Between the Lines Q&A

A weekly column featuring progressive viewpoints
on national and international issues
under-reported in mainstream media
for release Nov. 20, 2009

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Protests in 19th Year Demand Closure
of U.S. Military School for Latin American Soldiers

RealAudio MP3

Interview with Eric LeCompte,
chief organizer
with the School of the Americas Watch,
conducted by Melinda Tuhus

soa

Twenty years ago, on Nov. 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were assassinated in El Salvador because they were outspoken proponents of a peaceful and just resolution of Salvador's civil war that took 75,000 lives in more than a decade of fighting. A U.S. Congressional Task Force and human rights groups reported that the soldiers responsible in this and many other atrocities across the hemisphere, were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

A year later, Father Roy Bourgeois founded the School of the Americas Watch, which called for the closure of the military facility, which is supported by Americans' tax dollars. In the years since, thousands of people have come to Fort Benning every year on the third weekend in November to commemorate the tens of thousands who have died at the hands of U.S.-trained soldiers, while continuing to demand that Congress close the school. The group helped pass a bill in the House to defund the school in 1999, but the legislation died in the Senate. Then School of the Americas changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC, and instituted some changes that made members of Congress less willing to shut it down. SOA Watch maintains that the changes at the military training school are cosmetic. Their supporters chant, "New name, same shame!"

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Eric LeCompte, chief organizer with SOA Watch, who's been on staff for a decade. He describes the evolution of politics in Latin America and in the strategies of SOA Watch over the past 20 years, which now include asking President Obama to issue an executive order to close the school, something that would have been unthinkable under President George W. Bush.

ERIC LECOMPTE: Looking at the time period from the 1980s through the '90s, we were looking at a number of brutal dictatorships taking place all through Latin America. And in every country, the great similarity was that what was taking place was taking place on behalf of the elite, to maintain the economic status quo, and the military was being used to oppressing those who would be working for human rights, to organize unions, struggling for a living wage, for clean water. And when these folks stepped in to try and challenge the status quo, it was the military in all these regimes that would try and maintain that economic status quo.

As we learned more about the wars and the dictatorships that were taking place in Latin America, many of us also began to learn more about U.S. foreign policy and how our government was involved. As we focused on Latin America following that terrible assassination, we found that our tax dollars were directly supporting so many of these militaries, financially with military aid, and even with training in the U.S., training these soldiers to do the terrible things they were doing in Latin America. A year after the assassination of 14-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba, and the six Catholic Jesuit priests, a U.S. congressional task force went down to Lating America and found that those responsible for the assassinations were trained on U.S. soil at the School of the Americas. So a year later, a small group of people gathered in Columbus, Ga., and vigiled, calling for the closure of the school. As they began to do research they found that we had actually trained at the SOA 11 dictators throughout Latin America, that we could track almost all the brutal massacres, the assassinations, the genocide of 250,00 people in Guatemala, of 60,000 people in El Salvador -- (they) could be traced directly back to the training we were doing at this school in the U.S. at Fort Benning, Ga, with our tax dollars.

As we focused further on the training, in 1996, we were able to force the Pentagon to release training manuals they had used at the school, and these training manuals clearly illustrated that the school was there to maintain the economic status quo. You see, these manuals, which appeared on the cover of the WP and TNYT after the Pentagon's release in 1996, clearly advocated the use of techniques such as torture, assassination, blackmail, kidnap, to be used on union organizers, church leaders and human rights advocates -- that these tactics should be used on those "who do union organizing or recruiting," that these tactics should be used on those "who make accusations that the government has failed to meet the basic needs of the people," that these tactics should be used on those "who show sympathy with demonstrators or strikers." Very clearly, these manuals were advocating these terrible techniques to be used on those that would be working for change in the country, to be used on those that in here in the U.S. we would see as the pillars of our country.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Eric, many of these countries are now democracies, even though their militaries are still very strong, and some of these leaders are survivors of torture and imprisonment under the old dictators. In more recent years, SOA Watch has gone directly to some of these democracies to ask them to stop sending police and military forces to the SOA for training. Tell us about that.

ERIC LECOMPTE: We've continued our work in the U.S., and we've always had our legislative work - we currently have a bill in Congress with 88 members signed on as co-sponsors who are fighting to close the school with us. And what we realized, in addition to our legislative efforts, with this new change taking place in Latin America, it was important to go and be with those on the front lines, to re-forge our relationships with our partners in Latin America. So, for the past five years we've been part of delegations in Latin America where we're visiting with social movement leaders and also some of these newly-elected presidents in Latin America. And as a result of these meetings, as a result of working with these new democracies, five countries have announced they would no longer send security forces to train at the SOA: Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Costa Rica. In addition, Chile has announced a dramatic troop drawdown of two-thirds of their forces to be trained at the SOA.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I know that SOA Watch has focused a lot on Honduras since the coup there in June, in which an SOA graduate has been implicated. Will that be a focus of the events this weekend?

ERIC LECOMPTE: Yes, we actually have several social movement leaders who will be with us this weekend, coming directly from Honduras just for the vigil.
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For more information, including a link to the so-called "Torture Manuals," contact the group at (202) 234-3440 or visit their website at www.soaw.org.

Related links: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Melinda Tuhus is a producer of Between The Lines, which can be heard on more than 45 radio stations and in RealAudio and MP3 on our website at www.btlonline.org. This interview excerpt was featured on the award-winning, syndicated weekly radio newsmagazine, Between The Lines for the week ending Nov. 27, 2009. This Between The Lines Q&A was compiled by Melinda Tuhus and Anna Manzo.

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