TALKING POINTS ~ NEW SCHOOL

On January 17, 2001 the SOA will be renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. However, the School of the America's continuing connection to atrocities and human rights abuses remains unacknowledged, unaddressed, and unchanged. Even SOA supporter, the late Sen. Paul Coverdell, characterized the changes as "cosmetic", saying they would ensure that the old SOA could continue its mission and operation.

No Change - Just like the SOA, the new school will:
1.Still be located at Ft. Benning
2.Still train Latin American soldiers in commando tactics, military intelligence, psychological     operations, & combat arms
3.Still have no independent outside oversight
4.Still not monitor graduates for human rights abuses
5.Still have inadequate screening of soldiers who attend
6.Still tout fancy human rights courses that nobody takes
7.Still refuse to acknowledge that "you can't teach democracy through the barrel of a gun"

The reasons to close the SOA still exist -  including: to name just a few…

• It spends millions of US tax dollars and has trained some of this hemisphere's worst human rights abusers and thugs like: Manuel Noriega, now in prison for drug trafficking; Gen. Hugo Banzer, infamous ex-dictator who silenced his opposition; Roberto D'Aubuisson, death squad leader in El Salvador; Gen. Hector Gramajo, architect of the genocide campaign against the indigenous people in Guatemala; and countless others.
• It trained the killers of six Jesuit priests and Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador
• SOA graduates murdered and raped 4 US churchwomen and 900 unarmed civilians in El Mozote
• SOA training manuals targeted union organizers and workers and advocated torture and assassination as a way to eliminate opponents.
• SOA gradates murdered 19 striking banana workers in Colombia and killed human rights defenders in Haiti
• SOA graduates murdered a UN official in Chile and trained ten of the 30 Chilean officers charged along with Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity.

SOA Graduates continue to commit atrocities. For example:

1. In January 2000, SOA graduate and former head of Guatemala's notorious D-2 Intelligence
Unit, Col. Lima Estrada was arrested for the brutal murder of human rights champion, Bishop Juan Gerardi just 2 years ago.
 
2.In February 2000, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department issued human rights reports citing SOA graduates for recent murders, kidnappings and ongoing collusion with
paramilitary groups in Colombia.

3.The DOD's "new" school is the same old School of the Americas "democracy through
the barrel of a gun" approach that has heaped suffering on our sisters and brothers in Latin
America.

The "reforms" totally ignore the horrific human rights history of the SOA and make no attempt to even to acknowledge let alone address the problems. The only solution they offered is to change the name.

All of the reasons – and more – why we want to close the SOA are still true. Nothing has changed. And now we are being given a new school that is just like the SOA. An SOA Clone. New name, but same shame.

We must close the SOA and not reopen it under any name.

ACTION SUGGESTIONS:

• Give a presentation and show one of the SOA videos--they can be borrowed from 8th Day Center or purchased by calling Maryknoll: 1-800-227-8523 (order the new SOA video: "Guns and Greed");
• Write an op-ed/letter to the editor... Every effort will bear fruit!!!
• Call or email us (202-234-3440 / SOAWatch@knight-hub.com) to let us know what you will be planning for January 17th to post on our website (www.soaw.org).
• Plan to mobilize your community to go to Washington DC for the 'Days of Resistance against the SOA' (March 29th - April 3rd). This spring we will flood the Congress and the streets of DC. An organizing packet will be available in February.