School Of Assassins Essays - Human Rights Abuses,

School Of Assassins Due to the incredible amounts of human rights violations committed by graduates of the School of the Americas as a direct effect of their training funded by U.S. tax dollars, the School of the Americas must be closed down. The school is a cold war dinosaur that needs to be brought to the attention of the American taxpaying public. The people of our nation need to be aware that every time they get a paycheck, they are contributing to the oppression and killing of the indigenous peoples of Latin America by their own leaders. The School of Americas was formed in 1946 in Panama. It was originally formed so that the United States would have ties in Central America to keep Castro under control in Cuba. In 1984, the school moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. The students at the school are taught counterinsurgency tactics such as combat skills, sniper fire, military intelligence, commando tactics, and psychological operations. Recent revelations have shown that the school also actively teaches torture tactics. In September of 1996, the Pentagon, under intense social pressure, released SOA training manuals that were previously unavailable to the public. A group called the Latin America Working Group issued a translated copy of the manuals. The manuals recommended interrogation techniques like torture, execution, blackmail, and arresting the relatives of parties involved. They suggested the use of truth serums on prisoners to get them to answer questions. The manuals recommend the infiltration of work unions, political parties, youth groups, religious groups, and all other organizations subversive to the national government (Fact Sheet). The governments of these nations recognize anyone who promotes social change and betterment as a terrorist threat. "One manual describes 60's activist Tom Hayden, currently a California State Senator, as ?one of the masters of terrorist planning.' It is precisely this identification of activist for social change as terrorists that led death squads to kill thousands of religious leaders, students, union members and human rights activists" (Haugaard 15) These manuals and recommendations hardly seem to be in line with the democratic seed that the U.S. government is supposedly trying to sow in Latin America. In the 70's when Nixon spyed on and infiltrated an opposing political party, he came up under impeachment chrges. This was a very serious ordeal, but the United States is promoting this behavior in other countries (Latin America Working Group). Our country that we believe is the noble protecter of the world is involved in some of the greatest massacres in the history of Latin America. The soldiers are trained to fight insurgents, but what insurgents are left in the poverty-stricken culture of Latin America? The only insurgents now are the religious leaders and the poor people who want to take a stand for what should be theirs. The rich and powerful in Latin American nations want to keep their wealth and status. They don't want to give the poor citizens of their nation anything. When the poor rise up to try and alter the position they're in, the military rulers are ready to squash their efforts by any means necessary. There have been many cases in the last twenty years of massacres and assassinations of religious leaders whose only threat was that of the empowerment of the poor. The military accused the leaders as heads of guerilla movements and executed them. A prime example of a religious leader who fought for the betterment of his people was Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. He spoke out against the violence against and oppression of the poor. He had and seen enough and was taking a stand. He made a plea over a radio station which broadcast throughout Latin America asking the governments to stop the killing and oppression. The very next day, while performing mass, he was assassinated by a graduate of the SOA ("School of Assassins." 2) Another example of martyrs slain by graduates of the SOA were three nuns and a layworker who were abducted, raped, and murdered in El Salvador on December 2, 1980. They were Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, and Jean Donovan. They were in El Salvador to work with the poor. These were four women. They were not a threat to the government except that they were attempting to elevate the poor. Recently the four soldiers who were imprisoned for the murders indicated that they were following orders from above. This means that the actual perpetrators were the upper echelon commanders that ordered the attack. It has come to the light that General Jose Guillermo Garcia