whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

In God we trust

Torture, Empire and the SOA
"The SOA experience is very important in educating people that torture has a long history in the US military and there is nothing particularly new about it. I think the SOA has a very important role to play in a discussion about impunity. The fact is that people, not just in Latin America , but in this country, have gotten away with murder and torture and acts of human rights crimes time and again. And that that is bad enough in itself, but to think about what are the consequences of impunity for the present? How does the past get whitewashed in a context of pervasive impunity and what does that have to say about people´s ability to mobilize against domination in the present? I think that the SOA has a very important role in all of that."

-- Lesley Gill, in an interview about her new book: The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas

Also check out Naomi Klein's excellent new article 'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate from The Nation Magazine.

News from Colombia

Read a December 14 Urgent Update from the San José Peace Community.

As the weekend’s events were getting started, SOA Watch received sad news from our friends in the Colombian Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. On Thursday, November 17, 2005, troops commanded by General Luis Alfonso Zapata Uribe* attacked and killed Arlen Salas David, a leader of the peace community.

More than 10,000 Colombian soldiers have been trained at the SOA/WHINSEC. continues to send more soldiers to the SOA than any other country--with chilling results. Graduates of the school are consistently cited for human rights abuses. The is an active contributor to the war in , providing billions in military aid and training to the Colombian military. Movements for justice in the need to stand in solidarity with the people of , work to change foreign policy and close the SOA.