[News] More on Argentina & Uruguay Say NO to the SOA!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Hi Claude --

Thanks for sending out the exciting news about the decisions by 
Uruguay and Argentina! In the first paragraph of our initial email, 
what we wrote made it seem that Uruguay had changed its mind about a 
policy after meeting with Roy, Lisa and Carlos -- when in fact, 
they're continuing a policy put in place with this current 
administration. Would you be willing to post this claification to the 
[News} listserv?

Thanks so much! And for all the great work you're doing, too -- I 
learn a lot from this list!
Christy


To be clear: the decisions by Venezuela, Uruguay and Argentina to cut 
all ties with the SOA and its legacy of terror and repression is an 
expression of the growing power of grassroots organizing within those 
countries. Popular movements have swept leaders into power who adhere 
to the will of the people.

Chile and Bolivia might very well be next to reject SOA training. 
While civil society in Latin America never had a doubt about it, 
there's now also a number of new Latin American presidents like 
Chile's Michelle Bachelet and Evo Morales from of Bolivia, for whom 
the SOA stands synonymies with nothing else but torture and the 
repressive military regimes that killed their loved ones. When 
Augusto Pinochet came to power with the help of SOA trained Generals 
in the September 11, 1973 coup, Michelle Bachelet's father, was 
detained, under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture 
at Santiago's Public Prison, he suffered a cardiac arrest on March 
12, 1974 that resulted in his death. In Bolivia, SOA graduates played 
key-roles on every level of the repression campaign against the 
social movements that Evo Morales is a part off. After Lisa, Carlos 
and Roy met with about a dozen social movements and human rights 
groups last week in Bolivia, they were able to talk to Bolivias 
President, the Vice President, the Chancellor, the First Minister, a 
Senator and Congressman and they were struck by the fact that half of 
them had been political prisoners themselves, under previous 
dictatorships and "democracies".

The SOA-style military repression has never gone unchallenged. The 
Americas have a strong legacy of resistance. From the Mapuche 
struggle for land and autonomy against the conquistadors to the 
successful fight against the water privatization in Cochabamba in 
Bolivia in 2000 - no decade has passed without seeing people coming 
together to fight subjugation. We have a lot to learn from our 
brothers and sisters in Latin America and the Caribbean who have been 
fighting oppression for the past 500+ years. To do so, we must come 
to grips with our own privilege and recognize how it shapes our 
assumptions about struggle, organizing and the future.

The abandoning of the SOA by the Argentinean, Uruguayan and 
Venezuelan governments is an incredible victory for human rights 
across the Americas and it was made possible by the people of 
Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela. They are fighting successfully to 
change their societies and the values that are driving their 
countries. We are grateful for their inspiration and the invitation 
to join them in their struggle for justice. It is now up to us to 
follow their lead and to generate enough pressure to move the U.S. 
Congress to cut the funding for the School of the Americas and to 
change oppressive U.S. foreign policy. Tell your representatives and 
senators that funding a military training school that is responsible 
for torture, rape and murder is not the way to go if the United 
States wants good relationships with its southern neighbors, 
especially not if the people in power are now the ones who were the 
targets of SOA repression. It is time to fundamentally change U.S. 
foreign policy and to take human rights seriously - closing the SOA 
is a first step. Come to DC for the Lobby Days: 
<http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1229>http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1229 


Hendrik Voss
SOA Watch
(202) 234 3440

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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