| | |  Editorials | Opinions | December 2009 
America's Best Kept Secret is the SOA
 Adam Lopez - Northern Star
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December 03, 2009
| | (Frank Simek/Northern Star) | |
When did Chelsea Clinton’s marriage plans or Tiger Woods’ health issues become important headline stories? These issues don’t affect us, but they continue to steal air time from important issues, such as the countless murders or violations of human rights linked to SOA graduates.
The worst or possibly best kept secret in the United States is the School of the Americas, currently referred to as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers as well as a Department of Defense facility on the grounds of Ft. Benning located near Columbus, Georgia.
The SOA has been located in Ft. Benning since 1984 but it was first established in Panama as The Latin American Training Center – U.S. Ground Forces in 1946. Over its 59 years of existence, the SOA has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen, according to www.thefirstpost.co.uk. Many of the soldiers that graduate from the SOA are habitual human rights violators and are essentially brainwashed due to their training.
The SOA soldiers are trained in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, as well as military intelligence and interrogation tactics, according to www.soaw.org.
In 1996 the Pentagon was pressured by the public to release the SOA training manuals that had been used for years. “These manuals advocated torture, extortion, blackmail and the targeting of civilian populations,” according to www.soaw.org.
From Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzar, who arrested 3,000 of his political opponents, killed 200 of them and tortured the rest, to the Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri who was responsible for the torture and murder of over 30,000 dissidents, the SOA has produced numerous dictators as well as vicious oppressors. The school has even trained some of the founders of Los Zetas, a mercenary army for one of Mexico’s largest drug-trafficking groups known as the Gulf Cartel, as well as the leader of El Salvador death-squad, Major Roberto D’Aubuisson.
Does Hugo Banzar sound so different from the late Saddam Hussein? For a military training facility, the SOA does not seem to promote the same goals as the U.S. military; to promote peace and democracy rather than tyranny and oppression. There is obviously some inconsistencies.
These are some of the reasons why a group of NIU students, including myself, decided to take action. We drove to Columbus, Ga. where the SOA is located and protested in the streets outside its gates for two days.
“I felt that the experience was very empowering and rejuvenating to see that there’s still resistance to issues of social injustice and that people are still willing to stick their necks out to try and find some peace on the planet,” NIU graduate Ulysses Diaz said.
It really takes first-hand experience to understand the overwhelming feeling of hundreds of people together, protesting a single issue as one.
“People were making their voice heard, people who are aware of what the hell’s going on, and they don’t agree with the U.S. foreign policy which they have in Latin America, and the SOA is an extension of that,” said Jorge Rios, a senior history major and worker at the Latino Resource Center.
One would think that driving 14 hours and standing outside in the cold with hundreds of people would cause quite a bit of media coverage. But, since Nov. 21, the protests have hardly been noticed by the American public.
“It’s a combination [of feelings]; it amazes me that [SOA] is still there and that so few people know about it,” said James Schmidt, an associate professor of history. “Because I think if people did know about it, I hope that it would make them start thinking about a lot of other things the CIA has done or the U.S. military has done.”
This subject is not talked about in the news or in schools, yet our taxpayer dollars are going to the SOA and possibly many more government–funded establishments like it. Introduced by US Representative James McGovern in May 2009, HR 2567 is a bill attempting to suspend the authority of the SOA. Recognize the importance of this issue and how the SOA effects countries around the world.
Please do your part to get involved by contacting your local legislators to help get this bill passed through congress. |
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