Closing the School of Assassins
Joe DeRaymond

On November 17-18, I was a participant in the events at Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia, sponsored by School of the Americas Watch. Each year for the past 12 years, there have been protests at the gates of this school. Despite attempts by the City of Columbus to prohibit our protest by denying access to the streets at the base entrance, Federal Judge G. Mallon Faircloth ruled that we had a First Amendment right to use those streets, buttressed by years of non-violent presence. A crowd estimated at 6000 gathered at the gates Sunday and held a solemn funeral procession in memory of the victims of School of the Americas graduates. Over a hundred were arrested for acts of non-violent protest. There are 26 people currently serving sentences in federal prison for acts of non-violent protest at the School.

The “War on Terror” rages in Afghanistan, as the United States military machine pummels a small, under-equipped Taliban force with the most modern weapons the world has seen. Soon, the Taliban will be crushed and Al-Quaeda will be destroyed within Afghanistan. A victory will be declared.

Yet, right here within the borders of the United States, a school for terrorists will remain in operation. This school is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It is located in Columbus, Georgia and was formerly called the School of the Americas, or, as it is known in Latin America, the School of Assassins (SOA). Over the years, the architects of the worst human rights abuses seen in this hemisphere have passed through its halls. Since 1990, protesters have marched outside its gates in November, commemorating the deaths of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, who were killed by members of the Atlacatl Battalion of the El Salvador Army. The killers were graduates of this school. Others among its 59,000 graduates are Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D‘Aubuisson, Manuel Noriega of Panama, several of the soldiers who killed Oscar Romero, the soldiers who raped and murdered Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel, the perpetrators of the El Mozote massacre, the killers of Bishop Gerardi of Guatemala. The list is long and goes on for pages. Those of us who protest the school are outraged that our nation continues to sponsor terror by sending SOA graduates to Colombia and to Chiapas, Mexico, where civil conflict leads to military repression, death squads and murder.

In October of this year, Human Rights Watch issued a report, “The Sixth Division: Military-paramilitary ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia”. It details a continuing overlap between the Colombia military and paramilitary units which are committing massacres in the countryside. Human Rights Watch has further identified seven officers, graduates of the SOA, who are linked with paramilitaries in Colombia. While the massive military aid packages sent to Colombia are supposed to be subject to adherence to human rights standards, President Clinton waived those human rights provisions in the interests of national security, in the interests of another war, “The War on Drugs”, which is being fought with the lives of the people of Latin America.

There are 150 million people in Latin America living on less than $2 a day. The desperation of a life lived at those margins is hard to imagine for those of us sitting down to our Thanksgiving meals in the United States. The crushing power of military governments has maintained a system of immense wealth for a few, poverty for the vast majority throughout Latin America. The School of the Americas, the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation, the School of Assassins helps maintain and legitimize the institutions of corruption, torture, and death which maintain this system. In 1996, it was revealed that manuals which taught how to assassinate, torture and sew confusion in the civilian structure of a nation were in use at the School. Immediately, military officials disavowed their use, and stated that no longer would such materials be taught. Yet, there has been no accountability for abuses, no discipline meted out to teachers of torture. The school continues its insidious program beyond oversight, buried in a military culture which has brought decades of terror to Latin America.

Those of us who protest at this school each November, and who lobby Congress to finally close its doors, who sacrifice months and years of our lives, understand that this school, whatever its name, provides a cover for terror. As we clamor for justice for the perpetrators of the massacres of September 11, let us not forget that we have thwarted justice for the perpetrators of decades of massacre in our own hemisphere. Just as the members of Al-Quaeda passed through the training camps of Afghanistan, the members of the death squads of Colombia and El Salvador, the National Guard of Nicaragua, and the mass murderers of Guatemala have passed through the School of Assassins. In the name of justice, let us close it down finally and forever.

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