Grand Opening: School of the Americas Watch West (part 1) : LA IMC

Reports by Ross Plesset and Anna Kunkin

(Photo above by Anna Kunkin)

The U.S.-run School of the Americas (SOA) was originally established in Panama circa 1946, where it was initially known as “School of Coups”(1). In 1984, the facility relocated to Fort Benning, Georgia with the official name School of the Americas. It was de-funded by congress in 2000 but reopened the next year as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (aka: WHINSEC). However, the name School of the Americas remains stuck in many people’s minds.

Every November (often on Thankstaking weekend), as many as 25,000 people vigil outside the school to protest the inclusion of torture in the curiculum and U.S. interference in the sovereignty of other nations vis-a-vis SOA/WHINSEC.

This past Saturday, a vigil was also held at Yangna (aka: Los Angeles State Historic Park). Organizers report that “close to 1,000 people” attended. Among the many distinguished speakers was the founder of SOA Watch, Father Roy Bourgeois. Bourgeois recalled that at the 2007 vigil in Georgia, “we put out an appeal, ‘Let us bring the vigil home to wherever we live and work.’ And that’s why we are here today on this beautiful day at Los Angeles.”

Other speakers included Martin Sheen, Blase Bonpane of Office of the Americas and KPFK, Cindy Sheehan, Don White of CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, see: www. Cispes.org) and KPFK, Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild and KPFK, and several torture survivors. The speeches were interspersed with music by artists including Angela Roa, Maria Armoudian, and Holly Near.

Attendees were urged to press congress to vote for closure of SOA. The switchboard number was prominently displayed on the stage: “[Y]ou can demand that your congressperson, your senator vote to close the School of the Americas in the upcoming vote,” said Don White. “We lost only by six votes last time. [C]all that number and ask for any congress member that you want to influence.”

Ana Deutch of the Program for Torture Victims was one of the first people introduced. Deutch had to flee Argentina 30 years ago because of “the junta that killed 30,00 people,” said the emcee. “Many of them were trained at the School of the Americas, the ‘School of the Assassins.’ So Ana Deutch came to this country, and she didn’t just hide and say, ‘Oh, I am safe, and that’s enough.’ She’s a psychoanalyst, and she started working with people who had been tortured in Argentina, in Chile, in Colombia, in all of Central America, and now people from all over the world, unfortunately.”

“Your presence is very important for survival,” Deutch said. “[P]eople that experience torture don’t like to talk about that. So knowing that there is such support is really healing for the survivors. That’s why I appreciate this event.

“Torture is about humiliation; shutting the mouths of people; trying to crush their identity, their personality. So how do you overcome that kind of experience? As therapists, we think, ‘How do you transform the anger, the anguish, the powerlessness into something positive?’ [At a] lecture like this one, people engage in trying to fight torture, trying to eradicate torture throughout the world. That’s what empowers you to heal, you get healed. . . .”

Ensuing speakers included several torture survivors. Maria Guardardo of El Salvador spoke in Spanish, with English provided by an interpreter. “To begin with, the first thing I would like to say is I don’t understand why the United States government talks about democracy when it has a thing called the School of the Americas,” said Guardardo. “In reality it’s the School of the Assassins, of Death Squads, who would even kill or torture their own mother if that mother would raise the flag of peace.

“I was an activist in my country El Salvador, and because of that, I was persecuted, and I had four fractures that I received from the military. They electrocuted me, they stuck a stick in my rectum, they broke my teeth, my jaw was sent to my ears. I survived only by a miracle, and I give thanks to a sanctuary movement that brought me here in the ‘80s, back in 1983. [Applause.]

“The sanctuary movement obligated me, it gave me my strength to able to bring my testimony in front of the rest of the world, for the people of this country to understand the role of this government upon my country and Guatemala.

“My testimony is much longer, but today I really would like to just say as a women I’m proud to stand here with people like Cindy Sheehan--I am proud of her humanitarian work throughout the world--and that we might unite our hearts against the School of the Americas, so we can continue to build this movement.”

