El Salvadore by Daniel Menendez
This South American country is one of the smallest hispanic counties. However it hsa some of the most nortorious graduates from the School of the Americas. An example of one of these men is Colonel Napoleon Alvarado. He graduated in 1974 and participated in a Military Police Officer course. He was also involved in the Las Hojas massacre in 1983. During this tragic event sixteen civilians were murdered and their corpses were burnt. This gives a great example of the violence that is put into the teaching at the SOA. Another example of an event caused by various SOA graduates is the Jesuit massacre. In this massacre 6 jesuit priests were brutally murdered. SOA graduates took part in the killing and the covering up of this horrific event. The SOA teachings of violence is shown all through the Americas. The graduates have been involved in some of the most tragic massacres all over. The SOA teaches these men to have no mercy. This idea is instilled in all the graduates throughout the world. El Salvadore just happens to be the home country of some of these men.

Bolivia

Not many detailed accounts of violence by the School of the Americas have been documented in Bolivia. However, a Catholic Priest, Roy Bourgeois witnessed several accounts of torture and abuse by graduates of the SOA. He worked with the poor in a Bolivia in the 1980s, and started the School of the Americas watch in 1990, a group that has been trying to shut down the SOA ever since. Bourgeois stated that torture has been a part of the schools curriculum ever since it opened in Panama in 1946. US Military officials deny training students torture techniques.
On the other hand, Bolivian President Evo Morales wrote a letter to Col. Gilberto Perez, a Commandant at the SOA (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Cooperation), stating that Bolivia will no longer send its military to attend the school in Fort Benning, Georgia. This letter was dated February 18, 2008. In March 2006, President Morales met with Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio, and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois, where they asked him to stop sending Bolivian Military to the School.

Unjustices in Panama

Many consider Manuel Noreiga to b e the most famous graduate of the School of the Americas. Noriega ruled and ravished the country of Panama throughout the 1980's. While a student at the School of Americas, he was considered outstanding and graduated with a degree in engineering. In 1983 he returned to Panama to become the Commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces. He then worked his way through the system until eventually reaching his goal in becoming the leader and dictator of Panama. Although a one time operative for the United States CIA, he became involved in drug trafficking, selling U.S. secrets to Cuba, embezzlement, and murder. In January of 1988 the United States urged him to step down, to which he refused. After Noriega ordered the murder of a U.S. marine on the streets of Panama City in December of 1989, President Bush sent troops to invade and expedited Noriega to the U.S. to stand trial. In April of 1992 Manuel Noriega was convicted of racketeering, money laundering, and drug trafficking and was sentenced to fourty years in prison. Since Noriega's demise, democracy is flourishing in Panama and the economy is producing jobs and prosperity. After 18 years in a U.S. jail cell, in Spetember 2007, Noriega was expedited to France to face charges against him there.

Are these the kind of people that our hard earned tax dollars are going to educate? Are these the kind of people we're promoting for the world? It is completely and utterly unjust that we, in essence, are subjecting innocent people internationally to suffer. It must end.

Neal Romain-Guatemala

Guatemala is a small country in Central America. It is bordered by Mexico, the Pacific ocean, Belize, the Caribbean Sea and El Salvador. The country itself has been stable since 1996 and is in continuous development and economic growth.
Bishop Juan Gerardi was Coordinator of the Human Rights Office for the Archdiocese of Guatemala. He was devoted to investigating thousands of gruesome killings, very similar to his. He was also the most visible human rights defender within the Catholic Church at this time. On January 21, 2000 SOA-trained Guatemalan Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada was arrested, along with his son, for the 1998 murder of Roman Catholic Bishop Gerardi.
A 1998 human rights report released by the Guatemala Archdiocese Human Rights Office helped link the SOA to the civilian-targeted genocide campaign, along with a report on the same campaign issued by the independent Historical Clarification Commission. The 1998 document cited SOA graduates for some of the worst human rights violations, including the murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack, the cover-up of the murder of US citizen Michael DeVine, and the torture and murder of Efrain Bamaca, husband of US lawyer, Jennifer Harbury. The Archdiocese report also named SOA graduates as top leaders in the fearsome Guatemalan military intelligence agency which both reports cite for horrible abuses.
These are two examples of the continuing violence coming form SOA graduates. This problem needs to be taken care of before more violent occurrences come up.

Venezuela

Venezuela, a South American country that's twice the size of California with a population of over 26,000,000, is starting to grow apart from the United States. In 2004 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated that all training of of Venezuelan Soldiers at the School of the Americas will cease. Chavez stated "This school deformed the minds of many Latin American soldiers, who from there went on to become dictators" when, in 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals that argued in favor of torture, extortion, and execution. Chavez experienced the SOA graduates first hand when, in 2002, when a 48-hour coup, with SOA graduates Efrain Vasquez Velasco and General Ramirez Poveda, threatened to overthrow the the democratically elected government. In January of 2002 Chavez met with Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, in a meeting set up by the Maryknoll Office for Global Concern. A few months later the ban was declared on soldiers from Venezuela being sent to the SOA.

Haiti

Haiti, officially Republic of Haiti, is located on the small western third of the island of Hispaniola. Starting in 1986 many attemps were made to create a civilian democracy, but they were all terminated by a military coup. In Sept. 1991 Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the first man to be elected as President in Haiti. Shortly after he was forced to leave the country. The army, which used terrorist violence to maintain power, repudiated the return of Aristide. In 2000 there was large number of politicial killings. In Nov. 2001 Aristide was re-elected as president of Haiti. By the next year the human rights and the rule of law had crumbled in Haiti, citing harrassment of politicians and attacks on journalists. In February of 2004 gangs allied with the government and were on the verge of entering the capital. In Oct. 2006 the U.S. lifted an arms embargo against Haiti, allowing the government to buy weapons and other equipment for Haitan police. Gangs still remain a major problem in Haiti today.

Honduras by Kayla Wilmoth

Lisa Sullivan wrote an article about a woman named Bertha and her husband who was dragged from their home in Honduras by fived armed men. Bertha organized for them to visit Honduras which is one of the leading countries sending troops to SOA. One of the most feared death squadsinall of Latin America is founded in Honduran SOA graduates. On April 3, 2006 a federal judge in Miami ordered Colonel Juan Lopez Grijalba, a former military intelligence chief from Honduras and a graduate of the School of the Americas, to pay $47 million to torture survivors and relatives of civilians murdered by Honduran military forces in the early 1980s. He was responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances in the Central American nation. I am glad to hear that they are fighting against these school in Latin America. This problem is frustrating and needs to be taken care of.