Today’s Good News: Rising Tide Against SOA
School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) has been working for many years to shut down the US Army School of the Americas, which trains police and military personnel from other countries in torture, running death squads and such. (SOA is now known officially as WHINSEC, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.) Now the tide is starting to turn. Back in June of this year, a bill in the House to defund the SOA fell just six votes short (214-203). Tens of thousands of calls and emails on the issue went out, and hundreds of Congressional offices were visited. Now, in August, a directive was attached to the latest defense appropriations bill stating that the names of all students and instructors at SOA must be made public. Previous attempts to pry this information out of SOA via FOIA requests were unsuccessful. SOA Watch terms the decision “a great victory.”
Earlier this year, the president of Costa Rica announced his country would no longer send “students” to the SOA. Most Latin American countries with new left leadership (Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador) have announced they’re done with SOA as well.
They are doing Congressional visits this month during the summer recess, trying to move another bill through the House, and planning a big action for this fall. Take a stand against torture, won’t you, and check out SOAW for more info.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Your ignorance on this subject would be amusing if it were not so libelous of the people who worked at the SOA or who now work at the WHINSEC. (Look it up; President Clinton signed the law that closed the school and opened the institute.)
Despite the ridiculous assertions of this fraudulent ‘movement’ known as SOAW, not one person has ever been shown to have used what he learned at the school to commit any crime–not even one!
I am the public affairs officer for WHINSEC, and I welcome you to come here and see for yourself who we are and what we do. There is no other DoD organization so open, and no other that teaches so much democracy and human rights information to its students–10% of the content of every course. This is a real place that does real things, and makes sure that anyone who wants to witness it can.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I’m flattered, though a little disturbed, that my little blog has attracted the attention of WHINSEC. Readers, I guess you can feel free to contact Mr. Rials and set up a visit. I’d be interested to hear from you about the curriculum (especially the 90% part). I wonder if Mr. Rials could expound on why, if what goes on there is so terrific and completely legal, the WHINSEC is fighting the publication of its students’ and faculty’s names.