Tell Congress: Close the SOA!

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

If the federal budget is out of balance, why are we paying to train Latin American soldiers to make war on their own people? That's what Twin Ports-area students will be asking members of Congress when they travel to DC in April to take part in SOA Watch lobby days.

The School of the Americas, now officially known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), has graduated the worst human rights abusers and despots in our hemisphere. Our former representatives Jim Oberstar (MN-8) and Dave Obey (WI-7) were among the strongest congressional critics of the SOA/WHINSEC and worked for decades to close it down.

Now we need to make sure our new Congressmen get it right.

We need your help!

1. Donate air miles or money to help UMD and CSS students take part in lobby days. If you can donate miles, contact Margie at mnelson{at}css{dot}edu. Checks can be made out to "CJL at CSS" and mailed to:

Center for Just Living
attn: Jay Newcomb
1200 Kenwood Avenue
Duluth, MN 55811

2. Collect signatures! You can print out petition forms for Duffy here and Cravaack here.

Report-back from the SOA protest

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

(see earlier post for photos from the protest) 

10,000 people took part in this year's SOA protest

Bringing the Vigil Home:

Report from the School of the Americas protest

Thursday, January 27
7 PM
Holy Assumption Church
5601 Tower Ave, Superior
(past the fairgrounds)

Since 1946, the US Army's School of the Americas has trained Latin American troops to torture and make war on their own people. And for more than two decades, Twin Ports-area activists and legislators have been at the forefront of efforts to close it.

Please join us for a report from the most recent protest and learn how you can get involved in the movement to close the SOA and transform US policy in the Americas.

Featuring:

• - Music with Rachael Kilgour
• - Report and photos from the SOA protest at Ft Benning, GA
• - Eyewitness account of US military violence in Colombia from Linda Riddle
• - Student organizer Flo Matamoros on coming of age as an activist in post-war El Salvador
• - Former prisoner of conscience Rev. Brooks Anderson on the local SOA Watch movement
• - Petition forms, handouts and other action tools to help put pressure on our new Congressmen

All are welcome. Spanish interpretation available upon request.
For more information or rides from Duluth,
contact soawtwinports(at)riseup(dot)net or call Joel at 218-340-4356 

Report from Fort Benning

some of the Twin Ports contingent in sunny Georgia at the SOA protest

photo: Tom Bottolene

Over the weekend of November 19-21, 10,000 human rights activists converged at the gates of Ft Benning, Georgia to protest the US Army-sponsored "counterintelligence" training at the School of the Americas (re-branded the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001). Labor organizers, religious communities, students and human rights workers from Canada to Chile were represented. The Twin Ports contingent included members of 1st Lutheran Church and Peace Church, students and faculty at UMD and the College of St Scholastica, and NAWC steering committee members Joel Kilgour and Coly Wentzlaff.

The 3-day convergence was filled with workshops, cross-border networking sessions, music, labor and religious caucuses, and a colorful street protest. City and military police maintained a heavy presence throughout the entire weekend, filming everyone in attendance and flying surveillance helicopters over the protest as well as hotels, meeting spaces and restaurants in downtown Columbus. Undercover police infiltrated meetings and prayer gatherings. In an move that was strongly condemned by the OSCE and media rights organizations, Columbus police arrested two Russia Today journalists for covering the protest. They were both found guilty of demonstrating without a permit. Dozens of other people were arrested for moving outside a pre-designated protest zone, and UMD students were briefly detained by military police on suspicion of "unlawful political activity on a US military reservation" after their car was deliberately diverted onto Fort Benning by Columbus police.

On the bright side, the movement to close the SOA/WHINSEC and change US policy in Latin America is alive and growing. In the past few years, SOA Watch, the group that has organized 20 years of protests at Ft Benning, has solidified relationships with partner human rights groups in Latin America and expanded its campaign focus to include a new project to monitor US military bases across the hemisphere.

