From the School of the Americas Watch email list:
We are very excited to announce that President Evo Morales announced Tuesday that Bolivia will gradually withdraw its military from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School for the Americas (SOA). Bolivia is now the fifth country after Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to formally announce a withdrawal from the school!
“We will gradually withdraw until there are no Bolivian officers attending the School of the Americas,” said Morales. Questioning the U.S. government’s foreign policy he noted that “they are teaching high ranking officers to confront their own people, to identify social movements as their enemies.”
This is a great victory for torture survivors, social movement leaders and human rights activists of Bolivia and the Americas. The SOA/WHINSEC has played a significant role in Bolivia’s recent political history, Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia from 1971-1978 under a brutal military dictatorship attended the school in 1956 and was later inducted into the school’s “hall of fame” in 1988. The SOA has trained tens of thousands of Bolivian military officers in the past fifty years. In October of 2006, two former graduates of the SOA/WHINSEC, Generals Juan Veliz Herrera and Gonzalo Rocabado Mercado were arrested on charges of torture, murder, and violation of the constitution for their responsibility in the death of 67 civilians in El Alto Bolivia during the “Gas Wars” of September-October 2003.
In March 2006 a School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) delegation led by Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio, and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois met with President Evo Morales to request that Bolivia cease to send troops for training at the SOA/WHINSEC.
Venezuela was the first Latin American country to stop sending its soldiers for training at SOA/WHINSEC (more on Argentina, Uruguay and Costa Rica’s withdrawal here and here), the so-called “School of Assassins” which has for decades had clear ties to the teaching of torture and assassination in Latin America. In addition to high profile victims of SOA violence such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, thousands upon thousands of members of the Body of Christ have been, and continue to be, victimized as a result of United States policy in Latin America through this institution. If the countless voices crying for the school’s closure (including the voices of of the martyrs) do not move the United States government to act, let’s hope that more Latin American countries follow suit and put the SOA/WHINSEC out of business by withdrawing their customers.
October 11, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Michael,
I’ve never heard of this… When did Venezuela pull out, do you know?
October 11, 2007 at 8:03 pm
This is good news. The School of the Americas has been enabling evil for years.
October 11, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Katerina – Chavez announced it in January of 2004.
October 11, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Whatever one thinks of the School of the Americas (and I’m inclined to think that it should be closed), it doesn’t seem at all clear that closing the place would improve the human rights record of Latin American countries (though perhaps the fact that a country is no longer willing to send officers there is itself a sign that things are improving). Hugo Banzer Suarez was a brutal thug and SOA graduate. Does anyone think that he would have been an upstanding citizen if only he hadn’t attended SOA?
October 11, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Does anyone think that he would have been an upstanding citizen if only he hadn’t attended SOA?
I’m not aware of anyone, especially anti-SOA activists, who would make that kind of thoughtless claim. The SOA is part of a complex set of relationships. Closing the SOA is a step in the right direction, but only one small part of a huge problem. MM’s choice of the word “enabling” is on target here.
October 11, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Who enabled more evil in South America in the latter half of the 20th Century: the U.S. or the Soviet Union? One need not defend every graduate of SOA to recognize the Cold War context which fostered its existence.
However bumbling or harmless they may have seemed, I’ve heard former counterintelligence officers here at my school tell some bone-chilling stories about the agressive, highly-organized, and committed stone cold killers deployed by the Soviets to S. America to train and forment trouble.
I hope its demise means the U.S. pulls back its presence significantly so as to better concentrate on its own borders and the new challenges of jihadism – which thank God appears to be much less of a global concern than communism.
October 11, 2007 at 8:59 pm
OK, so it’s fine to do evil because those communists are “more evil”? That is proportionalism.
October 11, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I didn’t offer excuses for evil because I do not accept your wide, ideologically driven definition in this particular case. The existence of a military school is not evil, and training to counter opposition forces is not evil.
