Seven hundred innocent people were brutally massacred in their village not so long ago.
Surely this can’t be true… Don’t fool yourself. They were murdered in and around El Mozote, El Salvador in 1981. What’s even more tragic is that every tax payer has the blood of these victims on their hands.
These people, not to mention hundreds of others from several similar operations, were killed by U.S. trained troops at the School of the Americas, which is now operating from our backyard- Fort Benning, Georgia.
This year, from November 14-18, a group of Fairfield University students are heading to Fort Benning to protest with hundreds of other concerned citizens. Who knows if their efforts will be recognized? But every little bit helps. (If you would like to help, please contact Melissa Reardon at x2668 or Betsy Gardner at x2463.)
Founded in 1946 in Panama, the School of the Americas (SOA) attracts the largest number of Latin American military students seeking to be trained by the US Army, and is funded by our tax dollars.
Six Jesuit priests at the University of Central America (San Salvador) along with their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered on Nov. 16, 1989 by a group of Salvadoran Army patrol officers – 19 of whom trained at the SOA.
Because the school is backed by the U.S. Army – a fact that many don’t realize – taxpayers pay for this monstrosity. The Army is living in the Reagan Era, for it was the Reagan Administration which began the so-called “War on Communism” in the 80s, and continued to support this school and even gave it a new home when Panama made the SOA leave the country in 1984. The graduates of the 80s went on to fight in several Central and South American civil wars, leaving a trail of blood behind them.
One thing is clear. This school must be shut down, and soon. Every year U.S. citizens gather at the SOA’s gates at Fort Benning, Georgia and protest non-violently by fasting, holding up signs and having candlelight vigils in remembrance of those whom have been indirectly killed because of this atrocious school.
Former Congressman Joesph Kennedy tried to have Congress shut the school down, but so far the only changes regarding the school have been a name change, and a required eight hour course on human rights. The SOA was renamed “The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” yet is still better known by the old, sinister moniker.
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