MEXICO AND THE SOA
Consistently, the countries with the worst human rights records have sent the most students to the SOA during the peaks of repression. Given that history, it is no coincidence that Mexico is now among the top clients of the SOA. In the first 49 years of the School, Mexico sent a total of 766 soldiers to be trained at the SOA. That number escalated sharply in 1996 and rose to 333 in 1997, 1,177 in 1998 and close to 700 in 1999. Proponents of the SOA claim that this training is necessary because of Mexico's increased involvement in the "war on drugs." However, that is just a smokescreen. The truth is that in 1997, only 10% of Mexican students took counter-narcotics courses. No Mexican soldiers were slated for the counter-drug operations course in 1999. However, 40 were projected to take military intelligence training.
The sudden rise in the number of Mexican graduates corresponds to the growing movement for economic justice in Mexico. The voices of and for the poor--represented by leaders like Bishop Ruiz from Chiapas--threaten the powerful and wealthy. Thus, it is not surprising that SOA graduates have come out against the Church. One SOA graduate, General Jose Ruben Rivas Pena, wrote an analysis of the conflict in Chiapas in which he stated: "The Vatican is the indirect cause of the conflict in Chiapas with its contaminated thread of liberation theology." This rhetoric is frighteningly similar to that used in El Salvador prior to the assassination of Archbishop Romero by SOA graduates in 1980.
Those trained at the SOA are trained to silence the voices that speak out for justice. At least 18 top military officials who have played a key role in the civilian-targeted warfare in Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca are SOA graduates. One of them, Juan Lopez Ortiz, commanded the troops that committed a 1994 massacre in Ocosingo in which soldiers tied prisoners' hands behind their backs before shooting them in the back of the head.
"The School of the Americas is part of a larger project to protect and defend US corporate interests in Mexico at the expense of workers and indigenous peoples. The movement to close the School of the Americas is an important expression of solidarity with the Mexican people."
--Eduardo Diaz, Mexican labor leader
Colombia and the SOA
Colombia is enduring the hemisphere's worst human rights crisis. Some 10 people per day die in political violence; 1.5 million people have been displaced since 1985 in a refugee crisis greater than Kosovo's. Human rights, union, university and religious leaders are among the many people living under death threats or forced into exile. Guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries both target civilians which they claim are supporters of the other side.
Guerrillas commit serious violations, including extrajudicial killings and most kidnappings, but paramilitaries committed 78% of violations in 1999. The army, though directly responsible for fewer violations, has extensive links with paramilitary forces at a local and regional level. Some army officers facilitate the work of paramilitaries or look the other way as violence occurs.
Colombia has sent more troops to train at the SOA than any other Latin American country, with chilling results. The 1993 human rights report State Terrorism in Colombia cites 247 Colombian officers for human rights violations. Fully one half of those cited were SOA graduates. SOA graduates have been linked to some of Colombia's most heinous massacres, including the Trujillo chainsaw massacres, which took place between 1988 and 1991, and the 1993 Riofrio massacre.
Clearly the abuses are not a thing of the past, yet US-Colombian military ties are growing rapidly. Our government has funded the creation of a 950-troop counternarcotics battalion and provides intelligence support, training, and equipment to other units of the Colombian armed forces. Some 250 to 300 US military personnel are on the ground in Colombia on a typical day, many carrying out training missions. The US Army SOA has been one of the key training sites for Colombian military, but the training being initiated and debated now goes far beyond the School. Most will be provided by US trainers in Colombia.
US military aid to Colombia is promoted by the Pentagon and other supporters under the guise of the drug war. Some US policy-makers make a simplistic equation of guerrillas = drug traffickers, so aiding the army is the solution offered for the drug problem. The reality is more complex. While guerrillas profit by taxing the drug trade, paramilitaries are directly tied to traffickers. Aiding the army risks aiding the paramilitaries and deepening Colombia's human rights crisis.
The United States should help Colombians in their hour of need not with military aid but with long-term, peaceful solutions to civil conflict, drug production, and violence. US activists can be in solidarity with their Colombian counterparts by opposing US aid to the Colombian army and by supporting a positive aid package for Colombia--including: relief aid for people displaced by violence; crop substitution for small farmers to switch from coca to legal crops; programs to strengthen government investigations into human rights violations and drug trafficking; aid for civil society peace and human rights initiatives. Further, US activists can support Colombian human rights groups by working to close the US Army School of the Americas.
--Lisa Haugaard, Latin America Working Group
--Heather Dean, SOA Watch
For more information, contact: Latin America Working Group, (202) 546-7010, <www.lawg.org>.