "La Escuela de los Assessinos" (School of Assassins). They evicted the school, citing its negative impact.

Former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca stated that SOA was the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America," according to The Guardian.

In 1984, SOA reopened at Fort Benning, Georgia.  For 59 years, SOA’s training mission has been two-pronged according to SOA Watch:

1) Protect multinational corporations’ interests, and

2) Maintain economic status quo for the few rich and powerful in the US and their cohorts in Latin America.

On January 17, 2001, SOA’s official name changed to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) but the new name did not fool those aware of the facility. They still call it “SOA,” School of Assassins.

The few bad apples myth

For almost 60 years, SOA graduates have applied their military skills and weapons on their own people. They have left a "trail of blood and suffering in every country” upon returning home. The "few bad apples" myth is not working anymore.

Mary Turk, editor of Connection to the Americas publication of the Resource Center of the Americas reports that the more SOA courses a soldier takes, the more likely the soldier will perpetrate human rights violations. This was revealed in data collected by Katherine McCoy who tracked 12,000 graduates over forty years in her University of Wisconsin-Madison master’s thesis.

McCoy found that "students who took multiple courses at the School were more almost four times more likely to violate [human rights] than their counterparts who took only one course, according to Turk in an Op-Ed article.

SOA Watch research reveals that among SOA’s nearly 60,000 graduates and trainees are 11 notorious dictators including:

   Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama
   Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina
   Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru
   Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador
   Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia

On June 28, 2009, two-time SOA graduate, Romeo Vasquez of Honduras shocked the world when he joined the ranks of military coup leaders, another SOA graduate violently repressing the poor.

Honduras President Zelaya stated that the coup was the work of "a small group of usurpers" aggressively “attacking the democratic will of the people," according to AP. 

Democracy Now reports that the main general assisting Vasquez, Luis Suazo, also graduated from SOA, in 1996.

Among other forms of repression, the Honduras coup leaders have threatened protesters with “indefinite detention,” according to the National Catholic Reporter.

SOA targeted individuals and groups

SOA violence targets human rights leaders: primarily labor leaders and union organizers.  Others are educators, religious workers, student leaders; in general, people working with and advocating for the poor.

SOA trainees graduates have been responsible for torturing, raping, assassinating, disappearing, massacring families and villages of poor people.  They have been responsible for forcing Latin American poor people to escape violence and take refuge in the U.S. These refugees from tragedy are identified and called “illegal aliens.” This is documented in the edutaining, annimated, free, short (under 10 minutes) video, Borders, by Cannibol.com.

Some of the higher-profile SOA graduate human rights violations include: assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero for helping the poor, (highlighted in a 13-minute video); the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians; assassination of three Catholic nuns for helping the poor.

In 1989, when SOA-trained soldiers massacred the six Jesuit priests (plus their housekeeper and her daughter) in El Salvador, Members of Congress, many of whom had attended Jesuit Schools, reacted. The atrocities had become personal. Members of Congress were horrified that the U.S. government-funded Salvadoran military committed the crime. A Congressional panel reported that 19 of the 27 killers involved in the massacre were SOA graduates.

In 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release SOA training manuals. The manuals advocated torture, extortion and execution.

The Nation's mid-June 2009 report highlights that authorities accuse two SOA-trained Columbian generals of narcotic crimes and collaborating with criminal paramilitary groups. These groups link to the brutal killing of thousands of Colombian farmers to seize their land for palm oil production for biofuel, all under “Plan Columbia.”

"Plan Colombia is fighting against drugs militarily” while “it gives money to support palm…used by paramilitary mafias to launder money…The United States is implicitly subsidizing drug traffickers," according to Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro.

Allegedly, since 2001, with armed protection of the Army's Seventeenth Brigade and armed civilians, (paramilitary), Urapalma SA company has been cultivating oil palm on approximately 1,500 hectares of the people’s collective land. In other words, it is alleged that the U.S. is subsidizing SOA-trained narco-traffickers to cultivate biofuels on violently stolen lands.

Argentina and Uruguay have joined others in publicly denouncing SOA and committing to not sending students to SOA.

As Sherwood Ross posits, what will SOA do next with U.S. taxpayers' dollars?

Learn more, take action, and keep asking “Why? and "Why not?" Honduran democracy protesters are calling on the international community to speak up in defense of real and direct democracy, for life, justice, liberty, dignity and peace. Sign the petition demanding unconditional reinstatement of President Zelaya. Although coup opposition is strong by day, as seen in the Telesur video report here, the people are fearful at night. They know that disappearing, torture and/or assassination are possible. See MBEAW for additional references used in this report.