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New Webpage for ¡Presente!, the Newspaper of the Movement to Close the SOA
    10/18/07-   New Webpage for ¡Presente!, the Newspaper of the Movement to Close the SOA   Full Story >>

Dismay Grows Over US Torture School
    11/15/06-   As peace activists from throughout the United States converge at the gates of Fort Benning, SOA protesters will simultaneously take to the streets in Santiago, Bogot?, San Salvador and several other Latin American cities. The demonstrations offer a strong testament to the growing international movement to reject US military policy. Recent reports of the Bush Administration's decision to increase training and aid for the militaries of Latin America so as to reverse the region's leftward swing have only sharpened criticism at home and abroad.   Full Story >>

Targeting a "School for Strongmen" (Time.com)
    6/13/06-   A U.S.-run training ground for Latin American military men is trying to withstand a growing protest movement.   Full Story >>

Cruzada de ONG de EU para que AL no env?e militares a la Escuela de las Am?ricas - La Jornada
    3/31/06-   Solecito Por allí pasaron los dictadores del subcontinente, acusa School of Americas Watch   Full Story >>

?No Más! No More! - The Nation
    3/31/06-   In the past week, the defense ministers of both Uruguay and Argentina have declared that their governments plan to cut ties with the US Army's School of the Americas.   Full Story >>

Olga Talamante: Surviving torture
    3/30/06-   On March 27, 1976, sixteen months after being arrested, tortured and imprisoned in an Argentina jail, Olga Talamante was released. Today, she is concerned that the public doesn't understand the horror.   Full Story >>

Activistas exigen desde Bolivia cierre de Escuela de las Am?ricas -- HoyBolivia
    3/17/06-   Un grupo de activistas de derechos humanos se encuentra en Bolivia para promover el cierre del Instituto de Cooperaci?n para la Seguridad Hemisf?rica, que depende del Ej?rcito de los Estados Unidos, antes conocido como la Escuela de las Am?ricas.   Full Story >>

'I hope my witness helps ...' -- Raleigh News & Observer
    3/10/06-   North Carolina peace activist Gail Phares wants to inspire others as she prepares for prison.   Full Story >>

The Devil Is in the Lack of Details: The Defense Department's Media Contracts -- PR Watch
    2/21/06-   Another contract -- again "missing firm data" -- was for "a senior analyst to analyze the perceptions, activities, and events surrounding the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and assist in developing public affairs plans for other Army personnel issues." The Army paid nearly $300,000 for this analyst, between 2004 and 2005.   Full Story >>

SOA protesters fined, imprisoned -- Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
    1/31/06-   Despite defense pleas, 19-year-old student gets prison.   Full Story >>

'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate by Naomi Klein
    12/9/05-   It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George W. Bush's second term, and an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team settled on downtown Panama City.   Full Story >>

Tear down WHINSEC -- By Fomer SOA Instructor Joseph Blair
    11/25/05-   On the subject of the SOA, a.k.a. WHINSEC, protest movement, some would say it's better to let a sleeping dog lie. I, on the other hand, have bitten my lips far too long and can no longer refrain from writing on this once, personally, all consuming subject.   Full Story >>

Concern about Iraq war and torture fuels record attendance -- Associated Press
    11/20/05-   Citing growing concerns about the war in Iraq and reports of torture by U.S. soldiers, organizers predicted a record turnout of 19,000 - 2,000 more than last year.   Full Story >>

Protesters call again for closing of Latin military school -- Associated Press
    11/17/05-     Full Story >>

A torture survivor?s memories -- San Antonio Current
    11/17/05-     Full Story >>

SOA Protests to Focus on Torture -- The Nation
    11/15/05-     Full Story >>

Victim of torture cites army school -- San Antonio Express-News
    11/14/05-     Full Story >>

Survivor of dirty war -- and SOA Vigil speaker -- recounts struggle for justice
    11/10/05-     Full Story >>

