cannabisnews.com: Column: A School That Should Be Closed





Column: A School That Should Be Closed
Posted by FoM on November 09, 1999 at 09:43:21 PT
By Nihar Bhatt, The Diamondback
Source: U-WIRE
Massive crisis and rebellion shook the foundations of the Latin-American society over the last year. These tumults may have scared U.S. politicians into feeling that their grip on power in Central and South America could be slipping. 
In Venezuela, where the United States gets more oil than from the Middle East, output has fallen by 9.6 percent in the second quarter of this year, and the economy is expected to contract by 6 percent overall. Last winter, President Hugo Chavez was brought to power from the popular discontent that these conditions have caused. About one-third of all Brazilians now live in poverty due to dropping wages and unemployment. Banks in Ecuador have collapsed, and the country has cycled through four presidents in the last four years. In both of these countries, workers have staged mass strikes and demonstrations in protest of austerity measures designed to bring in the International Monetary Fund. At the center of this is the large-scale crisis in Colombia, which is experiencing its worst recession since the 1930s. The largest rebel guerrilla group in Colombia, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, now controls almost half of the towns in the country. Twelve major strikes have happened in the last year, which have involved millions of workers. The U.S. government is worried about losing its influence in the region -- sparking its $289 million in military assistance to Colombia this year, which they are quickly stepping up. The U.S. military has also been training special groups of Colombian soldiers to raid rebel areas, while remaining silent to the butchery of the right-wing death squads. These death groups, according to the Colombian government, are responsible for 80 percent of killings in the civil war. All this is happening under the guise of a war on drugs -- even though the death squads have been linked to large scale drug-trafficking operations while the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency as well as the president of Colombia have both said that they have no proof that the rebels are involved in any. This cooperation with the Colombian government's repression is a long-standing tradition of the United States' Latin-American strategy. For decades, the United States has backed butchers from Argentina to Haiti to keep areas safe for its business interests. A key part of this process is the U.S. Army School of the Americas, a training center for Latin-American and Caribbean military and police officers. The school was originally in Panama but has been relocated to Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. In 1996, the Pentagon declassified manuals used at the School of Americas instructing torture, false imprisonment, bounty hunting and blackmail. In 1997, the U.S. government was forced to admit to running a school that has trained some of the most notoriously brutal dictators, generals and death squad leaders who have committed atrocities in Central and South America. Some of the most famous graduates of the School of the Americas include Roberto D'Aubuisson, leader of death squads in El Salvador that were accused of killing Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. Leopold Galtieri is another graduate; as leader of the Argentinean military junta, he oversaw a regime where more than 30,000 people either disappeared or were killed. According to an organization of mothers of disappeared Argentineans, the Argentinean military would fly victims out over the ocean and dump them alive. Diana Ortiz brought her story to the White House several years ago about suffering at the hands of Guatemalan security forces lead by School of the Americas graduate General Hector Gramajo: "They took me to a clandestine prison where I was tortured and raped repeatedly. My back and chest were burned by cigarettes. I was lowered into an open pit packed with human bodies -- bodies of children, women and men, some decapitated, some lying face up and caked with blood, some dead, some alive -- and all swarming with rats." The U.S. government defends the School of the Americas, saying that it is an institution that brings democratic, American values to regimes in Latin America. The justifications for intervention have changed over time. The anti-communism of the Cold War has given way to the war on drugs and humanitarian intervention of today. No matter what the current rhetoric is, the United States' need for the School of the Americas boils down to the crisis and conflict that began this article; the school has trained more officers in the Colombian military than anywhere else. Last November, more than 7,000 people, including students from this campus, traveled to Fort Benning in Georgia to demand that the school be closed down. This year, organizers are predicting that the protest will be even bigger. Latin America is a powder keg. The government knows that -- that's why they have the school and the cynical tactics that they are using in Colombia. We know that -- that's why we are building opposition to its sick military machine. Everyone who is on the side of the jailed -- and not the jailers of Latin America -- should go to Fort Benning from Nov. 19 to 21 to shut down the School of the Americas. Published: November 8, 1999(C) 1999 The Diamondback via U-WIRE Copyright © 1995-1999 Excite Inc
