Students must challenge SOA

As I stood in the rain with other people from TCU, I looked around. I saw nuns, monks, anarchists, vegetarians, students, veterans and many other groups.

What could unite such a diverse group of people?

On those rainy days in November, we were all gathered at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., to protest the existence of the school. The School of the Americas (SOA), or School of Assassins, is a school funded by U.S. taxpayers to teach Latin American soldiers combat skills. The school has a long history of producing graduates which return to their countries only to commit horrific human rights abuses.

As more people become aware of the impact of the school, there has been increasing pressure to close it. Finally, in the Defense Authorization Bill for 2001 passed by Congress, the SOA was closed. But in the same bill, Congress voted to open the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, at the same location in Fort Benning, with the same classes and the same instructors.

This transparent cosmetic public relations ploy must be denounced for what it is. The school needed to distance itself from the bloody legacy “SOA” conjures up.

The movement to close the SOA grows each day. This is not a political issue to be debated by the right and left. This is a human rights issue, which must be acted upon by everyone immediately. SOA graduates have littered Latin America with the bodies of their victims. According to reports issued by the U.S. State Department and Human Rights Watch, 50 percent of the 247 officials cited in Colombian kidnappings, murders and massacres were SOA graduates.

In El Salvador, two of the three officers cited in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and 10 of the 12 officers cited for the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians were SOA graduates.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “If the SOA published a register of alumni, it would be a scary catalogue of the most notorious military assassins and human rights violators.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer notes, “The SOA’s best known products have shared a distressing tendency to show up as dictators or as leaders of members of death squads.”

The SOA (now WHISC) must be closed. SOA Watch, a group founded by Father Roy Bourgeois, is dedicated to closing the SOA by educating people about its true purpose. While the school may maintain that it serves to protect and promote democracy in Latin America, the results show otherwise. A Pentagon report to Congress notes that combat training at the school supports U.S. policy towards Latin America, which “seek(s) to develop stable, free market democracies throughout the region.”

The important word is “market.” SOA Watch reports, “Protecting U.S. interests in Latin America has translated into creating a favorable business climate for U.S. corporations, one with rock bottom wages and environmental standards and weak or nonexistent unions.”
Many SOA graduates “protect U.S. interests” by using “...their combat training against labor organizers, religious leaders, student

activists, and others who work for just wages, decent housing and other basic needs,” according to SOA Watch. Whereas U.S. soldiers orchestrating massacres and assassinating priests in Latin America might make the news, Latin American SOA graduates don’t.

When I first learned about the SOA, I couldn’t believe it. That these atrocities are committed by people at a school supported by my tax dollars was unthinkable. But after reading the human rights reports, reports from SOA Watch (www.soaw.org), and hearing speakers at the rally testify to the brutality of SOA officers, I am ready to say “Close the SOA!”

An SOA Action Group made up of TCU students, faculty and staff is currently holding an educational rally and fast today through Tuesday. At the same time, SOA Watch will be conducting a march on Washington to demand closure of the SOA. During this time, there will be speakers and information on the SOA available in the Student Center Lounge. Also, a group will be fasting to say that we remember the SOA victims. And while they cannot speak out, we can and we will. Close the SOA.

Guest columnist Tara Pope is a groundskeeper. She can be reached at (tpope13@aol.com).

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