Terror base on the homefront -- Minnesota Daily
    10/12/05-     Full Story >>

She wants it to stop -- Boston Globe
    9/24/05-     Full Story >>

Pols call to shut paramilitary school -- Newsday
    7/21/05-     Full Story >>

Rift deepens between U.S., Venezuela years after coup -- Newsday
    4/30/05-   U.S. support of Venezuelans opposed to Chavez has deepened the rift between the two nations, raised doubts about two respected U.S. agencies and led to a result that is questionable at best. This is a tale of the United States pouring millions of dollars into an apparent attempt to oust a popularly elected Latin American leader...   Full Story >>

Ex-Ecuador President Gets Asylum in Brazil -- Associated Press
    4/21/05-   Brazil has granted asylum to former Ecuador President Lucio Gutierrez, who was in the Brazilian Embassy on Thursday after being removed from office by Congress amid street protests calling for his ouster for abuse of power and misrule.   Full Story >>

Ecuador Lawmakers Vote to Remove Gutierrez
    4/20/05-   Lawmakers in Ecuador voted Wednesday to remove embattled President Lucio Gutierrez from office after a week of escalating street protests demanding his ouster, and they swore in Vice President Alfredo Palacio to replace him.   Full Story >>

Ecuador President Dissolves Supreme Court -- More than 10,000 Take to Streets
    4/16/05-   President Lucio Gutierrez declared a state of emergency in the capital city of this Andean Mountain country and dissolved a Supreme Court he and his allies had appointed last winter, saying the unpopular judges were the cause of three days of pot-banging street protests in Quito.   Full Story >>

Rights outcry over Chile deadline -- BBC News
    4/14/05-   Human rights lawyers in Chile are worried that a large number of investigations into murder and torture allegedly committed by former members of the armed forces may have to close.   Full Story >>

Cables Show Central Negroponte Role in 80's Covert War Against Nicaragua -- New York Times
    4/13/05-     Full Story >>

San Jos? de Apartad?: Peace Massacred -- by Javier Giraldo, SJ
    4/12/05-   After eight years of documenting atrocities committed against this heroic community and denouncing them to the authorities, I still had trouble understanding just what had happened. When I thought back over the more than 500 crimes we had denounced over the years, it seemed this was but one more case within a plan of persecution and extermination to which San Jos? has been subjected since the peace community was formed in 1996. -- Prominent Colombia peace advocate Father Javier Giraldo writes   Full Story >>

US offers to ease Ecuador crisis - BBC News
    4/8/05-   The US has offered to mediate in Ecuador's growing political crisis as a deadlock continues over government efforts to overhaul the Supreme Court.   Full Story >>

Colombia 'will not try US troops' - BBC News
    4/7/05-   A group of US soldiers arrested for alleged cocaine smuggling cannot be allowed to stand trial in Colombia, Washington's envoy to Bogota has said.   Full Story >>

Too Cruel for School, Mother Jones Magazine
    4/1/05-   The infamous School of the Americas is still in business, albeit with a new name. And you can still get thrown in jail for protesting there.   Full Story >>

U.S. to Lift Ban on Military Aid to Guatemala
    3/25/05-   Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced Thursday that the United States would lift its ban on military aid to Guatemala, whose government has embarked on a major effort to change a military accused of kidnappings and massacres during more than 30 years of civil war.   Full Story >>

Negroponte's Time In Honduras at Issue
    3/17/05-   It has been two decades since John D. Negroponte left his post as ambassador to Honduras, but the man President Bush has chosen to become the United States' first intelligence czar is still being hounded by human rights activists.   Full Story >>

Colombia Killings Imperil U.S. Aid
    3/5/05-   A Colombian army unit blamed for the massacre of eight civilians denied responsibility for the killings Friday, even as the United States called for a swift investigation. The slayings have raised doubts about the military's commitment to human rights and jeopardized part of Washington's huge military aid package to this embattled nation.   Full Story >>

