Shut down SOA

At the School of the Americas protest two weekends ago in Ft. Benning, Ga., I met a woman named Maria from El Salvador who had been tortured by SOA graduates. She had been working with teachers' unions during the civil war, in which leftist, Communist and peasant groups, backed by the Soviet Union, fought the right-wing junta government, backed by America. The El Salvadorian junta committed documented massacres of Catholic clergy and relief workers, and tortured and assassinated suspected insurgents lie Maria. Her spine, arm and clavicle were broken, her son was killed and she had to flee the country. I cried for her and the countless documented and undocumented victims, including members of my mother's family in Colombia.

My father, a conservative, was furious when he heard I was at the SOA Watch. The enemies of America have changed faces, it seems, but are still gunning to compromise our economic interests unless we churn out SOA graduates. He yelled at me, calling me a Chavez supporter (I am not) and arguing that the documented cases of SOA graduates committing human rights abuses are so small, why shut down the whole organization?

Not only is that logic ridiculous, insensitive and un-American, but it also ignores what the SOA actually is. The SOA is solely in existence to train military groups to act in Latin America on behalf of American interests.

I told my father that I thought this attitude is disgusting and ignorant. Hundreds of victims of SOA atrocities-as well as many major religious and international organizations, American veterans and every kind of political organization-were joining us in protesting the SOA.

All these people crossed boundaries to recognize that America's involvement in Latin America has directly led to human rights abuses and atrocities. And I saw that, without a doubt, people like my father who support the SOA are the ones who are myopic and ill-informed.

Just imagine yourself going to Ft. Benning, witnessing the stories of victims, and watching U.S. military helicopters circling above and police taking aim preemptively on a peaceful rally of people including children and clergy. Or put yourself in the shoes of so many Latin Americans: afraid to fight for your beliefs under threat of torture, and having to watch your friends and family being tortured and killed by groups with U.S. ties.

Then you can't possibly think that America's interests are worth supporting atrocity in any degree and sacrificing America's ideals of freedom and commitment to human rights.

My point, and the point of the SOA Watch, is to demand that the American government have zero involvement in any way with human rights abuse, and get out of Latin America. That is our prerogative as citizens of the premier country in the world.