Protests in 19th Year Demand Closure of U.S. Military School for Latin American Soldiers

Interview with Eric LeCompte, chief organizer with the School of the Americas Watch, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Twenty years ago, on Nov. 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were assassinated in El Salvador because they were outspoken proponents of a peaceful and just resolution of Salvador's civil war that took 75,000 lives in more than a decade of fighting. A U.S. Congressional Task Force and human rights groups reported that the soldiers responsible in this and many other atrocities across the hemisphere, were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

A year later, Father Roy Bourgeois founded the School of the Americas Watch, which called for the closure of the military facility, which is supported by Americans' tax dollars. In the years since, thousands of people have come to Fort Benning every year on the third weekend in November to commemorate the tens of thousands who have died at the hands of U.S.-trained soldiers, while continuing to demand that Congress close the school. The group helped pass a bill in the House to defund the school in 1999, but the legislation died in the Senate. Then School of the Americas changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC, and instituted some changes that made members of Congress less willing to shut it down. SOA Watch maintains that the changes at the military training school are cosmetic. Their supporters chant, "New name, same shame!"

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Eric LeCompte, chief organizer with SOA Watch, who's been on staff for a decade. He describes the evolution of politics in Latin America and in the strategies of SOA Watch over the past 20 years, which now include asking President Obama to issue an executive order to close the school, something that would have been unthinkable under President George W. Bush.

For more information, including a link to the so-called "Torture Manuals," contact the group at (202) 234-3440 or visit their website at www.soaw.org.

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