Colombia Massacre Raises Rights Issues
    3/4/05-   A Colombian army unit blamed for a massacre denied killing the eight civilians, even as the United States called for a swift investigation Friday. The slayings raise doubts about the military's commitment to human rights and jeopardize part of Washington's huge military aid package to this embattled nation.   Full Story >>

Firms Tap Latin Americans for Iraq
    3/3/05-   A history of recent wars makes the region attractive to private companies recruiting for security forces.   Full Story >>

Colombia Denies Army Massacred Children
    3/2/05-   Colombia?s defence minister has denied accusations that army troops massacred eight peasants, including four children, in a remote village in northwest Colombia a week ago, saying no soldiers were in the area at the time.   Full Story >>

UN refugee agency deplores murder of displaced Colombian families
    3/1/05-   The United Nations refugee agency today strongly condemned the brutal murders of eight people, including three children, in northwestern Colombia, the latest in a string of attacks against people who had been displaced by the decades-long conflict between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and Government forces.   Full Story >>

Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent March for Democracy
    3/1/05-   One year ago today, the elected government of Haiti, led by President Jean Betrand Aristide, was forced out of office and replaced by unlected people more satisfactory to business interests and the US, France and Canada. Bill Quigley, a lawyer with the SOA Watch Legal Collective, writes from Haiti.   Full Story >>

Torture Ruling Against Generals Dropped
    3/1/05-   A federal appeals court reversed a $54.6 million verdict against two retired Salvadoran generals accused of torture during the civil war in their home country two decades ago.   Full Story >>

Colombian army accused of murder after U.S. praise
    3/1/05-   A Catholic priest and a former mayor accused Colombian troops of killing eight villagers, including a six-year-old girl and two-year-old boy, for helping Marxist rebels, just as the United States said its key South American ally has improved its human rights record.   Full Story >>

Jolie Christine Rickman - ¡Presente!
    2/28/05-   Peace and social justice feminist musician, activist,and humanitarian watchdog Jolie Christine Rickman of Brooklyn, New York passed away January 19, 2005 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City, eleven months following her diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She was 34 years old.   Full Story >>

Bill Corrigan, stalwart in effort to end violence
    2/28/05-   Bill Corrigan stood for peace and justice, and at 75 was willing to go to jail for his convictions.   Full Story >>

Ex-troops aiding drug traffickers
    2/24/05-   Former Mexican soldiers, police and federal agents, originally trained as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, are working as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers, bringing a new wave of drug-related killings into the United States, authorities said.   Full Story >>

Negroponte Draws Criticism South of Border
    2/18/05-   Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism Thursday of John Negroponte, nominated to become America's first intelligence director, citing the career diplomat's active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses.   Full Story >>

Negroponte's Dark Past
    2/17/05-   How many times can I write the same piece about John Negroponte? Like dirty money, tainted reputations can be laundered, as the Administration fervently hopes in the case of John Negroponte.   Full Story >>

Bush Picks Negroponte as New Intelligence Chief
    2/17/05-   President Bush on Thursday nominated John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the new director of national intelligence to oversee spy agencies sharply criticized for failures related to the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq war.   Full Story >>

Activists Hope Nun's Slaying in Amazon Is Catalyst for Change
    2/16/05-   As mourners laid her bullet-riddled body to rest Tuesday, environmentalists and colleagues of slain missionary Dorothy Stang seesawed between fragile optimism and angry skepticism over a question they had hoped never to consider.   Full Story >>

Activist nun shot dead in Amazon rainforest
    2/14/05-   Cabinet ministers and police officers arrived in the eastern Amazon region of Brazil yesterday to investigate the fatal shooting of a missionary nun compared to the 1988 murder of the rainforest activist Chico Mendes.   Full Story >>

?No Mas! No More! We must stop the Dirty Wars! By Betita Martinez, Z Magazine
    2/1/05-   Long-time Chicana activist and historian Betita Martinez writes of her experience at the 2004 November Vigil and Direct Action to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC. Featured in Z Magazine.   Full Story >>

