Sun 1pm-3pm "Close the SOA" Vigil U.S. Embassy Dublin

by Colmbia Sat Nov 08, 2008 12:46

LINK-Colombian Commanders Fired for Massacre of Civilians were Graduates of S.O.A.

http://www.soaw.org/newswire_detail.php?id=1466

by SOA Background Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:12

LINK-Explanation and History of the "School of Americas"

http://www.soaw.org/type.php?type=8

by Jozsef Pelikan Fri Nov 14, 2008 14:12

also check out
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/11/13/torture_co...sion/

by Diarmuid Breatnach - Dublin Irish Basque Committee Sat Nov 15, 2008 15:58

Well done to the organisers and good luck to the campaign to close down the School of the Americas -- I'll be there at the Embassy on Sunday. Of course, as long as US Imperialism exists, such a school will exist in some form or another, but it's important to raise consciousness.

Don't forget that there's also torture of detainees practiced regularly, also by Spanish-speaking police and military, but much nearer to Ireland than Latin America. It's in the Spanish-administered part of the Basque country (with the French handing over refugees from their part of the country) and has been criticised this month by the UN Human Rights Committe, recently by the EU Committee for the Prevention of Torture, and condemned annually by Amnesty International. You can help make continuing that more difficult for the Spanish and French states by supporting the Irish Basque Committees in their work.

Video of torture of Basques re-enactment on O'Connell Street and interview with Dublin Irish Basque Committee spokesperson on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CziZcvh45VE

For information, photos and video of the actions and rallies against
Ivan Apalaoza Sancho's deportation in Montreal, please visit:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=wxQ72YajMek&feature=related

For background information on Ivan and the campaign, visit

http://www.peoplescommission.org/ivan.php

A photo gallery highlighting various aspects of the campaign is
available at http://photos.cmaq.net/v/Ivan/
-- this includes photos from Dublin, previously seen in Indymedia Ireland.

Freedom for Ivan Committee can be contacted on:

libertepourivan@gmail.com

www.peoplescommission.org/ivan.php

by youtube Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:14

*Youtube (5mins 40 secs) John Pilger on the Work of the SOA
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=youtube+school+of+a...rd=r1

*Youtube At the Gates of the SOA Ft Benning Nov 2007 (45 secs)
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=youtube+school+of+amer...-mail

by József Pelikán Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:32

also read: http://lmv.hu/node/3250

by József Pelikán Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:35

also read: http://lmv.hu/redjade

by Report Mon Nov 17, 2008 15:43

Sunday Nov 16th. solidarity activists, Catholic Workers and folks who had worked and were raised in Latin America gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Dublin, Ireland, to remember the martyrs of the Nov 16th '89 massacre and tens of thousands killed by the School of the Americas www.soaw.org

Two of the Jesuits slain on the Salvador campus Nov 16th. 1989 were educated in Dublin, one having been ordained here. The names were of the dead were read out to the response of "Presente"! Justin reflected on his time in Peru and the bloodletting by the U.S. sponsored government. Ciaron reflected on nonviolent resistance to the S.O.A. A Colombian woman thanked those who had assembled in solidarity with those still suffering in her country.

Next Sunday night Nov 23rd at 7 pm there will be a memorial mass in the Jesuit parish in Ballymun. from Nov 21-23 20,000+ are expected to gather at the gates of Ft. Benning to shut down the S.O.A. and support ongoing nonviolent resistance there. Update reports will be carried on www.soaw.org as the weekend of celebration and resistance unfolds.

by 3 Arrested Ft. Huachuca Tue Nov 18, 2008 09:36 Arizona, USA

THREE BARRED FROM FT. HUACHUCA AS 200 RALLY AGAINST TORTURE AND CRUEL TREATMENT OF "TERROR WAR" PRISONERS

More than 200 people rallied against torture on Sunday, November 16, at Veterans Memorial Park in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The group then processed two miles through the city to the main gate of Ft. Huachuca, home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center where interrogators are trained.

Soon after the procession arrived opposite the entrance to the Fort, three people crossed the street and entered the base to deliver messages to base Commander Major General John Custer and his soldiers, opposing the cruel treatment and abuse of detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sr. Megan Rice, 78, from Las Vegas, Nevada; Fr. Louie Vitale, 76, from Oakland, California; and Dennis Duvall, 66, from Prescott, Arizona, were quickly stopped and taken into custody. They were released within the hour with a formal letter barring them from entering the base for one year. A base spokeswoman told reporters, "We're trying to keep this as low key as possible."

Franciscan Fr. Vitale, a former provincial of the order's Santa Barbara province, was arrested during a similar protest at the Fort in 2006. Together with co-defendant Fr. Steve Kelly, he had served a five month prison sentence for trespass and failure to obey an officer.

Two of three people arrested at the Fort in November, 2007, returned to join this year's demonstration. Fr. Jerry Zawada and Betsy Lamb had both served two months in prison awaiting trial.

Speakers at the rally included torture survivor and Colombian refugee Hector Aristizabal and retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright.

