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 Martha Giraldo from Colombia traveled to the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to tell the truth about how the Colombian army killed her father, a campesino, and dressed him up to look like a "combat kill." Click here to watch the video.
 SOA Watch's Latin America coordinator Lisa Sullivan and many other international human rights activists traveled to Honduras to stand in solidarity with the Honduran people who are resisting the SOA graduate-led military coup. Click here to read Lisa's update from last Saturday. To read Lisa's article "Elections in Honduras: Whitewashing the Path to a Past of Horrors," click here. The Quixote Center and Rights Action have organized human rights observation delegations for the time of the elections.
Watch a video of Bertha Oliva on stage at the gates of Fort Benning
November Vigil 2009: Thousands Protested to Demand SOA Closure
Hundreds Penetrate Protest Barrier, Four Cross Line onto Ft. Benning
Fr. Roy Bourgeois and SOA Watch Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Click here to view photos by Linda Panetta
Also, check out photos by Tom Bottolene
Sunday, November 22:Thousands, including human rights defenders and torture survivors from Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Immokalee and the South Bronx, gathered at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, standing up against oppressive U.S. foreign policy and speaking out in defense of real and direct democracy, for life, justice, liberty, dignity and peace.
Four veteran human rights defenders crossed the line Sunday morning to carry their witness against the School of Assassins towards its location inside Ft. Benning, GA:
None of those responsible for SOA crimes have ever been investigated or held accountable, while 286 peace and justice activists have served prison and probation sentences of up to two years for their acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.
The civil disobedience at Ft. Benning on November 22 follows the arrest of five peace and justice activists at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, where the torture manuals used at the SOA were created. The Ft. Huachuca Five are:
- Fr. Bob Carney of Tucson, AZ
- Joshua C. Harris of Santa Barbara, CA
- John Heid of Tucson, AZ
- Mariah Klusmire of Albuquerque, NM
- Fr. Jerry Zawada of Tucson, AZ
Four the five received 1-year ban and bar letters, while Josh Harris awaits word on a trial date. Harris refused to cooperate with the military police, and when asked for his name said he was there representing a victim of torture.
 Several hundred demonstrators marched together on Ft. Benning Rd on Sunday, November 22, risking arrest, and pushed through the police protest confines this year, led by puppetistas and drummers including Cakalak Thunder.
This exuberant, rebellious expression of the Return to Life honored the work and spirit of those who have fallen in the struggle for justice all across the Americas.
Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Announcement
 Fr. Roy Bourgeois and SOA Watch were nominated this morning by the American Friends Service Committee for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for our sustained faithful nonviolent witness against the disappearances, torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians (peasants, community and union organizers, clerics, missionaries, educators, and health workers) by foreign military personnel trained by the U.S. military at U.S. taxpayer expense at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
This nomination is a recognition of the work of the thousands of human rights defenders like you struggling against militarism across the Americas. Congratulations!
 The puppetista pageant this year commemorated the six intellectual Jesuit Central American University professors killed in November 1989, and demonstrators also carried puppets of the ideas that the graduates of the SOA had tried to kill.
Rebel Diaz on stage at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, from the South Bronx, NY, shared a powerful, rousing message with the hearts, bodies and minds of human rights defenders assembled on Saturday, November 21. Also appreciated via live internet streaming around the globe!
Watch local coverage of Friday's Stewart Detention Center Protest in Lumpkin, GA:
10th Annual 100-mile Peace Walk from Atlanta to Ft. Benning
Dozens of activists took part in long walk for peace, visited the grave of Dr. Martin Luther King and joined in the Friday, November 20 protest at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA.
Shut Down the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)!
 The military coup by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas has on Latin America. The actions of the school’s graduates are unmasking the Pentagon rhetoric and reveal the anti-democratic results of U.S. policies. It is time for a change towards justice.
The campaign to close the SOA is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans for new U.S. military bases in Colombia. With a Democratic administration in the White House, it appears that some Democrats in Congress are becoming timid when it comes to opposing the Pentagon.