Guardardo was followed by a male torture survivor, whose presentation was also in his native Spanish with an interpreter providing English. “I was tortured twice in Guatemala, but I’m not going to tell all the things [that happened] while I was tortured,” said the speaker. “I was tortured under people from the United States who were giving their services. [Inaudible sentence.] On January 31st of this month is 28 years [since] the massacre of the embassy of Spain in Guatemala. It’s something we cannot let go of our memories. It’s very important that the United States people open their memory and not stay just as spectators of Guatemala. In Guatemala, there were 350,000 people killed. In many of the places where people are buried don’t have a name. Half of my family is dead, my children are kidnapped. This day I want to pay a homage [to] all the people who were massacred at Hiroshima; the people massacred in Palestine; all those massacred in Argentina; the miners from Bolivia; 32,000 people killed in El Salvador, including the people from El Mozote, 900; in the town of Sandino Nicaragua many people were massacred with the United States’s support. So it’s important for all the people who are here to let them know that they can fight for justice, so their children won’t become torturers themselves and won’t serve the interests of the big transnationals, which is what is happening today in Iraq. Every day 17 of our Army people in Iraq commit suicide. All the people massacred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia--we need to open the memory, dear friends. All the people indigenous massacred in this country, 200 people massacred in Hawaii [more about this here: http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/Pubs/HiloMassacre.html]. [Inaudible.]

“We need to have dignity, shame. We need to have dignity to stop our children from going to war. Our children need to live in a world of peace with work, with study, and you the women have a very important role to play--you give us life! Thank you.”

A third torture survivor, also male, took the floor and spoke in English. “I am a torture survivor from El Salvador. I was kidnapped by the national guard in June 1980. My charges were because I was a lay missionary. I was working with Sister Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan, two of the four church women killed by graduates of the School of the Americas.

“I don’t want to talk about my pain, I just want to say to all the organizations who help, not only Salvadorans, [but also] helping nowadays our brothers of Colombia, our brothers from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico to live better lives here. I want to say thanks to Father Roy Bourgeois, I want to say thanks to the sanctuary movement. Because [of] that movement we are here. [Inaudible sentence.]

“[O]ur people in El Salvador continue the same suffering right now. Last Tuesday a mayor was killed in El Salvador by the death squads. I want to make a call to all the solidarity to watch again El Salvador, and don’t forget Guatemala. We have again the death squads starting in El Salvador, and every day when I’m here, somebody is disappearing in Salvador, or somebody is tortured. We the survivors suffer again because we remember our torture. Again, thank you very much, and don’t forget El Salvador, please. We need you. We need to work together, we need to be in unity. Thank you very much.”

Lastly another torture survivor spoke (also with an interpreter providing English).. “Dear friends, the torturing in El Salvador has been a constant practice. At this moment thousands of young people are being tortured. I want to share what happened to me. In 1983 I worked with akaldia, the mayor of San Salvador. I was captured by the national police, and they took me to their prison for 26 days. For 23 days I was tortured continuously, physically and psychologically. Every night they asked me to sign papers that [inaudible]. And I was hidden from the Red Cross during those 23 days. After that, I was sent for 11 months to a prison called Mariona. In 1985 I was sent for the second to prison: at Hacienda there was another kind of police called Hacienda Police And now I was tortured again: electric shocks, and [inaudible word] lime. And I would not like to share with you all the things that they did to me. Thank you.”

Speaking for victims of SOA and other violence was Lucia Munoz. “I am from Guatemala,” she said. “I have not been tortured, but I am here to represent our women, our sisters from Latin America who take the brunt of everything. Because of these wars that are happening in Latin America and today as we know in Iraq, it is our sisters that are going through the aftermaths of civil wars. In Guatemala our civil war lasted 36 years and ended in December of ’96. Until this day 11 years after, we are still paying the price. We are going through the aftermath where we are losing two sisters per day in Guatemala. The same in El Salvador, and cannot forget our sisters in Colombia, who are in the heart of a war sponsored by the U.S. That is my role today, to remind us that we have sisters and sisters here in the U.S. I know are going through the same thing.”