The procession was led by musicians Francisco Herrera, Jose Serrano, Ted Warmbrand, Chet Gardiner and Terry Pawlowski, along with people carrying large, colorful butterfly puppets. The puppets represented transformation from a nation that sanctions cruelty and torture to a world that embraces hope for humanity.

The demonstration concluded with a stop at the nearby office of CACI, a private military contractor implicated in the abuse of Iraqi detainees, and currently contracted to write manuals and teach interrogation.

Sunday's rally and procession capped a weekend of events that began in Tucson. Event coordinator Rev. Ken Kennon noted that the "Southwest Witness to Stop Torture is a regional action in solidarity with the campaign to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the testimony of torture survivors has informed us and moved us to action."

Thousands of people will gather at Ft. Benning this coming weekend, November 21-23, for the annual vigil to close the School of the Americas. Human rights abuses in Latin America, including torture and murder, have been carried out by graduates of the school. The torture manual which was used at the School of the Americas came from Ft. Huachuca.

A statement written for the Ft. Huachuca demonstration follows this press release.
org,
For more information see http://tortureontrial.org http://southwestwitness.org and http://soaw.org

Why We Protest at Ft Huachuca
A Statement of Southwest Witness Against Torture / October 2008

Gandhi teaches us that nonviolence needs to be practiced in places of institutionalized violence.
We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca - headquarters of U.S. Army military intelligence training - to protest the policy of cruelty our country has carried out against captives in the so-called "War on Terror."

We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to open dialogue with soldiers and commanders about their rights and obligations to report cases of torture and cruel treatment. We call on enlisted personnel to speak publicly about their training and any abuses they have observed.

We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to protest our government's increasing use of private contractors - with little to no oversight or accountability - both as instructors and as part of interrogation teams in the field.

We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to call for civilian, human-rights centered oversight of all interrogation training and practice, which must include absolute prohibition of cruel treatment and command responsibility for any violation of this prohibition.

Our nonviolent presence joins growing, deepening movements throughout the world calling for an end to war and torture everywhere. We act in solidarity with the campaign to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the testimony of torture survivors has informed our outrage and moved us to action. We know that torture diminishes the humanity of both perpetrator and those who are tortured. It damages the very soul of our country.

We are told that basic training in military interrogation at Ft. Huachuca respects the Geneva Conventions and follows the U.S. Army Field Manual. Yet, despite the efforts of many honorable soldiers and commanders who respect human rights, this training has been inadequate to prevent abuses of prisoners in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other military prisons and secret detention centers around the world.

What is being taught in the field and in advanced courses about interrogation? What is happening in this dark space between training and the field? Has the policy of cruelty practiced by some U.S. military, CIA, FBI, and private agencies been integrated into military doctrine and advanced training? Does such activity take place at Ft. Huachuca?

We understand that secrecy and deception are part of the nature of military intelligence. We challenge this institutionalized silence, because torture and cruelty betray not only the Constitution of the United States, but who we are as a people. In a democratic society, such silence must not prevail.

To break this silence, interrogators and all other personnel (including private contractors) must be taught when and how to resist illegal orders that violate the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. They must be taught their obligation to speak out against such orders, and to report abuses to their superiors. And they must receive guarantees that speaking out will not lead to retaliation or punishment.

Ft. Huachuca's role in past military involvement in torture training must also be brought to light. Such involvement includes the creation of notorious manuals used at the School of the Americas to teach Latin American military personnel how to torture. Undoubtedly, records about past and contemporary use of torture exist at Ft. Huachuca. We call for the release of all such information, both past and present.

It is time for a light to shine on the darkness that has been hidden behind the walls of Ft. Huachuca.

Monsignor Oscar Romero of El Salvador said, "Love begins where violence ends." To end the violence of torture and war we will stand at the gates of Ft. Huachuca. Together let's build a world without torture.

by 2007 Tue Nov 18, 2008 14:02

LINK-Slideshow, Vid and Reports on last year's (2007) action at the School of Americas, Ft. Benning, Georgia U.S.A.

http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1295

by Justin's Speech Sat Nov 22, 2008 20:32

The following speech was given outside the U.S. embassy on November 16th by Justin who had lived and worked in Peru....

School of the Americas and Peru.

A Commission for Truth and reconciliation Report of 2003 has noted that in the twenty years between 1980 and 2000, 69,280 people were killed or disappeared in Peru. Strangely, this happened under the democratically elected presidents Bélaunde, Garcia and Fujimori who are blamed in the Report. Over half of the killings were blamed on the Shining Path Warriors, about 46% on Government controlled killers. We know that School of the Americas graduates were often involved in the killings, disappearances and torture of the victims.