It is up to us to keep up the pressure and to hold them accountable. People power is going to overcome Pentagon lobbying!
We won’t go away until the SOA is shut down and the U.S. government has stopped turning to “military solutions” (or political-economic interventions) to enforce its oppressive foreign policy in Latin America. Too many people have suffered and died at the hands of SOA graduates.
You can take a stand for solidarity and justice now! Contact your local unions, universities, workers centers, social justice organizations and faith communities and ask them to re-commit to the struggle to close the School of the Americas.
 100 days since the coup d'etat that ousted Manuel Zelaya, Fault Lines travels to Honduras to look at polarization and power in the Americas, and finds resistance and repression in the streets. The program includes interviews with Bertha Oliva of the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared-Detained in Honduras and with School of the Americas graduate and military coup leader General Romero Vásquez. It also looks at the elites behind the military coup, the coup plotters connections in the United States and the struggle for real democracy in Honduras. Click here to watch the 23 min. documentary.
Civil liberties of Honduran citizens suspended by coup regime
Repression of the Honduran people continues under Micheletti and his coup regime! Sunday, September 27th, Roberto Micheletti called for a 45-day suspension of civil liberties guaranteed to the Honduran people in their constitution. This suspension prohibits unauthorized gatherings, limits free speech in the media, and gives Honduran police the freedom to arrest without a warrant. The blatantly un-democratic suspension of these civil liberties is a violation of the Honduran Constitution!
The Honduran military is firing gas into the Brazilian embassy. The people inside are undergoing internal hemorrhaging - revealed by intense nose bleeds and blood in their urine. The Red Cross and members of the media are being denied access into the diplomatic compound in Tegucigalpa.
Watch the latest coverage by Jesse Freeston of The Real News.
Ousted president Manuel Zelaya made a surprise return to Tegucigalpa, Honduras on Monday. The coup regime responded with a vicious crackdown. Watch the video news clip by Jesse Freeston.
Call the State Department at 202-647-4000 and the White House at 202-456-1111 (sample message below)
At least one person has been reported killed and several have been wounded in a series of attacks by the SOA graduate-led military and police forces on supporters of the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya. More than 100 people have been detained.
President Zelaya met with the four leading presidential candidates contesting presidential elections scheduled for November 29 inside the Brazilian embassy. He also started talks with a representative of the coup regime. International pressure is urgently needed to prevent further human rights abuses and to return democracy to Honduras!
The houses next to the Brazilian embassy have been evacuated, taken over by the military.
President Manuel Zelaya, after over eighty days in exile, has returned to Honduras. In a BBC interview, Zelaya said "[We traveled] for more than 15 hours... through rivers and mountains until we reached the capital of Honduras, which we reached in the early hours of the morning. We overtook military and police obstacles, all those on the highways here, because this country has been kidnapped by the military forces."
The coup regime has imposed a three-day curfew for the entire country . Thousands defied the orders and gathered in front of the Brazilian embassy, where Zelaya is currently staying. Radio Globo reported from the convergence in front of the Brazilian embassy: "We are here peacefully, unarmed because we are the people and don't fear the military. The military must serve the people and their democratically-elected president, Mel Zelaya."
However, the SOA graduate-led Honduran military and the police moved against the peacefully  assembled crowd in front of the Brazilian Embassy and disbursed them with bullets and water tanks. Supporters of the constitutional president of Honduras are being attacked and beaten. The embassy is now surrounded by the military. The coup regime leader, Roberto Micheletti, threatened to cancel the embassy's immunity if Zelaya were not handed over to the de facto regime. An overall atmosphere of insecurity is now being imposed. President Zelaya called on the armed forces not to attack their own people and encouraged the Honduran people to continue mobilizing for peace and the restoration of constitutional order. The National Resistance Front Against the Coup has sent out a call for a national strike today, and for people to come from all parts of the country to the capital to continue the show of popular support for the return of the democratically elected president.
Our fear that the coup authorities would crack down even harder, now that their end is near, is materializing.
