This is an accomplishment.
Close the School of the Americas
Dennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House
Link to this entry in the Congressional Record
Jun 9, 2006
Speaking in support of the McGovern amendment to H.R. 5522, the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2007, Congressman Kucinich said:
"Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment to prohibit funding for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, otherwise known as the School of the Americas.
"This combat-training facility for security personnel in Latin America is notorious for graduating human rights offenders. In its 59 years of existence, the School of the Americas has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently targeted educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been victims of School of the Americas graduates.
"For example, on February 21-22, 2005, eight members of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia, were brutally massacred. Witnesses identified the killers as members of the Colombian military's 17th Brigade, commanded by a School of the Americas graduate.
"In April of 2002, two School of the Americas graduates helped lead a failed coup in Venezuela against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.
"In 1980, two of the three killers of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador were graduates of the School of the Americas. Also in 1980, 10 of the 12 officers responsible for the murder of 900 civilians in the Salvadoran village, El Mozote, were School of the Americas graduates.
"The abuses by School of the Americas graduates have local resonance with me, as well. In Cleveland, Ohio, in 1980, Clevelanders Sister Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan, along with two other churchwomen from the United States, Sister Maura Clarke and Sister Ita Forde, were raped and murdered by members of the armed forces of El Salvador. Three of the five officers involved were graduates of the School of the Americas.
"In the words of former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca, the School of the Americas is the 'biggest base for destabilization in Latin Americas.' It is time to close it."
http://kucinich.us/node/382
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
