Schools of the Americas foes score with
Congress, union
By TERESA MALCOLM
NCR Staff
Opponents of the School of the Americas scored two victories
recently, as the House of Representatives voted for the first time to partially
cut funds to the institution and the AFL-CIOs executive council passed a
resolution calling for the schools closure.
The Aug. 4 statement from the 13-million member AFL-CIO labor
federation called the training program for Latin American military officers
a relic of a previous era of violence. The executive council
endorsed proposed House legislation to close the school.
Less than a week before the labor organizations resolution
was passed, the House of Representatives voted 230-197 to partially cut funds
for the School of the Americas.
Until the July 30 vote, efforts in the House to cut the
schools funds have been defeated every year since 1993.
This is the first time Congress has cut a single dime from
their budget, said Carol Richardson, director of the Washington office
for SOA Watch, which has led the campaign to close the school. This puts
the school on notice that its days are numbered.
That is an optimistic assessment, since the current bill must
first be endorsed by the Senate. If that happens, the amendment would cut all
school funding from foreign operations appropriations $1.5 million to $2
million that is primarily used for scholarships for foreign officers.
The remainder of the schools approximately $4.5 million
budget is funded through the Pentagon by way of a defense appropriations bill,
which may become a target of protests in the future.
Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, called the
House vote a historic moment.
A deep joy
Its a deep joy after all these years of protesting at
the Pentagon, fasting on the Capitol steps, writing thousands of letters,
putting our feet at the gates of Fort Benning and going off to prison for
years, to see our efforts bear fruit, Bourgeois told NCR.
The amendments chief sponsor was Rep. Joe Moakley, D-Mass.,
who said, The School of the Americas has trained some of the most brutal
assassins, some of the cruelest dictators and some of the worst violators of
human rights that the Western Hemisphere has ever seen. Its time for the
United States of America to admit its mistakes and remove this horrible blemish
from our military establishment.
Moakley is also sponsor of a freestanding bill to close the
school.
After years of failed attempts to cut the schools funding,
both Bourgeois and Richardson were stunned by the 33-vote winning margin.
Previously, the closest vote to cut funding, two years ago, was 210 to 217.
Richardson told NCR that the 33-vote margin will improve
the amendments chances as it faces Senate approval. In its foreign
operations bill, the Senate kept the schools budget intact. House and
Senate members will meet later this summer in conference committee to reconcile
differences between the two versions of the bill.
Richardson said opponents of the school planned to contact
conference committee members to urge them to uphold the House amendment.
Ten-year campaign
For nearly 10 years, a coalition of religious leaders, labor
organizers, peace groups and veterans organizations have campaigned to
close the institution at Fort Benning, Ga. Graduates of the school have been
implicated in some of the most notorious assassinations, massacres and other
atrocities committed during Latin Americas civil wars over the last 30
years.
Speaking on the House floor, Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., said
the school drew his attention following the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in San
Salvador. A U.N. Truth Commission report later found that 19 of the 26
Salvadoran soldiers involved in the murders were School of the Americas
graduates.
All you ever hear from the School of the Americas and the
secretary of the Army and everyone else in the military establishment are
rationalizations about a few bad apples, McGovern said.
How many bad apples does it take before we shut this school down?
Its not just El Salvador or Guatemala in the past. Its today in
Colombia. Its today in Peru. Its today in Bolivia.
Supporters of the school say that the institution is necessary to
further U.S. policy in Latin America in the past fighting communism, now
combating drug trafficking.
Just before the House vote, Louis Caldera, secretary of the Army,
defended the school in a July 27 column in The Washington Times,
saying it was a crucial part of U.S. policy to promote democracy in Latin
America. In particular, it is part of the effort to make sure that Latin
Americas military forces become the backbone of democracy and not
an impediment, Caldera said. He noted that all courses at the school
include instruction in human rights.
Caldera also wrote that only a small percentage of the
schools 60,000 graduates have been linked to human rights violations.
What these graduates did cannot be condoned but what they did was not a
result of their attendance at the School of the Americas, he wrote.
Nicolas Britto, public affairs officer for the School of the
Americas, told NCR, I want to make very clear that the school
doesnt teach torture, rape or murder. We dont teach anything like
that.
Britto said he was not sure what effect cuts would have on the
schools operations if the amendment was approved in conference
committee.
Even if the budget cuts receive Senate approval, opponents of the
school emphasized that they still have a lot of work ahead of them. The
Pentagon will continue its fight to keep this School of the Americas
going, Bourgeois said. While we are extremely encouraged with this
vote, they will bring out the big guns to try and hold onto a school that keeps
the militaries of Latin America entrenched.
Still, Bourgeois marveled at how far the movement had come since
1990, when he and a small group fasted for 37 days to commemorate the deaths of
the six Jesuits in El Salvador. That has evolved into an annual protest each
November at Fort Benning, which was attended by 7,000 people last fall. SOA
Watch expects over 10,000 people to participate in this years Nov. 10
protest.
For the past three years, SOA Watch has cultivated the support of
labor leaders. The relationship culminated in the AFL-CIO resolution, which
endorsed pending congressional legislation to close the School of the
Americas.
In its Aug. 4 resolution, the AFL-CIO said it supported U.S.
government policies that promote democratization, political stability and
the rule of law especially with respect to basic worker
rights.
The AFL-CIO believes that the continued training of Latin
American military officers in practices which have led to the violation of
human rights is out of step with the emerging climate of peace and democracy
through the region, the labor organization said. The School of the
Americas is a relic of a previous era of violence; its very existence
undermines the credibility of U.S. government efforts to assist development
throughout the region.
Bourgeois said that for many labor leaders, opposition to the
School of the Americas is an easy connection.
We have been reminding them that in Latin America, many
labor leaders are the targets of SOA graduates, Bourgeois said.
Many of those killed and disappeared over the years have been labor
leaders struggling for just wages.
Catholic News Service contributed to this report.
National Catholic Reporter, August 13,
1999
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