WHINSEC

by Shannan Vance-Ocampo

"Guillermo de Jesús Ariza."

That was the name on the cross that I was given to carry at the School of the Americas Vigil last weekend.   The SOA research team writes this about the massacre that Guillermo was killed in thirteen years ago:

“On 11 November 1988 heavily armed men drove in trucks into the center of Segovia, opened fire and threw grenades indiscriminately, killing 43 people, including three children, and wounding over 50 others. The regular garrisons of the police and military (belonging to the Batallón Bomboná of the 16th Brigade) stood by while the killers moved freely through the town for over an hour.

Shut Down the School of the Americas

from SOAW.org

November 18-20, 2011: Thousands of social justice activists from across the Americas will occupy the main gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to call for an end to U.S. militarization and for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of Americas.

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship will join thousands of solidarity activists, torture survivors, union workers, people of faith, students, immigrants, veterans and others this November at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to take a stand for justice, to close the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC) and to resist U.S. militarization.

by Shannan Vance-Ocampo, Director of Colombia Programs

Fellowship of Reconciliation’s John Lindsay-Poland has written a new and excellent article in NACLA, the North American Congress on Latin America: Beyond the Drug War: The Pentagon’s Other Operations in Latin America. In it he details data from the Global Commission on Drug Policy which has found in their latest report that the US military continues to use the language of “War on Drugs” to mask ongoing and increasing training programs, base building operations, and deployments, some of which would not be legally permitted on US soil.

Urge your representative to sign onto the "Dear Colleague" letter to close the SOA/WHINSEC:

Click here to learn more

Kevin Moran arrested as part of Nonviolent action calling for Closure of SOA/WHINSEC.
(Photo by Ted Majdosz)

Nonviolent action calls for Closure of the School of the Americas and an End to U.S. Militarization

By Hendrik Voss, SOA Watch

White House, Washington, D.C. - On Sunday, April 10, 27 human rights activists were arrested in front of the White House when they staged a die-in on the White House sidewalk to call attention to thousands of Latin Americans who were murdered by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Kevin Moran, a Presbyterian Peace Fellowship National Committee member from Atlanta, Georgia, was among those arrested, as was Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch. The die-in followed a march of hundreds of human rights activists to the White House. The march included torture survivors, union workers, educators and students from across the Americas. Marchers carried banners, flags and large puppets, including a 14-foot tall Mother of the Disappeared with them to the White House.

Photos of the march, the nonviolent direct action and the arrests will be available on the SOA Watch webpage www.SOAW.org soon.

Two more activists, Nancy Smith and Chris Spicer, were given maximum sentences by a Federal Judge for trespassing onto the grounds of Fort Benning, home of WHINSEC, during the SOA protest last November.

The following announcement is from SOA Watch:

Once again, the justice system's complicity with the abuses taught at the School of the Americas was exposed yesterday at the trial of anti-militarization activists Nancy Smith and Chris Spicer. Nancy, from New York, changed her plea to no contest and was immediately sentenced to 6 months in prison by Magistrate Judge Stephen Hyles. In the SOA Watch tradition of using the court to put a spotlight on the SOA/WHINSEC, Nancy affirmed that she “felt a strong moral imperative” to carry out her nonviolent act of civil disobedience “on behalf of those who have suffered so terribly”.