The excesses and actions that may come the above might be, and the point still holds: it was right to counter communist influence and the homocide and misery that tended to follow, and one need not defend (or in what seems to be the implication from your comment, project that someone else does defend) any particular action to recognize this.
October 11, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Yes, Communists bad. Granted. The SOA still not looking any better…
Pax Christi,
October 11, 2007 at 9:57 pm
I doubt if Bolivia’s cutting ties with the School of the America’s has anything to do with a concern for human rights. President Morales has long been a supporter of Fidel Castro and his regime in Cuba, and is a close ally of Castro-wanna-be Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. This is all part of Morales’ determination to be a player in an anti-US bloc in South America.
On October 9 of this year Morales gave this statement in memory of murderous thug Che Guevara:
” In Bolivia, the leftist President, Evo Morales, visited the site where Che was first buried after his execution, and addressed a crowd of mourners on a windswept hill just outside Vallegrande.
“Che lives,” he said.
“His heroic struggle and that of other revolutionaries will continue until savage capitalism is changed.
“Latin America cannot continue being the backyard of American imperialism.”"
Source: BBC News
Morales keeps a portrait of Che in his office made out of coca leaves. Considering the fact that Che was chief executioner for Castro after Castro seized power in Cuba, one can perhaps assume that Morales is not overly concerned with human rights abuses.
October 11, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Jonathan,
Sorry, but that’s complete rubbish. First, don’t speak in generalizations about the legitimacy or not of military schools. This school trained Latin American death squads. That is a fact. Whether the people the death squads murdered were good or bad is not relevant. Please stop defending morally indefensible acts by weighing the consequences or appealing to proportional considerations.
October 11, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Who enabled more evil in South America in the latter half of the 20th Century: the U.S. or the Soviet Union?
First, MM nails it on the head. The question of quantification of evil deeds is absolutely irrelevant. It matters not who committed “more evil.” If the Soviets tortured one more person or killed one more person than the U.S. in South America, would that really eclipse the fact that the U.S. government aided some of the bloodiest regimes in the history of South America?
Second, Reagan’s administration was one of the most corrupt and murderous administrations the U.S. has ever seen. Reagan and his cronies provided economic and military support for Pinochet, the Argentine regimes of the “Dirty War” and Bautista in Cuba–all in the name of U.S. economic interests and of Cold War comeraderie. I’m going to say this straight: When it comes to how much evil was committed in South America, Soviet Russia and the Reagan States had more in common than one would ever think. The U.S. was a sponsor of terrorism during the 1980’s, and no historical spin will ever disprove that glaring fact.
October 11, 2007 at 11:17 pm
That certain SOA graduates were members of death squads I don’t think anyone disputes. That they trained death squads is, I think, an overstatement.
Also, it’s hard to see how the Reagan administration could have provided economic and military support for Batista in Cuba, given that he died in 1973 and had been out of power since the 1950s.
October 11, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Also, while I certainly agree that we must not do evil that good may come, it strikes me that there is a difference between commiting evil acts to stop a greater evil, and allying yourself temporarily with a regime that commits evil acts in order to stop an even more evil regime from coming to power. If one wishes to deny this, then it seems to me one would have to say that it was wrong for the U.S. to ally with the Soviet Union during WWII.
October 11, 2007 at 11:47 pm
“That certain SOA graduates were members of death squads I don’t think anyone disputes. That they trained death squads is, I think, an overstatement. ”
“…and allying yourself temporarily with a regime that commits evil acts in order to stop an even more evil regime from coming to power. ”
The answer to this has not always been the same. The existence of government affiliated death squads was much in debate in the 1980’s and early1990’s and not until the death of the Jesuits at UCA in Nov 1989 was a clear and dramatic (yet still disputed in right wing ideological circles) connection made between governments the US supported and the terror inflicted on civilian populations. The push to relate this to SOA was an even harder movement. The US role in the deaths of the Jesuits is cloudy, with a lot of evidence implying that the US military in San Salvador either suggested or knew many details of the intended massacre. The leaders of this massacre live in Florida now and other El Salvadoran atrocities far from the justice desired for this small Central American country. It seems to me that the US did a bit more than merely ally itself with monsters. Blackadder is doing the “cop to a lesser plea” deal. The US was drenched in filth during this time period.
Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest (and Vietnam vet) began a protest yearly around the anniversary of the deaths of the Jesuits in the early 1990’s. Over 10000 routinely show and about a dozen individuals receive several month jail sentences for trespassing as part of civil disobedience. Not infrequently is a 70 year old nun in traditional habit placed in jail for this time period.
Opposing the Soviet Union leaves no excuse for the activities of the US in this region. The case of Diana Ortiz is one such case, an American nun tortured at some point apparently by an American operative. The US was knee-deep in the blood of the region.
And by the way, opposing US interests in this region back then was considered “unpatriotic” too. The responses of Alexander Haig to the deaths of Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan illustrate the contempt held for such missionaries.
October 12, 2007 at 3:36 am
Blackadder, thank you for the correction of my slip up. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight on that one. Though the U.S. supported him, it certainly wasn’t Reagan handing down the orders!
October 12, 2007 at 5:25 am
That certain SOA graduates were members of death squads I don’t think anyone disputes. That they trained death squads is, I think, an overstatement.
Two words: Atlacatl Battalion.
October 12, 2007 at 10:49 am
In regard to Batista withdrawal of US support in 1958 for him was critical to Castro seizing power. At one time or another in his long and colorful career Batistia was supported by virtually every political faction in Cuba, not all at the same time of course, including the Cuban Communist Party.
I was not shocked to find out that Father Roy Bourgeois, ironic name that, is a big fan of Hugo Chavez.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/321
October 12, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who had a close and friendly relationship with Pope John Paul II?
Ronald Reagan was a great man and a great president. Period.
October 12, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Daniel,
My point was that there’s a difference between supporting a regime that commits atrocities (because the alternatives are even worse), and supporting a regime’s atrocities. To the extent that the U.S. did the later in Latin America during the 1980s, this was wrong and any U.S. personnel who participated or assisted in these crimes were committing grievous evils. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
October 12, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Jay – Get your head out of your American nether regions and face up to the death and misery that Reagan caused in Latin America. You come to a post dedicated to celebrating a news item of significance for Latin American people and those in solidarity with them in order to sing the praises of Reagan? That’s sick. You willing to canonize Pinochet as well? Reagan and Pinochet also had a “close and friendly relationship.”
October 12, 2007 at 3:03 pm
As far as I know, Reagan and Pinochet never even met. so to describe them as having a “close and friendly relationship” comparable to the relationship between Reagan and JPII seems dubious. In any event, Jay’s point is not that Reagan liked JPII, but that JPII liked Reagan.
Pinochet didn’t come to power because of Reagan. He didn’t stay in power because of Reagan. To the extent that U.S. policy towards Chile had any effect at all, it seems to have helped bolster the moderate opposition to Pinochet, and ease the transition to democracy.
Personally, I think Reagan is overrated. Much of what he’s given credit for would have happened, I think, even if he hadn’t been president. But, on the flip side, much of what he’s blamed for would have happened if he hadn’t been president as well.
October 12, 2007 at 4:04 pm
“Personally, I think Reagan is overrated. Much of what he’s given credit for would have happened, I think, even if he hadn’t been president. But, on the flip side, much of what he’s blamed for would have happened if he hadn’t been president as well.”
Probably ultimate outcomes would be the same. We agree on this. The Dirty Wars and US support began under Carter. The Taliban probably would have developed anyway, as would Islamic fascism, which was well into development in our friends the Saudi’s by then.
And JP2and Gorbachev(and even Jaruzelski) get less credit for ending the Cold War than is their due.