LOCAL PRESS COVERAGE:

Labor World: Area Activists Protest Georgia's SOA (15 Dec 2010)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. Write to SOA Watch political prisoners. Two human rights activists, David Omondi and Fr Louis Vitale, are each serving 6-month prison sentences for walking on to Ft Benning during the protest. Two more will soon face trial. For addresses, visit SOA Watch.
2. Write to your member of Congress. As him to follow the advice of Amnesty International by closing the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and investigating its infamous torture manuals. Below are addresses for those of you living in NE Minnesota. It's especially important to remind Chip Cravaack that his new constituents expect him to take a strong stand for human rights and to work to close the SOA/WHINSEC:
   

Representative-elect Chip Cravaack
508 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Senator Al Franken
515 W 1st St
Suite 104
Duluth, MN 55802

Senator Amy Klobuchar
1200 Washington Avenue South
Suite 250
Minneapolis, MN 55415


Team Duluth volunteered to collect money for SOA Watch over the weekend.
Here's Drew Valle and Tressa Erickson charming the cash off the crowd.
photo: Chris LeBlanc


Flo Matamoros and Melissa Marvin (R)
chillin' with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
photo: Chris LeBlanc


Joel Kilgour (L), Coly Wentzlaff and Linda Gokee-Rindal (2nd and 1st from R),
with some of the United Auto Workers contingent
photo: Claire Farmer-Lies


Musicians lead the crowd in song from the protest main stage
photo: Claire Farmer-Lies


Linda (L) and Coly (R) at the entrance to the protest
No marbles, squirt guns or "tools that can be used to defeat a gate."
Seriously, Columbus PD paid money for this.
photo: Claire Farmer-Lies


The unruly crowd, safely contained behind police barricades
photo: Claire Farmer-Lies

Lots more scenes from the weekend, including a big Minnesota group photo. can be found at CircleVision.org.

Colombia solidarity, from Duluth to Ft Benning

Area students and human rights activists are gearing up to join a major international protest against the School of the Americas in just three weeks! Carpools are leaving the Twin Ports for Ft Benning, Georgia on Nov 18th and 19th, most returning the evening of the 22nd. If you're interested, check out one of these carpool info sessions:

* CSS students only: Tuesday, Nov 2, 6pm at the Center for Just Living (T25)
* UMD students only: Wednesday, Nov. 3, 6pm K323
* Everyone else: Thursday, Nov 4, 6pm at the Center for Just Living (College of St Scholastica, Tower 25. Enter by Mitchell Auditorium parking lot)

If you can't make the trip, you can still hear one of the protest's keynote speakers, Father Jesus Alberto Franco, right here in the Twin Ports. This courageous Colombian human rights defender is defying threats of death to speak to us about the effect of US meddling in his country:

We Reap What We Sow:
Understanding the Impact of US Involvement in Colombia

with Padre Jesus Alberto Franco
Wednesday, Nov 3
3pm, UW Superior Old Main 316
7pm, College of St Scholastica Science Auditorium
Thursday, Nov 4
noon, UMD Library Rotunda
7pm, Peace United Church of Christ (1111 N 11th Av E)
Free and open to the public. Sponsored by Witness for Peace--Upper Midwest

15,000 people protest the SOA/WHINSEC

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

Some of the Northlanders at the protest. Photo: Margaret N.

As the mainstream media looked the other way, a major human rights gathering took place this weekend in Columbus, GA. Some 15,000 people from across the Americas converged there for three days of teach-ins, networking and a protest against the US Army's School of the Americas/WHINSEC. Resistance movement leaders and human rights activists from Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Colombia joined us -- a stark, country-by-country reminder that the US is not only taking the wrong path in Afghanistan, but in this hemisphere, too.

Dozens of people from the Twin Ports and Ashland took part in the weekend's events, including our largest ever Duluth student delegation. Rachael Kilgour represented the Northland at the main stage of the protest and at an evening benefit concert in downtown Columbus, singing some of her own songs and protest standards. In addition to official SOA Watch events, Duluth activists also joined migrant workers picketing grocery stores in Columbus for fair wages and stopped along the way in Atlanta to protest Coca-Cola's collaboration with death squads.

Despite occasional threats and harassment by Columbus and military police, the event went largely as planned. Michael Walli of Duluth was arrested on Sunday after he and three others attempted to enter Ft Benning. He refused to post bail but was released on his own recognizance on Monday pending a January trial.

