The deadline has been extended to August 10 to contact your representative and urge him or her to support human rights by signing on to a letter urging President Obama to issue an Executive Order to close the SOA (now known as WHINSEC). Rep. Jim McGovern has introduced this congressional sign-on letter. Now he needs your help to urge your representative to sign it! Phone calls are best, but e-mails are accepted, too. Click here to go to the SOAW site to take action. The phone number and e-mail contact can be found there. Share this information with as many friends as possible.
As you may know, the School of the Americas (SOA) is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, GA. In 2001, it was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). No matter what you call it, the facts remain: since 1946, the SOA has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers in coutnerinsurgency techniques, sniper training, psychological warfare, military intelligence, and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refuge by those trained at the School of Assassins.
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