The school of the Americas was first founded in Panama in the early days of the cold war, in 1946 under the name of the Latin American Training Center. It was renamed the School of the Americas in 1963 and relocated to Fort Benning in 1984. Its purpose was to teach government troops tactics to fight against insurgents and guerilla warfare. The school is often referred to as the school of Assassins for many of its graduates have committed countless crimes against the human rights constitution. Those acts include torture, murder, kidnapping, genocide and many other acts that can be described as inhumane. The school still teaches today, even though many activists groups are trying to get it to close, for genocide charges are still put against some of its graduates every year.
Nick's main Sources:
- http://www.nisgua.org/themes_campaigns/impunity/The%20School%20of%20the%20Americas%20and%20Guatemala.pdf
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas
There are more than 61,000 people who attended the School of the Americas. The school taught the same courses as in the U.S Military and just had to translate it into Spanish. In these schools the areas of study are: Professional leadership for Officers, Infantry weapons, technical support (like vehicle maintenance, radio operators,…), counter-insurgency (Internal defense) that made a lot of horrible men, officers that killed huge amounts of peopple. In 1996 the CIA released training manuals that were used in Latin America. Those manuals taught very aggressive techniques that a lot of people revolted against with all the human rights that were violated. The school of the Americas was almost closed in 2007 but failed by 6 votes and is still open now a days.
references:
http://yellowcakewalk.net/images/school_of_the_americas.gif picture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas
http://www.soaw.org/type.php?type=8
Elie.L
Reasons for the close-down of the School of the Americas
Six arguments have been presented to shut down the School of the Americas:
1. Graduates of the School of the Americas have comitted serious atrocities.The crimes committed have a pattern of consistency, they happen all over the world and continual. Congressman Kennedy believes the nature of these crimes ‘present a serious and totally unacceptable record’. The frequencies of these actions show that these graduates are not just unusual exception. These are the atrocities that have been recorded: Murder/extrajudicial execution, Massacres/genocide, Arms Trafficking, Kidnapping, disappearances, Torture, abuse of prisoners, Coup, Insurrection, Drug Trafficking, Harboring World War II Nazis, Attacks on the Church and Church Workers, Death Squads, Paramilitaries, Rape[1].
2. The curriculum
3. Hall of fame and guest intructors. They honour present abusers in the Hall of fame and their guests instructers are involved and active abussers.
4. The American foreign policy is not achieved legitimatly.
5. The 'enemy' is thought to be the poor, educators and church workers.
6. Morals are damaged and the American defense capability is weakened. Some Americans are involved witht the objectives and training of the school which means that the school is participating in Human Rights abuses.
These are a few graduates of the School of the Americas with their actions.
| *COL Augusto Moisés García Ochoa |
1977, Jungle Operations |
Suspected drug-trafficking, 1997: Listed by the Mexican news magazine El Proceso as one of the 32 Mexican officers under investigation in drug trafficking. |
| Lt. Col. Julian Guerrero Barrios |
1981, Commando Operations |
Charged with murder, 1997:On Dec. 26, 1997, La Jornada reported that Guerrero was charged with the murder of Salvador Lopez, one of a dozen young men in Jalisco that were kidnapped and tortured by the Airborne Special Forces Group. |
| *TCL Rene Herrera Huizar |
1980, Operaciones de Patrulla |
Suspected drug-trafficking, 1997: Listed by the Mexican news magazine El Proceso as one of 32 Mexican military officers under investigation by the Mexican government for suspected ties to drug-trafficking. |
| *GEN Juan López Ortiz |
1959, Infantry Arms
1959, Infantry Tactics |
Ocosingo Massacre, 1994: Troops under his command massacred five persons in the Ocosingo market; the prisoners' hands were tied behind their backs before the soldiers shot them in the back of the head. |
| *GEN Luis Montiel López |
1962, Counterinsurgency |
Intimidation of human rights activists, 1992: Forces under Gen. Montiel's falsely accused human rights activists in Chihuahua of "aiding drug traffickers" in an attempt to intimidate them. (CAR) |
| *GEN Fernan Perez Casanova |
1962, CIO Contrainsurrección |
Suspected drug-trafficking, 1997: Listed by the Mexican news magazine El Proceso as one of 32 officers under investigation by the Mexican government for suspected ties to drug-trafficking. |
sources:
text- http://www.ratical.org/ratville/SOA.html , [1] http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/soaclose.htm
diagram and text- http://www.derechos.org/soa/mx-not.html
Else van der Spek
Comments (1)
Nicolas Botton said
at 1:40 pm on Jun 9, 2009
Wiki Evaluation
Your evaluation should be of the first wiki entry you posted. Answer the following questions in the comment section of that page.
1. DESIGN -
(a) What is the overall layout of the page? It is fairly standard.
(b) Is it easy to follow? Yes.
(c)Visually appealing? It's very simple.
(d) What is the format of the pictures? Not too big, the picture is blended into the text.
(e) Do they flow with the text? Yes.
2. INFORMATION -
(a) After reading the page do you find that the information is organized? Yes, it is a basic introduction to the page.
(b) Do the entries repeat the same information? No, the information is very varied as they regard different subjects concerning the school of the americas.
(c) Is there a clear introduction, body and conclusion? Yes.
(d) Did you learn anything new from the additional entries to the page after your own? Yes, doing this kind of research was very educational.
3. OPINION -
(a) What problems did you encounter with the project? Not many were encountered, although there was one time where two of us were trying to edit the same page which created a few minor conflicts.
(b) What were some benefits of doing this project? Its very educational research wise and also
(c) What would you change? Not much, it was a fairly successful project.
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