The House ALMOST Acts Against SOA

Sometimes I am so proud to be from Massachusetts. Jim McGovern, a MA Dem. Congressman proposed an amendment to the Foreign Operations and Appropriations Bill to close the school of Americas. The 61-year “school” has trained Latin Americans in torture and other techniques that the US government says they don’t do.

According to School of the Americas Watch http://www.soaw.org/ and other sources its graduates were responsible for the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador; the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero; and the massacre of 14-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos, and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador; among hundreds of other human rights abuses. And some of the successful graduates were tyrants: Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzar Suarez of Bolivia.

Sadly 214 members of Congress (not mine, I checked) decided to keep funding in place. It does not make me proud of the blue passport that I hide in shame.

However, the school may close on its own as Latin American countries withdraw from the school. Costa Rica was the latest.