She mentioned an advantage that the U.S, has over Latin America. “When our men were coming back from Vietnam, I learned that our sisters here in the movement created help, educated the government of the U.S. to have facilities to help our men, to help our brothers, our cousins, our neighbors. In Guatemala [there is] nothing close to what we have here in the U.S.

“I know that what we have here is not perfect, I understand that. I don’t want to say that our pain is more than here in the U.S., but our role today here is to remind all of you that every time you make that purchase in Starbucks, JCPenneys, or Macy*s—those taxes you pay go for foreign aid to Latin America, and we need to question our sources. Gracias.”

Father Roy Bourgeois often evoked enthusiastic responses when he spoke. “. . . Once again we come together in the name of peace. Once again we come together to keep alive the memory of the hundreds and thousands of sisters and brothers of El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, and other countries who have been the victims of this school down in Georgia that has caused untold suffering and death in their countries. We remember in a special way our sister Rufina; Oscar Romero; the Jesuits; the young mother Elba, her daughter Celina, 15 years old; the many campesinos; the labor leaders; university students; and so many healthcare workers who have been silenced by graduates, who have trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

“We began years ago with a very small group of us, 10, who gathered at the main gate of Fort Benning simply to say, ‘Not in our name will this school continue.’ [Applause.] Word began to spread as we researched the school and discovered what we had here was indeed a school of assassins, a school for dictators. These soldiers came here to learn counter insurgency. Who were the insurgency? They were the poor, the religious leaders, labor leaders, and many others. And then when the torture manuals were discovered in the curriculum, that got a lot of front-page coverage. Word began to spread, and our numbers in the movement grew.

“The first year 10 of us gathered at the main gate at Benning, the second year 200, then 500, then a thousand. This last November over 25,000 came. And at that vigil we put out an appeal, ‘Let us bring the vigil home to wherever we live and work. And that’s why we are here today on this beautiful day at Los Angeles.

“Let me say that our movement is strong, it continues to grow. More than half of those who gathered at the main gate in November were students, high school and college students; a lot of military veterans who have gone from warriors to resisters; lots of senior citizens, always with there with us the Grandmothers for Peace; lots of parents with children. And this is what peace is all about, coming together, different ages, backgrounds but speaking with one voice.

“Let me just say we’re not going away. This coming November we’re going to be back at the main gate. We’re getting close. If we close the school this year, we’re going to gather for a big fiesta. [Cheers and applause.]

“Six months ago we had a vote in congress to cut off the funding. We’re saying to our members of congress that we don’t want millions of dollars from our tax money going into this school. We want that money going into schools for our children. We want that money going into inner city programs right here in Los Angeles that will lead to healing.

“We lost by six votes. In the spring we’re going to have another vote. It’s very important [to send] those letters to our members of congress and let them know how we feel about this.

“What’s energizing our movement now is our Latin America initiative. We wrote, not long ago, to Venezuela and had a meeting with President Hugo Chavez. At that meeting he greeted us warmly, and he said, ‘You know, last week I met your president.’ [Audience laughs.] He said, ‘Something’s wrong with that guy.’ We said, ‘We know that very well.’ Several weeks after that meeting we got official word from Venezuela that they cut off all involvement in this school, they’ve pulled out. [Applause and cheers.]

“We said, ‘Let us now go to every country in Latin America that send in their soldiers to the school of assassins and meet with their heads of state, defense ministers, indigenous leaders, human rights leaders and ask that they too sever their ties. And I’m happy to report that after many, many travels to 13 countries this last year, our delegation is now able to report that four more countries have pulled out. They being Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. [Applause.] Next month we’re going to Nicaragua, we’re going to Ecuador, later to Brazil, to Paraguay, we’re going back to Chile, and other countries. We’re going to keep our hands on the plow. We’re not going to stop until this school is shut down.