Click here to contact your Member of Congress to demand that they take a stand for democracy and against the SOA-graduate-led military coup.
Please take a couple minutes and call the State Department at 202-647-4000 to deliver the following message: "Work for the unconditional immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya, demand that the Honduran military doesn't move against the people and their democratically elected president, Mel Zelayam and ensure that the coup plotters will be held responsible for their actions. Any bloodshed will be on the hands of the coup government and security forces."
Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 with the same message.
Visit NarcoNews for a detailed report back of the days events.
August 11: Global Day of Action for Honduras
 Since the military coup -- after more than 40 days of tireless efforts by thousands of farmers, women, indigenous people, teachers, students, unionists and ordinary citizens of the cities and the countryside to revert it and to recover democracy and dignity -- the repression by the School of the Americas trained military and the coup plotters has not notched the fighting spirit of the heroic Honduran people.
This struggle has now entered a crucial phase as the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'Etat and the farmers movement have summoned the social, union and democratic movements to a National March that began on the 5 of August and culminated on August 11 in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.
Marchers converged on Tegucigalpa and tens of thousands more demonstrated in San Pedro Sula. Twenty-eight members of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup were detained.
Solidarity events were held around the world, including the North American cities of Atlanta, Boston, Milwaukee, Miami, Montreal, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C. In Portland, supporters dropped a banner over a busy highway. Demonstrators in Boston held a daytime rally and a concert for peace at night. In Washington, D.C., Hondurans and supporters gathered at the Capitol Building to remember the victims of the coup.
Read August 11 March on Tegucigalpa by Tom Loudon
Urge Your Representative to Take a Stand Against the Coup!
Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives along with 14 original cosponsors that calls for the return to democracy and the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras.
Click here to send a message to your Representative to ask them to take a stand for democracy by co-sponsoring the resolution.
Check if your Representative has already signed on to the resolution. You can find a list of original co-sponsors of the House Resolution here:
http://soaw.org/houseresolution
Read a letter from Representative Bill Delahunt to fellow members of the House of Representatives:
http://soaw.org/houseresolution#colleague
Read the text of the House Resolution:
http://soaw.org/houseresolution#resolution
 Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya vowed to return to power through peaceful means and said he would take his case to the International Criminal Court.
Manuel Zelaya: “In the next few hours, the International Criminal Court will receive a demand to open a case based in the fundamentals of law that will open an investigation and, at the same time, the trial and condemnation of the people that have not only violated my individual rights, but the collective rights of our people, and have affected human rights.”
Two Zelaya Supporters Die in Honduras
Two more supporters of Zelaya have died in Honduras. A teacher named Roger Vallejo died of a bullet wound to the head after two days in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Vallejo was shot in the head while taking part in a rally blocking a road leading out of the capital, Tegucigalpa. A funeral was held for Vallejo on Saturday. Another teacher, Martin Florencio Rivera Barrientos, was stabbed to death on Saturday after leaving Vallejo’s funeral.
Watch News Coverage of the Coup in Honduras
The Real News Network produced a series of news clips about the military coup in Honduras, the pro-democracy resistance and the international response. To watch the RNN coverage, click here.
Accompanying Resistance
Read the reports from the SOA Watch Emergency Delegation, which was organized in response to the School of the Americas graduate led military coup in Honduras:
- Emergency Response Delegation Report
- Standing Vigil at the U.S. Embassy
- SOA Watch Accompanying Resistance
 Talks between the ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the leaders of last week’s military coup began yesterday in Costa Rica. Shortly before leaving Washington DC for Costa Rica, Zelaya sat down with Democracy Now! for a rare U.S. television interview. He discusses how military coup forces forced him out, the upcoming talks in Costa Rica, his domestic policies in Honduras, the role of the United States and more.
Click here to watch the interview
Pro-Democracy Actions Continue in Honduras
 Photo: SOA Watch Delegation with resistance leader Carlos H Reyes and Bertha Oliva (pink shirt), the founder and coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared (COFADEH), blocking the cities’ main southern road together with thousands of social movement activists, one of daily street actions to protest the military coup.
