An Odd Coincidence: Many SOA Grads Become Latin Death Squad Killers

[struggle4progress]

By Sherwood Ross

... Two of SOA’s more notorious alumni, Generals Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, both of whom trained at SOA in 1981, went on to become dictators during the “Dirty War”, in which 30,000 Argentines were put to death. The generals were assisted by five other SOA grads and when civilian rule was restored Viola was sentenced to 17 years for his crimes. Who’s to say, though, that he learned his grisly trade from the Pentagon? He could have gotten his ideas just as well from
studying Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” right?

Then there’s Bolivia. In 1980, SOA alumni General Garcia Meza Tejada assaulted the National Palace and forced the president to resign. His top aide, Luis Arce Gomez was also an SOA alum as were seven other coup criminals. In Brazil, the human rights group Torture Never Again linked 20 SOA graduates and two SOA instructors to crimes including false imprisonment, and torture methods such as electric shock, suffocation and other methods too nauseating to iterate.

In Colombia, half of some 250 officers cited for human rights violations in 1993 took advanced education at SOA. After his involvement in the 1988 Uraba massacre of 20 banana workers, the massacre of 19 business executives, and the assassination of a city mayor, General Faouk Yanine Diaz was a guest speaker at SOA in 1990, apparently so good he was brought back for an encore next year.

Another SOA grad, General Jorge Plazas Acevedo, was tried for the 1998 kidnapping and murder of Jewish business leader Benjamin Khoudari, and Col. Jesus Maria Clavijo, another SOA grad, stands accused of 160 murders during 1995-98. Yet another SOA grad, General Montoya Uribe, ran a “scorched earth” campaign in Putumayo ...

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/9404-an-odd-coincidence-many-soa-grads-become-latin-death-squad-killers-.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. Doubt its by Coincidence

More likely by intent.

[Democracyinkind]

3. I'll second that. A torture school is destined to put out death squads.

More important: Who are the SOA people taking orders from? Their gov or their former trainers at the SOA? Perkins said that that is how we recruit our jackals. We give them a call after a few years, send down their teachers and say... " Why...we've taught you so much. Mind offing this guys for us? "

Even better when Chiquita and the likes can recruit from that pool too. Funny how the SOA became the Coca Cola corp's union busters too.

[dipsydoodle]

4. I'd say that everything you've written there

is 100% correct. If you're not already on the Latin America Forum please join up. :hi:

[Democracyinkind]

5. I'll do that. Seems like a good place for me to join. Thanks !

[crikkett]

2. School of the Americas = SOA

:donut: