Honduran coup leaders trained at SOA/WHINSEC

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

School of the Americas Watch reports that several leaders of yesterday's military coup in Honduras were trained at the infamous US Army School of the Americas.

The coup was staged by the Honduran military on behalf of the country's ruling elite, in an attempt to derail a vote on a resolution to open a constitutional assembly. Honduras is run by an entrenched oligarchy, and the constitutional changes proposed by populist president Manuel Zelaya would have opened the Honduran democracy to it's poor majority. President Zelaya was forcibly removed from office and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

While there doesn't appear to be evidence of direct US involvement in the coup, and Secretary of State Clinton has called for Zelaya's reinstatement, the US government is indirectly complicit by training Latin American militaries to make war on their own people through the SOA and similar institutions.

Today the Honduran people are rising up against the coup leaders. Check out Honduras Indymedia, Narco News or Presente!, the SOA Watch magazine for more analysis and reports.

Pastors for Peace caravan to Cuba

Pastors for Peace send-off

& SALSA DANCE PARTY
Tuesday, July 7
Lafayette Community Center (3026 Minnesota Ave on the Point)

6:00 p.m. beans & rice dinner, presentation by Ellen Bernstein

7:30 p.m. Salsa lessons with Juliana Bertelsen of
'Over the Top' dance studio
8:00 p.m. until ?: Dance, dance dance!

$10 suggested donation, no-one turned away

Once again, Pastors for Peace is gearing up to defy the US embargo on Cuba by delivering aid to the island without a license. And once again, one of the legs of the Friendshipment caravan will start in Duluth. Come on out to support Pastors for Peace and shake your salsa thang!

This year we're lucky to hear from Ellen Bernstein, a long-time staffperson at the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing (IFCO) who has traveled to Cuba 60 times since 1990. She recently led the Congressional Black Caucus on their April tour of the island and also works with the Latin American School of Medicine to recruit low-income students in the US to study medicine on a full scholarship in Havana.

Sponsored by the Twin Ports Cuba Solidarity Committee.

Duluth – Rania Friendship Exchange Report

Wednesday, July 1
7PM
Science Auditorium, College of St Scholastica

Come learn about Rania, a city in Iraqi Kurdistan from six Duluthians who traveled there in May for a friendship exchange. The delegation included Brooks Anderson, Marv Heikkinen, Donna Howard, Arno Kahn, Tom Morgan and Salima Swenson. The returned travelers will speak about their experiences with the Kurdish people and a future relationship between Rania and Duluth. Mayor Don Ness will be presented with a letter from the mayor of Rania, and members of Duluth Sister City International will also attend. The presentation will be followed by Q&A, refreshments and a chance to learn how you can get involved!

End SOA/WHINSEC secrecy - act today!

UPDATE (6/25): WE WON, BY A VOTE OF 224-190! Now it must pass a House-Senate Conference Committee to become law. Stay tuned to SOA Watch for more.

Most House Democrats supported the measure, including our own James Oberstar and David Obey. SHOCKINGLY, Collin Peterson of Minnesota (including Bemidji, Detroit Lakes) and Bart Stupak of the UP voted AGAINST transparency. If you are a constituent of either Peterson or Stupak, please contact them to express your disappointment.

ON WEDNESDAY, June 24, the House will vote on a Defense Authorization Act amendment that would require the Army to release names, ranks, countries of origin and courses attended for students of the notorious School of the Americas/WHINSEC.

SOA/WHINSEC is a US-run training program for Latin American armed forces that has graduated the worst human rights abusers, dictators and coup-leaders in the hemisphere. In 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release SOA training manuals that advocated torture, disappearances and blackmail against nuns, trade unionists, students and indigenous activists.

In 2000, the Pentagon "closed" the SOA and reopened it under a new name - the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). They promised that the school would be more transparent, yet they have consistently blocked the release of student data to human rights groups.

This information must be public, so that we can track the activities of graduates and expose the SOA/WHINSEC for what it is: a training ground for the hired guns of transnational corporations.

TAKE ACTION TODAY!!!

