SOA Watch Spring Action: Growing Stronger Together

School of the Americas Watch is mobilizing this April for our Spring Days of Action (SDOA). Our 2015 SDOA theme is “Growing Stronger

Together – Resisting the ‘Drug War’ Across the Americas”. Will you help us take the message to Washington, DC?

Join us for actions in the streets and halls of Congress to hasten the end of the Drug War and its accompanying destruction. Part of social change is grassroots power, and we’ll be having a welcome party, congressional visits, critical mass bike ride, concert, movement strategy session, and more! Register to join us in D.C. April 22-25

SOA Watch will also be hosting a series of virtual lobby trainings in the lead up to the Spring Days of Action. For more information and to register, please click here.

Growing The movement’s continued commitment to justice has only made our roots deeper and our reach towards the sun lengthen. More recently, SOA Watch’s partnership with #UStired2 and other groups protesting the U.S. funding and militarizing of the Drug War in Mexico, have made seedlings whispering in the wind take root and cultivate in our shared communities. This April we continue in this same tradition of growing by challenging the Drug War in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and in the U.S.

Stronger Change occurs over time, sprouting from the seeds planted by those who have come before us. Now, it is our job to continue to grow the movement, push for greater change, and continue building an alternative to war and Empire. State violence and impunity, Mass incarceration, the root causes of migration, the criminalization of dissent – the greatest social struggles we are currently resisting in the hemisphere are linked by the disastrous “Drug War”.

Together We are many communities in resistance, in Mexico, the U.S. and throughout the Americas, working for self-determination, justice, and an end to the violence of the Drug War. We are taking our message to Washington, DC not as individuals, but as a collective, echoing the millions of voices speaking truth to power and telling our own histories and herstories so that the powers that be cannot claim ignorance of the truth, and make a decision whether or not they will be part of the change for a better, more peaceful world.

Confronting The War on Drugs

The “Drug War” is militarizing, incarcerating, and killing communities in Latin America and in the U.S., especially traditionally oppressed peoples. Let’s join join together this Spring to tell Congress the War on Drugs must end. Register for Spring Days of Action today! And register for our virtual lobby trainings, every other week leading up to the SDOA by clicking on this link.

The enforced disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexicoproved once again that the disastrous results of U.S. military aid and training in Latin America are ongoing. Similarly, in Ferguson and other U.S. cities have reminded us that police militarization and the treatment of black and brown people as internal enemies are also major problems in the U.S., while putting into context what militarization looks like on the ground for so many in Latin America and beyond. Check out the video above of Arturo, SOA Watch’s Legislative Organizer, work with others in the movement to confront Congressional Representatives about the War on Drugs in Mexico in January, 2015.

How to get to DC Where to stay in DC Local Organizing

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Please contact Arturo  arturo@soaw.org or call (202) 234-3440.

Together We Will Demand:

• End the Drug War in Latin America! We demand an end to “security” aid & military training of Latin American soldiers and police. Drug use is a social health issue, it can  no longer be used as an excuse to militarize, control, and exacerbate violence in Latin America. !Ya Basta!
• End the Drug War in the U.S.! Pass the “Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act”! Our communities in the U.S. are also not battlefields, they are where people live and love. The Pentagon needs to stop sending “free” military weapons to police forces, who look more and more like soldiers, not peace officers.
• Freedom for Nestora Salgado, U.S. and Mexican citizen & target of the Drug War, from solitary confinement!

Schedule of Events

Wednesday, April 22 7pm Opening Celebration at Haydee’s Restaurant (3102 Mount Pleasant St. NW)

Thursday, April 23 Lobby trainings and visits on Capitol Hill

Friday, April 24 – Grassroots Lobbying, Direct Action, Critical Mass Bike Ride, Concert

Saturday, April 25 – SOA Watch Forum and Strategy Session