The question then comes: what about the policy of LICO: Low intensity conflicts. Just starting with acts of commission-what about the Pinochet’s coup support and direction and the establishment of Guatemala’s military dictatorship. More than US personnel soiling its hands-these were established US military policy actions. We’re not talking “rogue agents” here (and I believe there are rare rogue agents-more likely easy scapegoats).
October 12, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who had a close and friendly relationship with Pope John Paul II?
We must not overexagerrate the relationship between John Paul II and President Reagan. While they certainly discussed much of their common ground with regard to Communism, we stretch credulity when we begin to characterize their relationship as “close.” Reagan’s corruption and support for bloody regimes was kept very secret in the 1980’s and is only now being brought to life by the declassification of CIA and military documents. John Paul II was very close to Fr. Maciel, but that certainly does not absolve the latter of the atrocious crimes he may have committed.
Ronald Reagan was a great man and a great president. Period.
I accept this as your opinion. Objectively speaking, however, I cannot reconcile the economic and military support of Pinocet, Argentine regimes and Saddam Hussein–all of whom used U.S. money and weapons to torture and kill tens of thousands of their own people–with the idea that Reagan was “great.” When we look at the facts, Reagan was sponser of terrorism and blood. Period.
October 12, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Daniel,
I don’t know enough about our actions in Guatemala to comment. My impression is that they would be pretty hard to defend.
Ironically, though Reagan had nothing to do with starting Argentina’s dirty war, he did play a crucial role in ending it. It was the British victory in the Falklands that brought down the junta, and that victory would not have been possible absent U.S. support.
October 12, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Michael joseph would you care to cite sources for any economic and military support given by the Reagan administration to Pinochet or the Argentinian regime? In regard to Argentina I can only recall them assisting the US in training the contras. In regard to Saddam the only support given to him was to allow him to purchase a small amount of weapons from the US, and giving him intelligence as to movements of the Iranian army, at a time during the Iran-Iraq war when it looked as if the mullahs might manage to conquer Iraq.
As to your notion that Reagan was a sponson of terrorism and blood, that is your view because you are a partisan of the left. In my view Reagan was assisting local forces in Central America willing to fight to prevent their countries from becoming immitations of Cuba. Reagan did not create the conditions existing in these countries, but he helped ensure that anti-Communist forces prevailed. I view this as a very good thing. How one views Reagan is largely colored by how one views the attempt by Communist and far left forces to seize power in Central America in the late seventies and throughout the eighties.
October 12, 2007 at 6:18 pm
“You come to a post dedicated to celebrating a news item of significance for Latin American people and those in solidarity with them in order to sing the praises of Reagan? That’s sick.”
Overwrought much?
Besides, if Reagan is accused of responsibility for one of the most corrupt and murderous administrations in U.S. history and being a sponsor of terrorism, I will speak up and defend the man. Even if I must do so on your sacrosanct post celebrating whatever.
October 12, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Michael joseph would you care to cite sources for any economic and military support given by the Reagan administration to Pinochet or the Argentinian regime?
Sure thing. Click here and here.
As to your notion that Reagan was a sponson of terrorism and blood, that is your view because you are a partisan of the left.
Um, ok. How easy it is to cash in the intellectual chips and just simply dismiss the facts presented by having recourse to arid political crutch-resting. Regardless of whether or not I am a “partisan of the left” (absurd), the facts are the facts, Donald: Reagan and his administration were aware of the bloodshed at the hands of the regimes he was supporting, but decided that preventing the spread of Communism was more important than ensuring that the blood of thousands of innocent civilians was not on America’s hands.
How one views Reagan is largely colored by how one views the attempt by Communist and far left forces to seize power in Central America in the late seventies and throughout the eighties.
So the murder of tens of thousands with the backing of the U.S. for the sake of Western capitalism is relativized according to one’s disposition toward Marxism? In one swoop, you managed to concede your ethics of life in favor of some hang-ups over the perceived threat of Marxism. Reagan is good in spite of his evils…and you called me the ideologue.
October 12, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Policraticus,
Would you say the same about U.S. support for Stalinist Russia during WWII? Was that immoral?