Thanks to the Duluth Central Labor Body, the St Scholastica Monastery, and CSS Student Senate for making it possible for Duluth-area students to take part in this incredible event. Look for a report-back sometime in December, but in the meantime you can check out the photos after the jump.

People begin to arrive at Ft Benning's main gate. The Honduran coup and pending
US-Colombia military agreement are at the forefront of everyone's minds.

Margaret N. from CSS stands at the main gate. Three rows of fencing and
hundreds of MPs protect the base from those dangerous college students and nuns.

Big brother was watching.

The crowds swell to the thousands. The roots of SOA Watch are in Catholic resistance movements, including many nuns and priests who served as missionaries and were themselves imprisoned and tortured under brutal right-wing regimes in Latin America. While the protest has grown more inclusive over the years, many symbols of the that early movement -- including white crosses to commemorate the dead -- remain.

This die-in along the route of the protest commemorates the 700 women, men and children massacred in El Mozote, El Salvador by SOA graduates in 1980.

CSS and UMD students collect donations to support SOA Watch.

A puppet pageant commemorated the 20th anniversary of the murder of 6 Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her 16-year old daughter at the University of Central America in El Salvador.

The weekend ended with a solemn procession to commemorate the victims of SOA graduates. As the names of thousands of victims were read aloud from the stage, activists transformed Ft Benning's main gate into a memorial.

Vigil and Direct Action to close the SOA/WHINSEC

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

What do the coup plotters in Honduras, death squads in Colombia, and union-busting security forces in Mexico have in common? They were all trained on the US taxpayers' dime at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC in Ft Benning, Georgia.

It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That’s impossible.

SOA grad and Honduran Army Attorney Col. Herberth Inestroza,
justifying the military coup to the Miami Herald

Over the weekend of November 21-22, tens of thousands of people will converge at Ft Benning to say no to the SOA/WHINSEC and the repressive foreign policy it represents. We are closer than ever to passing legislation in Congress to close and investigate the school, and a strong showing at this protest is critical.

Our neck of the woods has always been well-represented at SOA protests, and this year will be no different. If you can join us, please do. If you can't, consider making a donation to offset costs for those who can.

(photo: Honduran general and SOA graduate Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, leader of the military coup that toppled democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya).


RIDES to the Protest

* Students and staff at UMD and LSC ONLY, contact Steve at wickx079(at)d(dot)umn(dot)edu or 612-501-0269. Cars depart Friday a.m. and return Monday evening. Thanks to the Duluth Central Labor Body, travel and housing expenses per person will be minimal.

* Students and staff at St Scholastica ONLY, contact Signey at SOlson7(at)css(dot)edu. School vans depart Thursday and Friday, and return Monday evening. Only $20/person for travel and housing, thanks to support from Student Senate.

* Other members of the community, contact Joel at soawtwinports(at)riseup(dot)net or 218-340-4356 for carpool info.

DONATE

A big thanks to the Duluth Central Labor Body and CSS Student Senate for generously sponsoring student travel to the protest!

But please consider pitching in a few dollars to help defray travel expenses for other northlanders - they are spending a lot of time on the road and taking time off work to represent us in Georgia! Checks can be made out to Veterans for Peace, earmarked "SOAW", and sent to:

Veterans for Peace
c/o Andy Anderson
16 E St Andrews St
Duluth, MN 55803

SOA-trained Honduran military fires on democracy activists

By Twin Ports SOA Watch

photo: Honduras Indymedia

Yesterday, President Manuel Zelaya returned to Honduras, defying threats of arrest by the coup government that abducted him at gunpoint and forced him into exile in June. He is currently enjoying the protection of the Brazilian embassy. Upon hearing of Zelaya's return yesterday afternoon, thousands of democracy activists began gathering around the embassy to celebrate, defying a 4pm curfew imposed by the coup government.

Honduran media reports that the military and police have begun to violently disrupt the protests, firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd and making arbitrary arrests. This contempt for democracy should come as no surprise, as much of the Honduran military leadership was trained to make war on their own people at the US Army School of the Americas.

