Evo Morales Announces: No More Bolivian Soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC! Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:04:25 -0500 (CDT) SOA WATCH NEWS & UPDATES = www.SOAW.org = October 11, 2007 1. Evo Morales Announces Withdrawal from SOA/WHINSEC 2. Argentine Priest Sentenced for Dirty War Killings 3. Prisoners of Conscience Update 4. "Inside the School of Assassins" on Link TV ========================== SOA WATCH BREAKING NEWS! ========================== EVO MORALES ANNOUNCES: "NO MORE BOLIVIAN SOLDIERS TO THE SOA/WHINSEC!" 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 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. * Our work in Latin America has been made possible through your support and donations, please contribute to our Latin America Project by making a donation to SOA Watch - http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=546 --> Read more about this breaking news! - http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1010-04.htm Come celebrate this amazing victory with us at the November 16-18 Vigil to Close the SOA/WHINSEC! --> To find our more about the Vigil, schedule of events, volunteering, travel suggestions and much more visit - http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1295 --> Read more about the SOA Watch Latin America Project- http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1510 --> SOA Watch Latina - http://www.soawlatina.org =========================================================== ARGENTINE PRIEST SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR DIRTY WAR KILLINGS =========================================================== The governments of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru have made significant efforts in bringing those responsible for human rights abuses to justice. This is the result of the relentless work of human rights organizations and social movements in Latin America. We need to follow their example and hold the U.S. government accountable so that those responsible for the training of human rights abusers at the SOA/WHINSEC will be brought to justice as well. We need to close the SOA/WHINSEC and change the oppressive U.S. policy that this institution represents. On Tuesday, October 9th the people of Argentina celebrated a major victory in the ongoing reconciliation process when an Argentine court sentenced the Rev. Christian von Wernich, a Roman Catholic priest, to life in prison for conspiring with the military in murders and kidnapping during the country's "dirty war". The priest, who served as police chaplain during the military dictatorship, was found guilty of involvement in seven murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings. --> Continue reading - http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1582 ================================ PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE UPDATE ================================ On Wednesday, September 19 the last of the SOA 16 was released from Danbury Federal Correctional Center after serving a six month sentence. Alice E. Gerard, 50, was among the sixteen human rights advocates who were arrested for "trespassing" while protesting the SOA/WHINSEC during the November 2006 "Vigil to Close the SOA" at Fort Benning, GA. "I went to the grounds of Fort Benning to ask for restorative justice that calls for participants in an act of injustice to acknowledge responsibility, apologize to victims, and assure the provision of restitution to victims. I was asking for WHINSEC/SOA to be closed and for an independent truth and reconciliation commission to be established to investigate the instruction offered at the school. I came to that space, looking for the truth and asking that the government, like its citizens, be held accountable for its actions." --> Continue reading - http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1583 ================================================ INSIDE THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS AIRS ON LINK TV ================================================ Link TV is currently showing "Father Roy - Inside the School of Assassins" as part of the "America's Dirty Tricks-Part 2" series. The documentary, a Richter production, tells the SOA story through the extraordinary life and daring actions of Father Roy Bourgeois, a Vietnam war hero and leading activist in the campaign to close the school. The film will be showing throughout October and will include an in-studio interview with SOA Watch activists Charles and Judy Liteky. --> Continue reading - http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1584 ======================================================= We appreciate your interest! You are subscribed to this list as map@pencil.math.missouri.edu. To unsubscribe, visit http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/soaw/unsubscribe.jsp, or reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Our postal address is SOA Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, DC 20017