'The Salvador Option': The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq
    1/8/05-   The Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.   Full Story >>

Pinochet Indicted on Human Rights Charges
    12/13/04-   Former Chilean leader under house arrest.   Full Story >>

Victim of Latin American Torture Claims Abu Ghraib Abuse was Official US Policy
    12/12/04-   For many Latin American victims of torture, the infamous pictures of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison brought back not only chilling recollections of their own experiences, but also confirmed what they have long maintained: that their torturers were following interrogation guidelines set by the US Army School of the Americas.   Full Story >>

Protest draws crowd at Fort Benning
    11/22/04-   Four hours into one of the largest protests recorded at the gates of Fort Benning, the 82-year-old Roman Catholic nun took a break. Mary Courtman had traveled from Tacoma, Wash., to participate in the demonstration against the base's former School of the Americas.   Full Story >>

Additional fence and barbed wire fail to stop Latin school protest
    11/21/04-   At least 20 demonstrators were arrested Sunday, on charges ranging from trespassing to wearing a mask, as a record 16,000 people protested against a Fort Benning school for Latin soldiers.   Full Story >>

America in action
    11/21/04-   10,000-plus gather outside Fort Benning. For the 15th time, SOA Watch rallied Saturday on a city street outside of Fort Benning. Once more, they were protesting a school that in their view educates Latin American soldiers guilty of killing innocent priests, nuns and civilians.   Full Story >>

Peace protest meets soldier support
    11/21/04-   On one side of town, buses, vans, campers and cars streamed down Victory Drive to the entrance of Fort Benning bringing protesters for peace to their annual highly choreographed objection to paramilitary training of Central and South American officials at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation ? formerly known as the School of the Americas.   Full Story >>

Divided by more than fences
    11/18/04-   Protesters, police disagree on merits of chain-link barrier on Fort Benning Road   Full Story >>

On Anniversary of El Salvador Jesuits' Slaying, Momentum for Justice
    11/16/04-   Today, despite the passage of time, calls for accountability for crimes committed in the Salvadoran conflict are re-emerging outside the country, including in the United States.   Full Story >>

Court ban on police checks energizes SOA protestors, but not the new fences
    11/13/04-   Organizers of an annual protest expected to draw 10,000 demonstrators to Fort Benning next weekend are energized by a recent federal court ruling that bans police searches and metal-detector checks of the protesters. However, they're not too excited about the 8-foot-high chain-link fences recently erected near the fort's main gates.   Full Story >>

Soldiering the Empire
    10/19/04-   Lesley Gill, author of the new book School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas writes on the US military, imperialism and the School of the Americas.   Full Story >>

SOA Watch Victory Against Metal Detectors and Illegal Searches: The 11th Circuit Court Upholds the Constitution!
    10/16/04-     Full Story >>

Court: Terror War Can't Curtail Liberties
    10/16/04-   Fears of a terrorist attack are not sufficient reason for authorities to search people at the SOA/ WHINSEC protest, a federal appeals court has ruled, saying Sept. 11 "cannot be the day liberty perished."   Full Story >>

Charges Dropped for 227 Arrested During Protest Of Convention
    10/7/04-   The Manhattan district attorney's office said yesterday that it would not prosecute cases against 227 protesters arrested during the SOA Watch - War Resisters League march at Ground Zero.   Full Story >>

Honduran Commander Accused of Torture, Disappearance, and Summary Execution to Face Trial In Florida
    10/6/04-   A prominent foreign torture suspect and SOA graduate residing in the United States, former Honduran military intelligence chief Col. Juan L?pez Grijalba, is facing trial in US federal court this month. Six plaintiffs, five of whom reside in the United States, allege that L?pez Grijalba is responsible for the torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial killing of Honduran civilians during the 1980s.   Full Story >>

