Nov. 18-20, 2011, Fort Benning, Georgia:

THOUSANDS CONVERGE TO SHUT DOWN THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

CONTACT:  Hendrik Voss, SOA Watch, 202-425-5128, hvoss@soaw.org, http://www.SOAW.org

Thousands from across the Americas will converge from November 18-20 at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to call for an end to U.S. militarization and the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of Americas.

Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the three day mobilization.

The convergence will include:

• a rally at the gates of Fort Benning;
• nonviolent direct action, in which human rights activists will carry their protest onto the grounds of the military base, risking arrest and up to six month in federal prison;
• plenaries, workshops, concerts, strategy sessions
• and more.

August 2011, 69 Members of the House of Representatives delivered a letter to President Obama, calling on the President to shut down the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the School of Americas (SOA) by executive order.

The 69 Representatives including Representative John Lewis from Georgia, Representative Ron Paul from Texas and Representative James McGovern from Massachusetts. To read the letter, visit: http://soaw.org/docs/ObamaLetter.pdf

The SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. taxpayer-funded military training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The school made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this shocking admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the training facility has ever taken place.

In October 2011, Time Magazine published the article "Is It Time to Shutter the Americas' 'Coup Academy'?": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097124,00.html#ixzz1b9Rvmcbu

"It is up to us to hold those responsible for the training of human rights abusers accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in U.S. foreign policy" said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. "Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute."

[SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works for the closing the School of the Americas and a change in U.S. foreign policy]

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Across Latin America,
people are sick and tired of the
repression, interventions and wars
funded, trained, supported, carried out by the US
used to keep in place
grotesque economic inequality and exploitation,
inside countries, between countries.

The systemic exploitation and poverty, and inter-connected racism, US military interventions and repression in much of Central America, that Rights Action has been denouncing and resisting for years, are directly and indirectly related to and caused by the "Pentagon" and "Wall Street".