November 8, 2011
Contact: Hendrik Voss, 202-234-3440
OCCUPY FORT BENNING
Shut Down the School of the Americas
November
18-20, 2011: Thousands of social justice activists from across the
Americas will occupy the main gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to call for
an end to U.S. militarization and for the closure of the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of
Americas,
The
three day convergence will include a massive rally, where thousands
will occupy the main gates of the Fort Benning military base in order to
transform it from a place that trains assassins to a place of
initiation into political awareness. On Sunday, November 20, the
chain-linked barbed wire fence will be transformed with images of the
martyrs, crosses, stars and flowers into a memorial for the victims of
SOA violence and U.S. intervention. Human rights activists will carry
their protest onto the grounds of the military base, risking arrest and
up to six month in federal prison. The mobilization will include
speakers from the NAACP, the Sisters of Mercy, the Georgia Undocumented
Youth Alliance (GUYA), torture survivors and human rights activists from
Latin America as well as plenaries, workshops, concerts, strategy
sessions and more.
“The
SOA provides the military muscle to protect the greed of the 1% at the
expense of the 99% throughout the Americas.” said Father Roy Bourgeois,
the founder of SOA Watch. “The surge of social justice activism in the
U.S. is fueling the call for the closure of this notorious institution.”
The
SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. taxpayer-funded military training school for
Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The school
made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used
at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite
this shocking admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses
connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent
investigation into the training facility has ever taken place. SOA
violence continues in Mexico, where 1/3 of the original members of the
Zetas drug cartel were trained at the SOA, and where the U.S. is
promoting military solutions to the drug problem. SOA violence continues
in Colombia, which has sent more than 10,000 soldiers to train at the
SOA, and where SOA graduates are involved with extrajudicial killings
and other serious human rights violations. SOA violence continues in
Honduras, where SOA graduates overthrew the democratically elected
government in 2009. SOA violence continues in Guatemala, where SOA
graduate Otto Pérez Molina just won the presidential elections, and
throughout the Americas. In October 2011, Time Magazine published the
article “Is It Time to Shutter the Americas' 'Coup Academy'?:”
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097124,00.html#ixzz1b9Rvmcbu
In
August 2011, 69 Members of the House of Representatives delivered a
letter to President Obama, calling on the President to shut down the
Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC),
formerly the School of Americas (SOA) by executive order. The 69
Representatives including Representative John Lewis from Georgia,
Representative Ron Paul from Texas and Representative James McGovern
from Massachusetts. To read the letter, visit
http://soaw.org/docs/ObamaLetter.pdf
On
November 4, Representative McGovern introduced H.R. 3368, the Latin
America Military Training Review Act, in the House of Representatives.
The bill calls for the suspension of the SOA/ WHINSEC and an
investigation into the connection between U.S. military training and
human rights abuses in Latin America.
SOA
Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works for the closing
the School of the Americas and a change in U.S. foreign policy - www.SOAW.org
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