October 12, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Blackadder, are you referring to WWII itself or support before and after the war? If the latter, I would say that if the U.S. had knowledge of the brutal shedding of civilian blood in Russia, then indeed any economic or military support was unethical and shameful.
October 12, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I’m talking about WWII itself (I’m not aware of much U.S. support for the Soviets before or after the war). We knew that Stalin was a brutal tyrant, yet we allied with him anyway, because we judged Hitler to be a greater short term threat.
October 12, 2007 at 10:48 pm
“Michael joseph would you care to cite sources for any economic and military support given by the Reagan administration to Pinochet or the Argentinian regime?
Sure thing. Click here and here.”
Please Michael! Real sources not warmed over tirades from Vox Nova. You said that the Reagan administration provided economic and military support to the Pinochet and Argentine regimes. Do you have anything at all to support this contention that constitutes real evidence?
“Regardless of whether or not I am a “partisan of the left” (absurd),”
Michael an unexamined life is a terrible thing. You are a leftist deal with it. You aren’t as far left as Catholic Anarchist and MM, but as most of your posts on Vox Nova demonstrate that your heart and mind are on the left.
October 12, 2007 at 11:04 pm
“Reagan and his administration were aware of the bloodshed at the hands of the regimes he was supporting, but decided that preventing the spread of Communism was more important than ensuring that the blood of thousands of innocent civilians was not on America’s hands.”
No Michael, Reagan made the decision that it was better for America and for the people of Central America that the Communist forces be defeated. Central America, largely due to the incompetence of the Carter administration , was already in flames when he came into office. You of course ignore that the forces on the left were also not shy about killing innocent civilians. Civil wars are rarely pretty and when political ideology is tossed into the mix they are always going to be very bloody. The alternative of course would have been to do nothing and let more Cubas be created with all the deaths of innocents and refugees that such a process would have entailed.
Your remark about western capitalism is telling. No Michael it was all about freedom, something in very short supply whereever the forces of the extreme left have triumphed. Reagan recognized that Marxism was a dangerous threat to human liberty and he took action to stop it. The fact that innocents died in accomplishing this goal no more stains the memory of Reagan than the fact that millions of innocents died in stopping fascism and Japanese imperialism stains the memories of FDR and Churchill. Reagan is great for many reasons, but his being a key figure in bringing Communism to the ashheap of history is perhaps his finest achievement.
October 13, 2007 at 12:13 am
Do you have anything at all to support this contention that constitutes real evidence?
Donald,
I linked you to two posts in which are several links to the declassified documents at GWU. Now, I can’t force you to read them, but if you don’t, then I refuse to any more of your assertions.
Michael an unexamined life is a terrible thing. You are a leftist deal with it.
I don’t live my life by a label. Do you?
October 13, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Michael, nothing in what you linked to supported your contention of military or economic aid by the Reagan administration to Argentina under the generals or to Chile under Pinochet. I will assume that you therefore have no evidence.
Many labels apply to me: Husband, Father, Roman Catholic, American, Republican, American Conservative, Poor Sinner, E-bay enthusiast, etc. Nothing wrong with labels as long as they are accurate. I submit that it is useful for all of us to think of what labels apply to us. If we don’t like some of the labels perhaps we can change them by our actions.
October 14, 2007 at 6:54 am
Donald,
Since you obviously did not read through the GWU archives, which is the most important source I’ve looked through, here are direct links to alternative material that will not require you to put forth the effort of actually researching the question before making a judgment:
Los secretos de la guerra sucia continental de la dictadura
Wikipedia has some notes on Reagan’s reversal of Carter’s cessation of military aid to Argentina
State Terrorist
State Terrorism by Frederick H. Gareau
New York Times
The Nation
You may want to consider visiting a library to study the question further. The information on historical events found online, while abundant, is often insufficient. Rather than allowing the internet to think for us, we should not be afraid to actually study up ourselves.
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