The archbishop, the death squad and the 24-year wait for justice
    8/24/04-   It was the crime that broke El Salvador's heart. A good man was murdered in broad daylight, yet no attempt was made to bring his assassin to justice. Until today.   Full Story >>

Teaching Torture: Congress quietly keeps School of the Americas alive
    7/22/04-   You have to wonder how much Congress really worries about Iraqi prison torture, especially after last week?s approval of funding for the School of the Americas...   Full Story >>

Prisoner of Conscience
    6/22/04-   Behind bars at a federal prison for an act of protest, a former pastor learned that rehabilitation is a joke.   Full Story >>

"America's Amnesia" by Matthew Rothschild
    6/17/04-   Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, interviews Fr. Roy Bourgeois, William Blum and torture survivors throughout Latin America in this critical and uncompromising analysis of US connections to torture.   Full Story >>

Feels Like the Third Time
    6/14/04-   Stephen Kinzer, New York Times reporter and author of Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala writes of newly unearthed, once-classified documents which remind us that Abu Ghraib is hardly the first time that torture became policy.   Full Story >>

Los antecedentes de las torturas de EU
    5/16/04-   (in Spanish) Mexican paper Mural traces the history of torture and the US military through the SOA and all the way back to the internment of Native Americans.   Full Story >>

Torture U.: Congress should shut former SOA
    5/11/04-   Editorial in the Detroit Free Press calling for the closure of the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.   Full Story >>

Venezuelan President to Reconsider Training of Soldiers at the SOA
    1/22/04-   In a move that illustrates the growing divide between Latin American nations and the US, Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez announced on Monday that he is going to reconsider sending Venezuelan soldiers to the SOA/WHISC. Ch?vez stated: ?This school deformed the minds of many Latin American soldiers, who from there went on to become dictators.?   Full Story >>

28 Human Rights Activists to Begin Federal Trial for Civil Disobedience at Ft. Benning, GA to Close the School of the Americas (SOA/WHISC)
    1/22/04-   Washington D.C. ? On Monday January 26th the federal trial for the 28 human rights activists facing federal charges for civil disobedience begins in Columbus, Georgia. The 28 were among 10,000 who gathered in November to call for a closure of the SOA, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The defendants peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning property, site of the school. They are charged with trespass and face up to six months in federal prison and $5,000 in fines.   Full Story >>

General Wesley Clark on Defensive on SOA
    1/22/04-   Clark ?Proud? of SOA/WHISC, Downplays Atrocities From June 1996 to July 1997, General Clark served as Commander of the US Southern Command, where he was responsible for US military activities concerning Latin America, including the School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). On Sept. 20, 1996, Pentagon officials admitted that SOA manuals used from 1982 to 1991 advocated the use of torture, extortion, and extrajudical executions against dissidents in Latin America. The New York Times wrote "an institution so clearly out of tune with American values should be shut down without further delay."   Full Story >>

Mobilizations Opposing Empire: Solidarity Between SOA, FTAA and Bush Protests
    11/20/03-   Joint Solidarity Statement of The Stop the War Coalition (UK), The Mobilization to Stop the FTAA (Miami), and The SOA Watch Movement (Columbus, GA)   Full Story >>

Thousands to Expose Double Standard in War on Terrorism
    11/5/03-   "Carrying signs that said "Stop Training Terrorists" and "Protect Human Rights," activists of various ages and religious backgrounds took part in a peaceful demonstration calling for the closing of the facility formerly known as the School of the Americas."   Full Story >>

Amnesty Calls for Suspension and Investigation of SOA/WHINSEC
    11/25/02-   "In the mid 1990's, the US government revealed that for much of the previous decade the US Army's School of Americas (SOA) had used training manuals that advocated practices such as torture, extortion, kidnapping, and execution. While some curriculum changes have been implemented at this training institute, no one has ever been held accountable for the unlawful training manuals or for the behavior of SOA graduates."   Full Story >>

Backyard Terrorism
    10/30/01-     Full Story >>