SOA Watch Delegation arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras
 by Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch
Greetings from the quiet of the curfew here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The curfew has just begun, and the normal rattle of traffic outside this one-star hotel in the heart of the city is silenced.
Click here to read the update from Tegucigalpa.
 The death of Honduran citizens during last Sunday demonstration at the Tegucigalpa airport will not be in vain. The social movements in Honduras remain steadfast in their resistance against the SOA graduate led military coup. Thousands are engaged in civil disobedience, strikes and mobilizations. Seven SOA Watch activists are scheduled to arrive in Tegucigalpa, Honduras this afternoon (Tuesday, July 7) to stand in solidarity with our Honduran brothers and sisters and to act as international observers. The SOA Watch Delegation will join Bertha Oliva, the Founder and Coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras and other members of the National Resistance Committee.
PHOTO-ESSAY: "Tragedy at Tocontin: Army Shoots & Kills Protesters"
http://mimundo-jamesrodriguez.blogspot.com/
SOA Watch to Join Honduran Social Movements
The situation in Honduras remains extremely tense following the  June 28 military coup by graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). For the last six days, SOA Watch has been in constant communication with pro-democracy organizers in Honduras. We are pressuring the State Department and the White House with street protests and an online actions to ensure the unconditional reinstatement of President Zeleya.
However, the calls from our partners in Honduras have made it clear to us that we need to go a step further. SOA Watch has decided to join the Honduran social movements on the ground. A small SOA Watch delegation is going to meet with members of the National Resistance Committee tomorrow and will join them in the streets.
 SOA Watch's Latin America Coordinator Lisa Sullivan, the former SOA Watch Prisoners of Conscience Laura Slattery and Father Joe Mulligan, SOA Watch lawyer Kent Spriggs, SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois and others are currently on their way to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The resistance to the military coup that is taking place right now in Honduras is a Honduran struggle and a struggle of the Americas, at the same time. The outcome will affect all of us for years to come. International accompaniment can have a big impact and save lives.
Click here to make a donation to support this important work.
No to the Military Coup in Honduras
On June 28, a military coup took place in Honduras. Soldiers stormed the residence of democratically elected President Zelaya and flew him out of the country. The coup was led by School of the Americas graduates General Romeo Velasquez, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, commander of the Air Force. Watch CNN footage of the protests
Resistance and Repression in Honduras
An unknown number of Hondurans have  taken to the streets today in an effort to stop the coup that the military, in league with Congress and the Supreme Court, has carried out against democratically elected President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya.
Due to intermitant power outages and heavy rain, independent media within Honduras has had extreme difficulty transmitting news. This means that while there's been plenty of news in the mainstream media about the actions people with a lot of political power have been taking--from Chavez and the ALBA nations to the Organization of American States to the United States--there's been very little reported about what rank-and-file Hondurans have been doing to reverse the coup.
Click here to read Kristin Bricker's full article.
Military Coup in Honduras
Read updates from the Narco News Bulletin here: http://narconews.com
A military coup has taken place in Honduras on Sunday, June 28, led by  School of the Americas (SOA) graduate Romeo Vasquez. Members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.
The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. The people of Honduras are going into the streets. Labor unions are planning for a general strike. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.
Click here to read Kristin Bricker's article School of the Americas-Trained Military Detains and Expels Democratically-Elected President Zelaya
Click here to read an article by Eva Golinger
Click here to send a message to President Barack Obama.
The people of Honduras show great bravery by taking to the streets to defend their democracy and rule of law. General Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces who led the military coup against the democratically elected president Zelaya, is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA).
"The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
- Congressman Joseph Kennedy (In total, the School has produced at least eleven Latin American dictators.)
Honduras - like the rest of Latin America - has first hand experience with bloody work of School of the Americas graduates and with SOA trained military dictators:
In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by, yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).