“Lastly, let me say this: we want to shut down the school, and we will, but what we have to do is change our country’s foreign policy, and that’s why we’re here today. And I just want to say how much hope and life and joy that you give not only our movement but the movement to stop this madness of the war in Iraq. When we gathered at Fort Benning we had to talk about Iraq. How can we possibly gather in the name of peace and not talk about Iraq and what’s going on there?

“Again, I just want to say muchos gracias for the hope and the joy that you bring to the SOA Watch movement. Thank you.”

(More of the speeches are included later in this coverage.)

The next part of the program was a procession. This report is by Anna Kunkin:

Each person had a cross with a name of a tortured, murdered, or disappeared person. The crosses were raised with the voices singing "Presente" after each name sung from the stage as the procession wound slowly around the park. It was incredibly moving...and many were in tears. Really powerful.

After the Procession people added the crosses to a pile on top of the hill while Holly Near sang a strong rendition of "I Ain't Gonna Study War No More," and the wonderful Chilean singer Angela Roa sang a strong traditional Creole, in which a mother cries for her dead sons.

The ceremony continued with a die-in, where everyone lied down on the grass to depict what a town looks like after it's been massacred. Then we were all brought back to life by drummers, huge puppets and clowns on stilts, and the afternoon ended in a loud and festive drum and dance circle.

It was wonderful to participate in these rituals with such a wonderful diverse group of people from other sides of many borders and many age groups.

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Other speeches at the event, not included in report above, consisted of one by Cindy Sheehan. She discussed America’s history of torture beyond School of the Americas. “I’m supposed to make the connection between the School of the Americas and the Iraq war,” she said. “Father Bourgeois already did that a little bit. Last night, too, I was at a benefit for the San Francisco 8, members of the Black Panther Party who were arrested back in the ‘70s. Some of them were tortured by the police state here in America. This was in 1971. Their case was dropped because of the torture issue—now they’ve been rearrested in Bush World, in Torture World, where torture has become institutionalized and codified in our country.

“The School of the Americas is just one stain on the soul of America. Guantanamo Bay is another stain. It was six years ago yesterday that it was opened. One year ago yesterday I stood in front of the gates of Guantanamo with a mother whose son had been incarcerated there since the inception. He was just released in the custody of the British government, Omar Deghayes. I was there with a young man who had been there for three years, tortured beyond belief, and this is done with our name and our tax dollars. They were sodomized with broom handles, made to stay in stress positions for hours. And then we have another stain called Abu Ghraib right in the country of Iraq, which happens to be our biggest stain.

“You all know that this has been going on long before George Bush became president—he has just elevated it to something to be overt. It’s not covert anymore. Torture is the policy of the American government—and we support that with our tax dollars. We support that with our silence. That’s why it’s so important for you all to be out here today to say, ‘We repudiate the war criminals, who should not only not be in the White House, but they’re the ones that should be in prison. [Shouting and applause.] Some people might say, ‘Well, Nancy Pelosi’s one of the good guys.’ Well no she’s not, she let the funding go forward for these crimes against humanity. And that’s what they do: they say they’re supporting the troops by funding these crimes against humanity. What they’re supporting is our children also becoming war criminals, and that has to stop. That has to stop now. [Inaudible sentence.]

“That’s another reason I’m running against her: because she refuses to hold George Bush and Dick Cheney accountable, because she’s complicit in their crimes. She was shown torture tapes in 2002, and she took her oath to secrecy more seriously than her duty to humanity. And my son and millions of people are dead, wounded, displaced, or ruined for life because of the torture policies of the United States of America.

“I’m honored to be here with you, and I’m honored to be here with one of my heroes, Father Bourgeois. I stand with you in solidarity every November when you’re at the School of Americas. I can’t be there because it’s my surviving son’s birthday weekend every year, but we’re with you.