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on November 09, 1999 at 17:15:56 PT
Dictators, banks...and the SoA
Whenever you hear some politician mouth off about how we should always be ready to protect American interests, rememeber to insert the word 'corporate' betweem 'American' and 'interests'. And so much better if they can get someone else among the locals to do it for them. This gives a new twist on the economic trend of the '90s...'outsourcing'. And the SoA is the perfect 'employment agency' of mercs in Latin America.The economies of the Latin American countries are on the verge of the same meltdown that happened to Indonesia last year. With economic meltdown comes civil unrest. With civil unrest comes destruction of property. American corporate property.Which is why we have been siphoning off our hard earned dollars to prop up butchers. Butchers who kill unionizers. Butchers who indiscriminately slaughter whole villages of native peoples. Butchers - bought and paid for with your tax dollars. But as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said of the dictator Somoza, "He's a sonofabitch, but he's *our* sonofabitch." That's the way corporate America has always operated. So long as *our* 'sonsofbitches' do what they are told, we keep them going. Noriega was a perfect example.But an even worse matter is just waiting to explode: the enormous sums that have been loaned to these poor nations were made without effective collateral. And underwitten by the US taxpayer. Should these nations default, as they are always threatening to do, the banks in the US would go under. They would in turn call in the collateral on all *domestic* loans to prop themselves up. In order to meet the cash squeeze, the Fed would allow Treasury to massively inflate the money supply, creating inflation and destroy the value of savings, overnight.The resulting depression would make the Great Crash of 1929 look like a tea and crumpet party. With the interdependance of national economies, the effect of this catastrophe would be felt world-wide.Yes, Latin America is a powder keg. And we made the keg, stuffed it with powder, and contrived the fuse. And now *we* (meaning corporate America) are arming 'our sonsofbitches' to stand ready to keep the locals in line...while protecting American (economic) interests... if things go really sour.(Rather like the Drug Warriors demanding universal urine testing to keep the locals in line, while turning our police forces into paramilitary groups more dangerous than any half-baked 'militia' ever could be.)Yes, the SoA is an abomination... but it is only the surface mole of a cancer that runs very deep, right here at home.
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Comment #1 posted by Dave in Florida on November 09, 1999 at 13:56:47 PT
Hmmmm
This sort of thing makes you wonder.. A key part of this process is the U.S. Army School of the Americas, a training center for Latin-American and Caribbeanmilitary and police officers. The school was originally in Panama but has been relocated to Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. In 1996, the Pentagon declassified manuals used at the School of Americas instructing torture, false imprisonment, bounty hunting and blackmail.- Yea, this is what we need in the "War on Drugs"- In 1997, the U.S. government was forced to admit to running a school that has trained some of the most notoriously brutal dictators, generals and death squad leaders who have committed atrocities in Central and South America. The U.S. government defends the School of the Americas, saying that it is an institution that brings democratic, American values- "American Values", Surely you jest, Oh yea I forgot, those must be the values of the Prohibitionist, TORTURE, FALSE IMPRISIONMENT, BOUNTY HUNTING and BLACKMAIL !-to regimes in Latin America. The justifications for intervention have changed over time. The anti-communism of the Cold War has given way to the war on drugs and humanitarian intervention of today. No matter what the current rhetoric is,the United States' need for the School of the Americas boils down to the crisis and conflict that began this article; the schoolhas trained more officers in the Colombian military than anywhere else. Last November, more than 7,000 people, including students from this campus, traveled to Fort Benning in Georgia to demand that the school be closed down. This year, organizers are predicting that the protest will be even bigger. Latin America is a powder keg. The government knows that -- that's why they have the school and the cynical tactics that they are using in Colombia. We know that -- that's why we are building opposition to its sick military machine. Everyone who is on the side of the jailed -- and not the jailers of Latin America -- should go to Fort Benning from Nov. 19 to 21 to shut down the School of the Americas.- It's about timeDave in Florida
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