School of the Americas

Why Tortuguita’s Murder Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg

April 10, 2023 Elena Novak, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Assassination, Environmental Justice, Land defenders, School of the Americas

Few people outside of Atlanta knew about the police training facility nicknamed “Cop City” when plans were approved in 2021, but all that changed in January when Manual Esteban Páez Terán, known as “Tortuguita,” was murdered by police. Their death launched a torrent of news coverage, including an article by NBC stating that police had never killed an environmental activist in the U.S. before Tortuguita. That may be true, but the U.S. has long been complicit in the death of activists abroad through its involvement in resource extraction and training police and military personnel. One such country is Honduras, which had the highest number of killings of land defenders per capita in the world in 2019.

Chile: No More Murders, Torture, or Sexual Violence Against Protesters

December 11, 2019 Staff, SOA Watch Resist! Chile, School of the Americas

SOA Watch reiterates our deep condemnation of the brutal state violence and systematic human rights violations - murders, sexual violence, torture, and serious injuries - that the Chilean military and police are exercising against the protesting civilian population. Since October, protesters have been calling for a new Constitution and demanding that the State, led by President Sebastián Piñera’s government, end abusive neoliberal policies. We reject and denounce the logic of military and police training that targets civilian populations and teaches state forces to look at their own population as an “internal enemy”, the results of which are currently playing out in Chile and throughout the Americas.

SOA Watch Actions: Resist Empire, Create Peace

September 27, 2015 Maria Luisa, www.soaw.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Ayotzinapa, Black Lives Matter (BLM), School of the Americas, Torture, Wars and Militarism

By Maria Luisa for School of the Americas Watch. Fort Benning, GA - Join us this November 20-22, on the 25th anniversary of our movement, to connect with activists and organizers from across the Americas. Our continental movement will converge in Georgia to call for the closure of the School of the Americas and the closure of Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest private for-profit immigrant prisons in the country. It is incumbent upon us to continue making the connections between SOA violence and the root causes of migration. Join us as we continue to denounce the failed U.S. policies, which have left a brutal legacy of impunity and Human Rights violations throughout the hemisphere.

SOA Watch Spring Action: Growing Stronger Together

March 28, 2015 SOA Watch, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Latin America, School of the Americas, SOA Watch

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!

Remembering: UN International Day, Victims of Enforced Disappearances

August 30, 2014 Maria Luisa Rosal, www.popularresistance.org Educate! School of the Americas, Torture

On this day we remember those who were captured by armed and security forces, and who were taken and never heard from again. The systematic practice of enforced disappearances was installed throughout all of Latin America under the National Security Doctrine during the 60's, 70's and 80's. It's important to highlight the role that the School of the Americas had in it's implementation, as thousands of Latin American soldiers were trained there during this period. Thousands upon thousands of disappearances occurred across the American continent as a whole, and in Guatemala alone there were over 45,000 disappearances, 5,000 of which were of children. Today, even though enforced disappearances are not talked about as a systematic state practice like they had been in the past, we must also remember and denounce the more recent cases of disappearances in Colombia and Mexico that are marked by impunity.

Denial Of 1st Amendment Rights Won’t Halt Nonviolent Resistance

July 24, 2014 Hendrick Voss, www.soaw.org Resist! School of the Americas, Torture, Violence, Wars and Militarism

Thousands of human rights activists have gathered every November for the demonstration since the first anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led massacre of 16-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos and six Jesuit priests at the University of Central America in El Salvador. The November Vigil commemorates those who have been killed by SOA/WHINSEC graduates, and calls for the closure of the institute, which perpetuates coups, torture, extrajudicial killings, and human rights abuses in the face of social and political problems. The SOA/WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released SOA training manuals that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among its graduates are at least 11 dictators as well as leaders of infamous Central American death squads. Currently, SOA graduates are linked to the Honduran military coup and the repression campaign against social movements there, among other humanitarian crises.

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