To kill 31,000 people in the space of 20 years, there were hundreds of massacres, I'll just mention 5:
ACCOMARCA, 14 August 1985 (70 dead, burned, raped)
LIMA PRISON MASSACRES: LURIGANCHO, EL FRONTÓN, SANTA MONICA 18/19 June 1986
CAYARA MASSACRE 14 May 1988
BARRIOS ALTOS MASSACRE Lima 3 Nov 1991
LA CANTUTA University MURDERS Lima 1992 Lima
All of these massacres and atrocities involved graduates from the School of the Americas in Fort Benning , Georgia, the United States.

ACCOMARCA. 69 peasants were rounded up and put into a house in a village in the Andes. The leader of this atrocity was Major Telmo Hurtado. a graduate of the SoA. These are his own words:
"I ordered the assault group under my charge to open fire, while I threw a handgrenade inside the house with the intention of eliminating anyone who might be merely injured. I took the decision to eliminate the injured because there were too many of them.
Yes, we set the house on fire and we stayed there until the fire consumed everything, and made sure that only ashes and blackened bones were left. Then we picked up the shell casings and any other evidence that we had been there."

BARRIOS ALTOS is an impoverished area of Lima. On the night of 3 November 1991, a party was going on when State troopers stormed in and killed 15 innocent people including a 10 year old boy. The killings were carried out by the Colina (Government) paramilitaries whose tactics came directly from the teachings and manuals of School of the Americas, according to Angel Sauni, one of the group giving testimony in February of this year.

THE PRISON MASSACRES took place in three Lima prisons, Lurigancho, El Front and Santa Monica after a prison revolt. The revolt was put down violently and on the morning of 19 June 1986, 279 prisoners lay dead, about 200 of these were killed after they had surrendered

CAYARA is another district in the mountains of Peru and in the same province as Accomarca. There, on 14 May 1988, 40 peasants were murdered. Afterwards the soldiers returned to torture 8 more peasants.

LA CANTUTA is a University in Lima. On 18 July 1992, 9 students and a professor were kidnapped and disappeared. Their bodies were later found because a woman whistle blower within the secret services told a magazine of the location of their common grave. Later still, she herself was found murdered. Six graduates of the school of the Americas were involved in the planning and execution of these murders.

All of these massacres took place to the background of a largely impoverished people in a mineral rich land where the rich were super-rich, the poor ultra poor, where the attempted reforms of President Juan Velasco Alvarado were being turned back quickly by the four Presidents who followed him. And in all truth and fairness, I have got to say that that reforming President of the seventies, Juan Velasco Alvarado, was himself a graduate of the school of the Americas.

So, I'm not saying that every graduate of that School was evil or practised torture or took part in extra-judicial killings. What I am saying is that the School of the Americas itself is evil. It is evil because it has trained people in torture, secret killings, quick disposal of bodies and other cover-up techniques for heinous crime. Many of the crimes and massacres committed in Peru during those 20 years can be laid at the doors of that evil Institution. It is true that many others were the fault of the Shining Path warriors. The Shining Path Warriors are now almost extinct but the School of the Americas still flourishes under another name, WHINSEC.

This morning a few of us were trying to think of one good thing that George W Bush had done during his eight awful years in the White House, and we couldn't think of one good thing that that man had done during those eight years. Today outside his Embassy, I call on the same George W Bush to close down the School of the Americas before he leaves office.

And while he's at it, close down Guantanamo, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and get out of Shannon airport.

Today we here in Dublin join in solidarity with those brave people who year after year suffer prison and hardship in the United Statesfor their protests outside this evil School. With them we remember the dead whom they commemorate. Today too I would like to add some names to the list, names of some dead from the massacres that I have mentioned.

And because poverty is always linked to warmongering, I'm adding another name, the name of a 10-year old child from Abancay who died not in a massacre but because of poverty, just as her three sisters had died before her. Her name was Teresa de Cordova. She represents the hundreds of thousands of children who have died of poverty in Peru, forgotten by their Government, over the past hundreds of years and the
other millions who have died throughout the world, similarly forgotten while their Governments spend billions on arms and armies and Training schools like the School of the Americas.

by Ft Huachuca Photos Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:01

The Torture on Trial website is updated, including photos from the November 16 demonstration at Ft. Huachuca (Arizona/USA)! This is where torture and interogation training takes place for U.S. forces who are dispatched to Iraq through Shannon Airport, Ireland. Featuring Carmen Trotta Catholic Worker organiser at the three Pitstop Ploughshares trial in nice white shirt!

http://www.tortureontrial.org>http://www.tortureontrial.org/

by 5 released Tue May 12, 2009 03:02

Over the past few days, 5 of the SOA 6 have been released from prison, after serving 60 day sentences. Father Luis Barrios, Theresa Cusimano, Kristin Holm, Sister Diane Pinchot OSU and Al Simmons were sentenced on January 26, in Columbus, Georgia for their nonviolent act of civil disobedience calling for the closure of the SOA/ WHINSEC. The "SOA 6," ranging in age from 21 to 68, were among the thousands who gathered in November 2008 outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia.

Louis Wolf, the last member of the 6, remains under house arrest until July 28th. We ask that you take the following actions to support the witness of the SOA 6: