N16-15 Years Ago Graduates of School of the Americas Massacred 6 Jesuits & 2 Salvadoran Women.
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report
Tuesday November 16, 2004 13:14
by Ciaron - Ploughshares/Catholic Worker
087 918 4552
This Weekend - 10,000 will Gather at Ft. Benning, Georgia, to Close the School of the Assasins Down!
The resistance continues at the School of the Americas. A soldiarity vigil (multifaith/no faith) will be held this Saturday Nov 20th. 12 noon - 2pm at the US Embassy, Dublin, while friends gather for resistance at Ft. Benning on Sunday Nov 21st.
In the early hours of Nov 16th. 1989, Salvadoran graduates of Ft. Benning's (Georgia, USA) of the "School of the Americas" forced their way into the Jesuit residence of the Central American University in San Salvador. They brutally murdered six Jesuit priests (one a Graduate of MIlltown Seminary Dublin) and two Salvadoran women co-workers. Graduates shot the brains out of the Jesuits with M16's at close range and turned a flame thrower on the library - in a brutal attack on critical thought in the US Empire and a threat to others.
75,000 others had been killed in El Salvador at this point in a war bankrolled by the US government.
The murders of Ignacio Martin-Baro, Amando Lopez, Elba Ramos, Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Juan Ramon Moreno, Celina Ramos and Joaquin Lopez y Lopez immediately took on special symbolic importance.
A wave of nonviolent reistance against the continued US sponsored war took place in the US. Joe Mulligan SJ & Phil Berrigan were arrested marking the White House with the blood of the victims brought from the crime scene to Washington DC.
On the first annivesary of the massacre Fr. Roy Bourgeois (who had been imprisoned in the '80's for nonviolent resistance at the School of the Americas), Charlie Liteky(winner of the Congretional Medal of honour in Vietnam, which he had returned with his military pension in protest against US wars in Central America) an Pat Liteky poured a large quantity of donated blood at the entrance at the SOA.
Roy and Charlie (both Vietnam Vets who had trained at Ft. Benning) and Pat were sentenced to 6-12 months by 86 year old Judge Elliot (a good freind of My Lai's Lt. Calley).
Every year since, Americans & others opposed to the state sponsored terror of the SOA gather at Ft. Benning to close the school. Some folks trespass and usually receive 6-12 month sentences. Last year (N16 2003, 10,000 gathered). Fr. Jerry Zwada remains in prison for his trespass, others have been recently released. Fr. Jim Hynes originally from Ballyfermot (now living in San Antonia after working in Peru) served 6 months in 2003.
Over 170 women and men have served sentences in federal Prisons and County Jails for nonviolent resistance at SO totalling 170 years.
The Pentagon has attempted torebrand the School as the "Western Hemisphere Institute of Security"
For more background on Nonviolent Resistance to the School of the Americas check the link below....
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Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2It's good to remember these brave men and women. Having recently seen the video 'Guns and Greed', which details this atrocity, I was shocked at the brutal way they met their deaths. The fact that their bodies were dragged outside and their brains blown out was a symbolic act and suggests that empires large and small are threatened by free thinkers who see the truth. See you at the embassy.
The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers located at Fort Benning, Georgia. SOA graduates have been responsible for some of the worst human rights atrocities in Latin American history, including:
Two of the three officers responsible for the assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980
Three of the five officers responsible for the rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen in 1980
19 of 26 responsible for the massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in 1989
The man convicted in Guatemalan courts for the assassination of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi in 1998
The man arrested for the murder of Colombian Bishop Isaias Duarte in 2002
Originally set up as a counterinsurgency training school in 1946, the SOA has claimed numerous reforms in the way it selects and trains its students over the years, culminating in its name change to the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" (WHISC) in 2001. Each of these changes came only because of grassroots and congressional activism, but none has permanently closed the school or allowed for a full accounting of its tragic legacy. The school continues to train soldiers from countries with the worst human rights records in the region.
Gathering this weekend at Ft. Benning Georgia to close the SOA will be Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, Sr. Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame, Bishop Gabino Zavala, and thousands more people of conscience to stand in solidarity with those affected by the atrocities committed by SOA graduates.