"[I took] a course in intelligence at the school of the Americas [in which I saw] a lot of videos which showed the type of interrogation and torture they used in Vietnam. Although many people refuse to accept it, all this is organized by the U.S. government."
- José Valle, graduate of the SOA, admitted torturer, member of Battalion 316, Inside the School of Assassins, video
"Torturing was "a job, something I did to give food to my kids"
- Valle, Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95
"The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock and suffocation as devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves. Newly declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, yet continued to support Battalion 316 and collaborate with its leaders."
- Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95
Battalion 316 is founded in the early eighties by General Luis Alonso Discua graduated from the SOA three times, in 1967, 1972, and 1982 while the nation is under the repressive dictatorship of SOA graduate General Policarpo Paz García, inducted into the SOA "Hall of Fame" in 1988. Also inducted in 1988 is General Humberto Regalado Hernández a four-time graduate in the late sixties and seventies who, as chief of Honduran armed forces, refuses to take action against soldiers involved in Battalion 316 death squad activity, and indeed appears to cover-up at least some of that activity.
- Americas Watch reports on Honduras, 1987 and 1994
Fresh from their own "Dirty War", Argentine SOA graduates such as Colonel Mario Davico move to Honduras in the early 1980s to teach Batalion 316 techniques such as arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions, and methods of disposing of the bodies of the victims.
- Americas Watch, 1994
The return
One year after he enters the SOA Hall of Fame, fellow officers accuse Regalado Hernández of misappropriating millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. Officers contend that equipment provided through U.S. military assistance was regularly sold to unit commanders by Regalado, who then deposited the money in a "special account". Military assistance supplies sold by Regalado ranged from batteries to tires to gasoline. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration in 1988, the year Regalado is inducted into the SOA Hall of Fame suspects Regalado of providing protection to Colombian drug traffickers living in Honduras. Regalado's half-brother (SOA graduate Rigoberto Regalado Lara, convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges) tells authorities that his supplier was a close friend of General Regalado Hernández.
- New York Times, 10/15/89
In 1983, several key members of Battalion 316 somehow find time in their busy schedules of organizing death squad activity for renewed training at the SOA, including Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alonso Villatoro Villeda (trained in "Administration", then commander of Battalion 316 from 1986-1988), Second Lieutenant Ramón Mejia (in charge of transporting kidnap victims from various parts of Honduras to Tegucigalpa, one of the two officers most involved in torture, interrogation and murder) and General Walter López Reyes.
- Americas Watch, 1987 and 1994
Colonel Juan López Grijalva, another three-time graduate of the SOA in Battalion 316, returns to the SOA as a guest lecturer in both 1991 and 1992.
In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown and the School of the Americas trained militaries Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt.
Over its 63 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America. .
New SOA/ WHINSEC legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives! Check out the Legislative Action Index for more information...
Click here to sign the petition to Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega.
Click here to download petition forms - Click here to sign the petition online
What better time than now...
Join the Upcoming SOA Watch Delegations to Latin America!
November 28 - December 6: COLOMBIA We will visit the Uraba region of Colombia and will make the connection between companies like U.S. based Chiquita Brands and the SOA/ WHINSEC training.
No one ever comes back... unchanged!
About the School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
 The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News).
In an attempt to deflect public criticism and disassociate the school from its dubious reputation, the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in 2001. The name change was a result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, at a time when SOA opponents were poised to win a congressional vote on legislation that would have dismantled the school. The name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation
by a narrow ten-vote margin. (See Talking Points, Critique of New School, Vote Roll Call.)
In a media interview, Georgia Senator and SOA supporter the late Paul Coverdell characterized the DOD proposal as a "cosmetic" change that would ensure that the SOA could continue its mission and operation. Critics of the SOA concur.
SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works through creative protest and resistance, legislative and media work to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America, to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy that institutions like the SOA represent. We are grateful to our sisters and brothers throughout Latin America and the the Caribbean for their inspiration and the invitation to join them in their struggle for economic and social justice.
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