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For Immediate Release<br>
October 10, 2007<br><br>
School of the Americas Watch<br><br>
EVO MORALES ANNOUNCES END OF BOLIVIAN MILITARY TRAINING AT EX-U.S.
ARMY<br>
SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS<br><br>
Bolivia is the fifth Latin American country to announce a withdrawal<br>
from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation<br><br>
Washington, DC - President Evo Morales announced Tuesday that
Bolivia<br>
will gradually withdraw its military from training programs at the<br>
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC),<br>
formerly known as the School for the Americas (SOA). Bolivia is the<br>
fifth country after Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to<br>
announce a withdrawal from the Fort Benning school, citing its
history<br>
of collaborating with repressive regimes and human rights
abuses.<br><br>
Morales, a former coca farmer and advocate of indigenous rights,<br>
criticized the institution for training Latin American militaries to<br>
identify social movement leaders as "enemies of the state."
"We will<br>
gradually withdraw until there are no Bolivian officers attending
the<br>
School of the Americas" said Morales. Questioning the U.S.
government<br>
foreign policy he noted that "they are teaching high ranking
officers to<br>
confront their own people, to identify social movements as their<br>
enemies."<br><br>
The SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. tax-payer funded military training
facility<br>
for Latin American security personnel located at Ft. Benning,
Georgia.<br>
The institution was catapulted into the headlines in 1996 when the<br>
Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated<br>
torture, extortion and execution.<br><br>
The SOA/WHINSEC has played a significant role in Bolivia's recent<br>
political history, Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia from
1971-1978<br>
under a brutal military dictatorship attended the school in 1956 and
was<br>
later inducted into the school's "hall of fame" in 1988. In
October of<br>
2006, two former graduates of the SOA/WHINSEC, Generals Juan Veliz<br>
Herrera and Gonzalo Rocabado Mercado were arrested on charges of<br>
torture, murder, and violation of the constitution for their<br>
responsibility in the death of 67 civilians in El Alto Bolivia
during<br>
the "Gas Wars" of September-October 2003.<br><br>
In March 2006 a School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) delegation led
by<br>
Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos
Mauricio,<br>
and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois met with President Evo<br>
Morales to request that Bolivia cease to send troops for training at
the<br>
SOA/WHINSEC.<br><br>
On June 21, 2007 the McGovern/Lewis amendment to the FY 2008 Foreign<br>
Appropriations bill that would have prohibited funding for the<br>
SOA/WHINSEC lost by a margin of only six votes. 203 members of
Congress<br>
voted in favor of the amendment to cut the funding for the school in<br>
part due to its connection to human rights abuses throughout Latin<br>
America.<br><br>
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Joao Da Silva<br>
Communications Coordinator<br>
School of the Americas Watch<br>
<a href="http://www.soaw.org/" eudora="autourl">WWW.SOAW.ORG<br><br>
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