Close School of the the Americas!

Letter sent by CSN to Senator Herb Kohl, May 28
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To the Honorable Sen. Herb Kohl

Dear Sen. Herb Kohl,

I am writing in the name of the Colombia Support Network, the 
largest grass-roots organization in solidarity with Colombia in the 
U.S., to urge you to support legislation to close the US Army School of 
the Americas. As you may know, on April 22, 1999, Senator Richard 
Durbin introduced Bill S. 873 calling for the closing of the SOA. Please 
contact his office to become a co-sponsor of this bill. 

Graduates of the School have been involved in some of the most 
horrific human rights abuses in the hemisphere. For example, ten of 
the Chilean officers recently cited in the Spanish court case along 
with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were SOA graduates. They 
were implicated in crimes that included torture, kidnapping, illegal 
arrest and disappearance, and assassination. Nearly every human 
rights report from 

Latin America names SOA graduates for their involvement in the 
abuses. As recently as 1998, Colombian graduates of the SOA have 
been cited for abuses that occurred in May of that year. Clearly such 
abuses are not a thing of the past.

In 1997, the Pentagon released previously-classified training 
manuals used at the SOA. These manuals advocated torture, 
execution, false imprisonment, and blackmail. From start to finish, 
they condoned the infiltration of opposition political parties, youth 
groups and labor unions. They even viewed political campaigning as 
subversive. Instead of promoting democratic ideals, these manuals 
undermined democracy and weakened civilian institutions.

As a result of the ensuing controversy over the manuals, the SOA 
claims to have reformed. However, these reforms are at best 
superficial. There is still no outside independent review of the 
School's curriculum, and there is no mechanism for tracking 
graduates to determine the level of their involvement in human 
rights abuses. The SOA now claims to offer extensive human rights 
training for all of its graduates. In fact, this training lasts only eight 
hours and consists of a slide show, a movie, and class discussion. The 
SOA course catalog now lists a "Human Rights Train the Trainer 
Course", but no students took the course in 1997 or 1998.

Furthermore, the limited reforms do not address the fundamental 
problem: the SOA attempts to use military solutions to solve what are 
not military problems. Establishing reasonable living conditions for 
all the people of the Americas should be our goal. The SOA is not a 
means to that end. Closing the SOA may seem like a small step 
toward improving US relations with Latin America, but it would send 
a message that the United States no longer wants to be associated 
with the atrocities committed by SOA graduates. This could help 
create real security in the region.

I urge you to support all Congressional efforts to close the School. 
Please respond to this letter to let me know of your plans to co-
sponsor Sen. Durbin's Bill S. 873.


Sincerely,

CECILIA ZARATE-LAUN
Program Director CSN