Please call your representative and urge him or her to vote yes on this amendment. Here are the numbers for our area representatives:

David Obey (WI-7, including Superior and Ashland):
(202) 225-3365
James Oberstar (MN-8, including Duluth and Grand Rapids):
(202) 225-6211
Colin Peterson (MN-7, including Detroit Lakes and Bemidji):
(202) 225-2165

SUGGESTED MESSAGE:

Hello, My name is __________, and as your constituent, I urge you to vote YES on the McGovern-Sestak-Bishop-Lewis amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill.

The amendment would release the names, country of origin, rank and dates of attendance at WHINSEC for graduates and instructors. This amendment is supported by Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Congressman Ike Skelton.

As you may know the School of the Americas, renamed WHINSEC, has a notorious history linked to serious crimes and human rights abuses throughout Latin America. In the past few years under WHINSEC, known human rights abusers have attended the school and WHINSEC instructors have been arrested in Colombia for returning home and aiding the drug cartels. None of this information would be known if the basic information about enrollment at WHINSEC were not disclosed. This information is vital to the work of Congress and human rights organizations who seek protection of human rights and promoting transparency, however all FOIA requests for this information are now being denied.

What is WHINSEC hiding?! Voting YES on the McGovern-Sestak-Bishop-Lewis amendment is a vote FOR human rights and FOR transparency. I urge your boss to vote YES!!!

The Real Nuclear Bullies

by Bob Kosuth
Published in the Reader Weekly 6/18/09

The Reader's May 28 article on North Korea's nuclear ambitions immediately reminded me of a 1981 collection of essays entitled Protest and Survive (Monthly Review Press), in which Daniel Ellsberg makes the point that the US has in fact used nuclear weapons repeatedly since 1945 just as one uses a gun pointed at someone's head regardless of whether the trigger is pulled or not. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the utility of nuclear weapons is not in the application but the threat.

Obviously, this is what the North Koreans are trying to accomplish as well. What has made it so sensitive and unacceptable is that the nuclear prerogative is one that the US wants to preserve only for itself and its intimate friends.
One of the best buddies of the US in the nuclear club is the state of Israel, which is in possession of a sizeable number of nuclear weapons. Unlike North Korea, Israel has never opened itself up to international inspections or signed any non-proliferation agreements.

The North Koreans have stated publicly that their intention in developing nuclear weapons is to call attention to US/Western/Israeli hypocrisy on nuclear weapons issues and demand direct state to state talks and full diplomatic relations with the US.

The situation with Iran is similar. It's ok for the US and Israel to be able to threaten Iran with nuclear weapons but the reverse is not acceptable. It's encouraging that many young Iranians have rejected the idea of being pawns in this game as evidenced in the recent election even though their voices are now being stifled. Similarly, both in Israel and around the world many Jews have begun to separate their Jewish identities from Zionist colonialism in Palestine. Unfortunately, in both places there still exist powerful elites who manipulate fear and nationalism to stay in power.

The North Korean situation brings all of this to the fore. The media pundits and academics are having a field day debating who's on first in Pyongyang and why, calibrating whether North Korean missiles can reach Sara Palin in Alaska (Can US missiles reach North Korea? Can Israel bomb Iran? Duh!), and whether or not North Korea can eventually become another China, quietly buying US debt and supplying cheap goods to Walmart.

All of this frenetic media and State Department bluster is, of course, intended to drown out any honest examination of who wrote and continues to enforce the nuclear weapons game rules in the first place. Any re-evaluation of these issues will have to start on Main Street because it will surely not be forthcoming from any addresses on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Israeli feminist and antiracist activist speaks in Duluth

Israeli Feminism and One State for Israel/Palestine

Featuring Dr. Smadar Lavie
Hubert H. Humphrey Distinguished Visiting Professor on Islam and the Middle East, Macalester College

Saturday, June 13
4:30PM
Friends Meeting House
1802 E 1st St, Duluth

Dr Smadar Lavie is an Israeli author and anthropologist currently teaching at Macalester College. An outspoken feminist and anti-racist activist, Dr Lavie has faced repression in Israel as a result of her support for the rights of Arabs and Mizrahi (non-European) Jews. She advocates a peaceful, one-state solution to the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Please join us for what promises to be an eye-opening presentation.

You can read an essay written by Dr Lavie about the siege of Gaza and the politics of racism in Israel on the Electronic Intifada website.