The Honduran resistance movement has called for a national strike, but worry that the coup government, knowing that its time is coming to an end, may lash out with brutal violence. The coup government has already threatened to cancel the immunity of the Brazilian embassy, a move that could turn the Honduran crisis into a regional conflict. Read more to take action.

SOA Watch recommends that we call the State Department at 202-647-4000 and the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 to deliver the following message: "Work for the unconditional immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya, demand that the Honduran military doesn't move against the people and their democratically elected president, Mel Zelaya and ensure that the coup plotters will be held responsible for their actions. Any bloodshed will be on the hands of the coup government and security forces."

Stay posted to NarcoNews for English-language updates from the resistance.

And please consider traveling with Twin Ports SOA Watch to Georgia this November 20-22 for a mass mobilization against the SOA/WHINSEC. Contact us at soawtwinports[at]riseup[dot]net or call Joel at 218-340-4356 for details.

NAWC Statement on the Crisis in Honduras

We offer our support and admiration to the people of Honduras who are bravely and nonviolently confronting the coup regime

They're afraid of us because we're not afraid

August 11, 2009

BACKGROUND:

On June 28, 2009, heavily-armed Honduran soldiers abducted President Manuel Zelaya from his home and forced him into exile in neighboring Costa Rica. The coup d’etat was staged on behalf of the wealthiest sectors in Honduran society, who were unhappy about minimum wage increases and other reforms enacted or proposed by the populist president. The military leaders who carried out the coup included many notorious human rights abusers and one-time accomplices of the US-backed Battalion 3-16 death squad, which terrorized Honduras throughout the 1980s.

Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans have taken to the streets in protest, and teachers and hospital workers have announced indefinite strikes. Security forces are responding to the resistance with tear gas, clubs, and even live ammunition. According to international human rights organizations, at least ten Zelaya supporters have been killed or disappeared since the coup, and many more have been critically wounded. On July 1, interim president Roberto Michiletti announced the suspension of civil liberties across the country, and security forces have harassed or closed press outlets that are critical of the coup regime. Parts of the country are under 24-hour curfew.

The coup has been roundly condemned by the international community, including the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations. The Obama Administration has declared the coup illegal and suspended most military aid to Honduras as well as the diplomatic visas of some of the coup plotters.

However, the US maintains a military presence in Honduras and, despite pledges from Obama to cut military assistance to the coup regime, Honduran troops continue to train at the Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas. In recent days, the US State Department under Hillary Clinton has backed away from calling the coup a coup or demanding Zelaya’s return, and has taken to suggesting Zelaya’s “provocative actions” caused his removal from power. Former Clinton White House lawyer Lanny Davis has been retained by Honduran business leaders as a pro-coup lobbyist in Washington, and public relations firms are working hard on behalf of the coup plotters to influence the debate in the US with a campaign of misinformation.

NAWC’S POSITION:

The Northland Anti-War Coalition, representing hundreds of labor, religious, peace, student and community activists in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin, strongly condemns the coup d’etat and illegitimate Michiletti government in Honduras. We offer our support and admiration to the people of Honduras who are bravely and nonviolently confronting the coup regime with mass marches, blockades and strikes.

We further call on the Obama Administration to withdraw military forces from Honduras; to sever all military ties with the coup regime (including training of Honduran soldiers at the SOA/WHINSEC); and to suspend diplomatic visas and freeze US-held assets of all members of the coup regime.

We call on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to show the same support to the democracy movement in Honduras as she does to the democracy movement in Iran. Clinton is wrong when she labels Zelaya and his supporters “reckless” and “irresponsible” for rightfully resisting the coup regime. Clinton should place the blame for violence in Honduras where it belongs: the coup government.

Finally, we support the efforts of Representative James Oberstar and others in Congress to close and investigate of the School of the Americas/WHINSEC, which has for decades trained Latin American soldiers to make war on their own people. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, leader of the Honduran armed forces that overthrew President Zelaya, is a graduate of the school, as are at least 5 other coup leaders. The SOA/WHINSEC represents a terrible chapter in US history, and its closure should mark a radical new approach to Latin America based not on greed and militarization, but on respect, economic justice and cooperation.

