Help lobby Congress and Obama to close WHINSEC

TO THE EDITOR:

Last weekend, I joined more than 20,000 outraged but solemn citizens for a vigil at Fort Benning, Ga. We marched in remembrance of the Latin American civilians killed or made to “disappear” by graduates of the School of the Americas.

This protest is held every year in opposition to the U.S. military program formerly known as the S.O.A., now operating under the acronym WHINSEC. Graduates trained by the S.O.A. often commit terrible human rights offenses across Latin America.

For more than an hour, the names and ages of the victims were sung over the loudspeaker as we walked in front of the fort. Sometimes my mind wandered, but I was always jolted back.

One of the protestors that walked with our group was an out-of-uniform army officer. He told me that soldiers from other U.S. military training schools are held intensely accountable for their actions in the field and that such accountability does not exist after WHINSEC training.

Last year, Congress failed to shut down the school by only six votes.

You and I are the ones who have the opportunity to raise our voices on behalf of those who are silenced. If we aren’t angry, we aren’t paying attention.

To learn more about WHINSEC and to sign a petition for President-elect Obama to shut down the school by executive order, visit www.soaw.org.



Amy Holter
Senior
Journalism, Psychology