Blase Bonpane, director of Office of the Americas and host on KPFK, gave examples of the United States’ long history of imperialism preceding and outside of outside of SOA. “Just two decades after receiving independence from Spain, Mexico, indeed, the land on which we are standing, was invaded by President Polk, 1846. In this case, it’s true in most imperial wars, the claims of President Polk were a contrivance and a lie. Abe Lincoln, a congressman, said the president was lying. Ulysses Grant said it was a lie. Robert E. Lee said it was a lie. So we took half of Mexico. And regardless of existing borders, I think we have reason to say that Mexico has won the war of 1846.

“Less than a decade later, William Walker declared himself the president of Nicaragua, demanded that the Nicaraguans speak English, and I think Nicaragua has won the war of 1855 and the war conducted by Ronald Reagan. Once again, empire lost.

“But what about President McKinley during the great Spanish-American War? In the spirit of Manifest Destiny he told us that he prayed all night, and he decided he would Christianize the Philippines, not knowing that the Philippines were already Christianized.

“And if you recall the history of Cuba, the last colony of Spain in this hemisphere, he insisted on staying in Cuba and immediately took over Cuba, putting our General Leonard Wood as president of Cuba in 1902. He also put in the Platt Amendment in the new Cuban Constitution, saying that the United States could intervene in Cuba for any reason at any time. And that gave us the new torture center which is known as Guantanamo, which is an international disgrace to the United States as our corporate media continues to demonize the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

“As he reviewed his military career, General Smedley Butler was mad as hell and he would not take it anymore. He had been ordered to intervene in Mexico in 1914. He also intervened in Cuba and Haiti. He says, ‘I helped in the raping of a half-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, I helped to see that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. ‘

“And finally in 1937, General Smedley Butler said ‘Why don’t those damned oil companies fly their own flags from their own personal property—maybe a flag with a gas pump on it?’ That’s the general speaking.

“As our presidential candidates speak of change in a nonsensical and unspecified manner, let us demand that they speak of change in two centuries of intervention, demonization, and torture. I’m speaking of over 100 unnecessary military actions by our country. Our Head Torturer is now a missionary to the Middle East, [inaudible word] weaker nations to assist him as he designs the massacre of children of Iran just as he has massacred the children of Iraq.

“Jesus had words for President Bush when he said: ‘Alas you hypocrites! You travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte, and then when you have him, you make him twice as fit for Hell as you are.’ Matthew 23. On the contrary, our mission is to carry out the command for peace on Earth. We are building a peace system and are committed to ending the war system, including the nuclear ovens. We are committed to ending the stupid demonization of other cultures, including a love of torture, lies, and massacre of the innocent that have marked our history. Another world is possible!”

Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild and KPFK also spoke of America’s torture beyond the SOA. “Let’s be honest today: given the state of this country today, we’ve got to admit something—we’ve got to admit that it actually makes sense, tragically, that the School of the Americas would be located in the United States of America. After all, as we vigil today, somewhere in this world, men and women captured in the U.S. government’s bogus War on Terrorism are being tortured by officials of governments to which the United States has rendered those men and women, knowing full well they would be tortured when they got there.”

He turned to the San Francisco 8 and noted that “that torture that took place over 30 years ago at the hands of U.S. officials included waterboarding. This is not a new phenomenon in this country. Just ask the brothers in the San Francisco 8 Black Panther case. As we vigil today

”All over this country to day, as we speak, in prisons in every state in this country, human beings just like you and I are held in isolation, in solitary confinement cells—that’s torture! And they’re subjected to rape and brutality by their prison guards—that’s torture!

“America itself has become a school of torture.

“[W]e’ve got to get over the notion that just because we’re in an election year, we’re going to be able to elect ourselves out of this mess. Cindy Sheehan could do it, but the Democratic Party isn’t going to do it, the Republican Party isn’t going to do it. We’ve got to remember the one most important lesson that we learned during Vietnam: that war ended under Republican presidents, Nixon and Ford…”

Of Father Bourgeois, Lafferty said: “Very few human beings in my life have had the fortitude to stay-with-it-ness that he has had. He brought an issue to light that people weren’t even aware of. And he’s made it a cause celebre in this country and around this world.”

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(1)Mid Day News, KPFK, January 14, 2008.