Oberstar cosponsors Honduras bill, Obama dishonest about US role

by Twin Ports SOA Watch

Representative James Oberstar (MN 8) is one of 15 original co-sponsors to a resolution in the House of Representatives demanding the reinstatement of President Mel Zelaya of Honduras and an end to all non-humanitarian aid to the coup government. If you live in the districts of Congressmen Dave Obey (WI 7) or Collin Peterson (MN 7), please call your representative today and urge him to sponsor HR 630. The Honduran junta expected tacit approval, if not a warm welcome from the US government. Congress must condemn the coup unequivocally... the people of Honduras are counting on it. Read the full resolution after the jump.

Capitol switchboard: 202.224.3121. Ask to be transferred to your representative's office, then ask to speak to your representative's foreign policy aide.

Sample message:
I urge Representative ______________ to join in co-sponsoring House Resolution 630, introduced by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA), Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), calling for Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be returned to office, and welcoming the mediation efforts of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. It is important to your constituents in _____state_______ that the U.S. Congress be loud and clear in condemning this military coup and supporting democracy in Honduras--and the Latin American region.

In other Honduras news, despite the insistence of the Obama administration that the US has suspended all military aid to Honduras, the National Catholic Reporter has learned that Honduran troops continue to train at the School of the Americas.

House Resolution 630:

Condemning the June 28, 2009 coup d'état in Honduras, calling for the reinstatement of President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and for other purposes.

Whereas Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales was elected President of Honduras in November 2005 in elections that were deemed free and fair by international observers;

Whereas President Zelaya and other political actors in Honduras became embroiled in a political dispute over whether to hold a non-binding referendum asking Honduran voters whether they wanted a constituent assembly to be established to amend the Constitution;

Whereas on June 28, 2009, the day that the non-binding referendum was to take place, Honduran military forces stormed President Zelaya's residence, apprehended him, sent him out of the country, and seized the materials for the referendum;

Whereas the Honduran Congress named Roberto Micheletti, the head of the Congress, as President and subsequently suspended a number of constitutional rights, including the freedom of association and of movement;

Whereas the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has expressed its concerns regarding human rights abuses by the de facto Micheletti government, including the arbitrary detention of Zelaya supporters;

Whereas the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and the European Union—representing governments from across the political spectrum—have condemned the coup d'état, refused to recognize the de facto Micheletti government, and demanded the unconditional return of President Zelaya to office;

Whereas on July 1, 2009, the Organization of American States voted unanimously to suspend Honduras from participation in the OAS unless President Zelaya was returned to office within three days;

Whereas, on July 4, 2009, the OAS unanimously voted to suspend Honduras;

Whereas the Administration of President Barack Obama has condemned President Zelaya's removal, supported the OAS resolutions regarding Honduras, and demanded that he be returned to office;

Whereas the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank have suspended aid and loans to Honduras;

Whereas national elections are scheduled in Honduras for November 29, 2009;

Whereas President Zelaya has said that he will only serve until his term ends in January 2010;

Whereas it is critical for the stability of Honduras that the November 2009 elections be free, fair, and transparent; and

Whereas U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced on July 7, 2009, that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias would seek to negotiate a solution to the crisis, and President Zelaya and the de facto Micheletti government have agreed to the mediation of President Arias.

Therefore, the House of Representatives:

1) Condemns the June 28, 2009, coup d'état in Honduras and refuses to recognize the de facto Micheletti government installed by that coup d'état;
2) Calls on the Obama Administration to continue to refuse to recognize the de facto Micheletti government;

3) Calls for the reinstatement of President Zelaya as President of Honduras;

4) Urges the Obama Administration to suspend non-humanitarian assistance to the de facto Micheletti government as required by U.S. law and as it deems necessary to compel the return of President Zelaya to office;

5) Calls for extensive international observation of the November 2009 elections once President Zelaya is returned to office to ensure that his successor is elected freely, fairly, and transparently; and

6) Welcomes the mediation of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and encourages the Obama Administration to provide any assistance President Arias requests in his efforts.

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!!!