|
|
printable version
- email this article
- view hidden posts
- tags and related articles
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
The story of the School of the Americas, or School of the Assassins is a disturbing tale of such organized and planned terrorism; one would never believe it was real. Every year in Fort Benning, Georgia the people protest. This year we brought it to LA.
 soa_sign.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
The brutality caused by the School of the Americas is very much real. It is so real that several speakers at the vigil were victims of torture at the hands of SOA graduates. We carried crosses bearing names of those who were lost in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia, among others. Hector Aristizabal, a speaker at the vigil, held a cross bearing the name of his own brother who was brutally tortured and murdered in Colombia. It was so real, it was scary. And this story, though it did take place in Latin America, was completely caused by, funded by, and organized by the US government. We funded these murders, rapes, tortures. We are terrorists. The passionate efforts to close the School of the Americas (SOA) down included a yearly mass protest in November at its current location in Fort Benning, Georgia. (It was originally in Panama.) The school finally closed in 2001 but reopened one month later in the same location with the same staff teaching the same courses, but was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (WHISC). The vigil was a replica of the Fort Benning protest and was held at Los Angeles State Historic Park. It featured speakers Father Roy Bourgeois, Martin Sheen, Cindy Sheehan, Blase Bonpane, Eisha Mason, Fernando Suarez del Solar, Don White, Lucia Munoz, Dr. Jose Quiroga, Patricia Contreras, Josh Harris, Jim Lafferty, Hector Aristizabal, Maria Guardado, Mario Avila & Frankie Flores and music by Cuauhtemoc Azteca Dancers, El Salvador's Hip Hop Marmota Fu, Ross Altman, Maria Armoudian, Will B. & Dennis Davis. Several speakers told of their experiences as activists fighting to close the school down, others spoke of their experience as torture victims and survivors of murdered family members. Lucia Muñoz spoke about the aftermath of the SOA for women, most notably the femicide in Guatemala. The speakers urged us to teach about the SOA in classrooms, to go to the yearly protests in Georgia and to call our representatives. After the speeches and music we carried our crosses in a procession march while singers on the stage sang the names the crosses bore, and we held them up and sang “presente.” Once the march ended we placed our crosses down and participated in a “die-in” following a performance depicting “birds of destruction” turning a village into flames. Then puppetistas performed a “return to life celebration” using huge paper mache faces and hands to wake our dead bodies up as an allegory for the uprising that must take place atop the ashes of the brutalized. Then the celebration began and the day’s events were over.
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 sheen_finger.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 lucia_arm.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 crosses.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 close_up.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 listening.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 dancing.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 liberty.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 friends_for_peace.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 iraq.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 teacher_speaks.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 hector_a.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 procession_1.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 procession_4.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
video: QuickTime Popup Player : video: MPEG at 7.7 mebibytes
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 black_sun.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 birds_of_destruction.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 die_in_2.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 rufina_2.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x427
Report this post as:
by LadyMadonna
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM
 celebration.jpg, image/jpeg, 427x640
Report this post as:
LATEST COMMENTS ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Listed below are the 10 latest comments of 3 posted about this article.
These comments are anonymously submitted by the website visitors.
|
|
|
Local News
Divestment Fails at UC Santa barbara
M15 4:19PM
Uncensored Manifesto from Retired LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner
M15 9:37AM
Santa Ana Police Department: taking payoffs to jail the innocent
M14 5:31PM
California’s vigilante police justice: Trial by machine gun
M14 5:23PM
Nevada Tribes Walk 272 Miles to Protest SNWA Pipeline
M14 11:44AM
RAISE THE FIST MOBILE APP!
M08 2:02AM
CA Safe Schools Honors LA Unified & Local Heroes!
M07 6:13PM
Proposition C
M07 1:13AM
VENICE OPDs ARE BACK! BUT WHY?
M06 1:20AM
May Day 2013 Los Angeles
M04 3:18AM
May Day 2013 Los Angeles
M03 6:32PM
May Day 2013 Los Angeles
M03 5:47PM
Join Demo At Farmer John Slaughterhouse
A22 8:52AM
LAPD spying using StingRay
A21 11:28AM
May Day Workers Film Festival San Diego
A17 1:21AM
L.A born Actor James Cromwell Arrested in Animal Rights Action
A16 1:46PM
CA . ASSOC. OF AMERICAN MOTHERS, INC. HONOR LOCAL MOTHERS
A10 11:57PM
More Local News...
Other/Breaking News
Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies
M19 12:19AM
Assad: Syria transition talks are internal matter
M19 12:12AM
America Honors Its Worst
M19 12:03AM
Assad: Syria transition talks are internal matter
M18 11:58PM
Federal terrorism USA? Handshake germ warfare
M18 10:54PM
reiniciar chamán
M18 10:19AM
Paraphysique du cerveau
M18 5:49AM
IRS Scandal: More Than Meets the Eye
M18 12:03AM
Putin v. Obama et al
M17 11:59PM
Monica Ratliff for School Board
M17 4:25PM
Colombia Takes Another Step Towards Circus Animal Ban
M17 3:35PM
Stop and Frisk: NYPD Racial Profiling
M17 12:08AM
Israel Threatens More Syrian Attacks
M17 12:03AM
The Shortwave Report 05/17/13 Listen Globally!
M16 2:11PM
Counter-Currents on the Run!
M16 10:27AM
Russia Catches CIA Spy Red-Handed
M16 12:20AM
Obama's Contempt for Venezuelan Democracy
M16 12:05AM
SF Labor: Calls on Labor Movement to Mobilize in Washington, D.C. August 24
M16 12:03AM
HIV-Negative AIDS: Is it CFIDS or AIDS?
M15 3:39PM
Debt jubilee: Revolutionary change or reform to stabilize capitalism?
M15 2:00PM
FBI Documents Suggest Feds Read Emails Without a Warrant
M15 11:54AM
The Elite Look Down on Democracy
M15 4:13AM
Syria Endgame Approaching Fast
M15 12:38AM
Spies "R" Us
M15 12:12AM
Anti-Assad Forces: Caught in the Act Again
M15 12:02AM
Cicero speaks on traitors
M14 11:49AM
Las guerrillas argentinas en el siglo XX - Historia
M14 2:55AM
Turkey: US Imperial Tool
M14 12:12AM
More Breaking News...
|