Monday, November 17, 2003

School Of Assassins FEATURED ARTICLES - Thousands to Expose Double Standard in War on Terrorism        Convergence and Mass Civil Disobedience Action at Fort Benning, Georgia - U.S.-trained ex-soldiers form core of 'Zetas' - SOA Letter Writing Campaign - "Hidden in Plain Sight" - New Documentary On The School Of The Americas - The Killing Fields QUOTE OF THE DAY "The School Of The Americas is part of a corporate-hijacked foreign policy that's making us a lot of enemies," said. "If we want lasting peace and security we need a foreign policy that reflects our values of justice and democracy." - - Father Roy Bourgeois  (Founder of the School Of The Americas Watch) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - NOVEMBER 17th 1978 -- Two FBI agents testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the bureau's long-term surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was based solely on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's "hatred of the civil rights leader" & not on the civil right's leader's alleged communist influences or linkages with radical groups. 1979 -- The Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran, orders the release of 13 female & black hostages in Teheran, citing American women & African-Americans as among the groups oppressed by the government of the United States. RHINO HERE: This coming weekend (November 22-23), thousands of political activists will converge on Columbus Georgia at the gates of the U.S. Army's Fort Benning wherein lies the infamous School of the Americas (SOA). For those who know any of the history of the school, our government's finger pointing at the people they call terrorists seems hypocritical indeed. For decades, U.S. Army instructors have taught the skills of kidnapping, torture, assassination and government overthrow to students hailing from Central and South American countries. Of course the Army denied the accusations of those who tried to get the media to put a spotlight on this most shameful use of U.S. Taxpayer dollars, but when a copy of the SOA's training manual, including its step by steps on murder & mayhem, was gotten a hold of by activists and released to the public, the Government had no choice but to shut the school down. But in a matter of a few months, they opened the school back up with a new name; "The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" (WHISC), claiming it was still a combat-training school for Latin American soldiers, but it wouldn't be teaching those skills that were illegal by international law, that the SOA had been teaching. They expect us to believe that they so sincerely lied before, but are telling the truth now.   Today's Blog offers several blurbs & links regarding, what the activists who have dedicated their lives to exposing this travesty, have dubbed, "The School Of Assassins." We begin with an excerpt of the press release announcing this weekend's action. The Rhino will be there. Thousands to Expose Double Standard in War on Terrorism Convergence and Mass Civil Disobedience Action at Fort Benning, Georgia, November 22-23, 2003 to Close the School of the Americas ...The gathering will culminate on Sunday, November 23 with a solemn "funeral" procession to the gates of Ft. Benning. Many will negotiate a barbed-wire fence to enter the military base in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. Since protests against SOA-WHISC began over ten years ago, over 170 people served or are now serving federal prison sentences for civil disobedience. The weekend's program will feature music and speakers from Latin and North America, including Pete Seeger; Llajtasuyo; Francisco Herrera; Jon Fromer; Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!; Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking; Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness; Bob King, VP of the United Auto Workers International; and many others. SOA graduates return to their countries to utilize their training domestically and are consistently cited for atrocities against their own people. Critics say President Bush used this same argument against Saddam Hussein to leverage an invasion of Iraq, while ignoring U.S. culpability in gross human rights violations throughout Latin America. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others working for human rights and economic justice. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared", massacred, and forced into refuge by SOA graduates. THE ENTIRE PRESS RELEASE IS AT: http://www.soaw.org/new/pressrelease.php?id=57 U.S.-trained ex-soldiers form core of 'Zetas'    By ANGELES NEGRETE LARES, The Brownsville Herald, 10/22/03 The Gulf Cartel boasts a rare weapon in the high stakes war for drug-trafficking supremacy: U.S.- trained soldiers. The Zetas, hired assassins for the Gulf Cartel, feature 31 ex-soldiers once part of an elite division of the Mexican army - the Special Air Mobile Force Group. At least one-third of this battalion's deserters was trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., according to documents from the Mexican secretary of defense. "They have high-powered weapons, training and intelligence capabilities," said Francisco Castillo Zaragoza, brigadier general at the 8th Military Zone in Reynosa, Tamaulipas... ..."There is a higher level of danger with the type of knowledge that these people have - their arms capacity, their knowledge of techniques and specialization in (drug) traffic operations," said Luis Astorga, a drug-trade expert at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. "Traffickers traditionally don't have that; they pay other people for those services." The 31 ex-soldiers were part of a 350-person elite paratrooper and intelligence battalion posted in Tamaulipas in 1995 to fight drug traffickers. But the Gulf Cartel, led by Osiel Cardenas, recruited them and brought a new level of expertise and firepower to the drug war. IT'S ALL AT: http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=329 SOA Letter Writing Campaign This is an appeal for your help to make more Americans aware of why the SOA needs to be closed. SOA Watch would like to see a national television program produced on the SOA. You can help by asking "Sixty Minutes" and "NOW with Bill Moyers" to air a program on the SOA. Please use the letter below or write one of your own, sending it via e-mail or to the following addresses. To enhance our efforts, we hope you will forward this note to others. (Here's an excerpt from the letter.) In response to President Bush's call to shut down ALL terrorist training camps, I am writing to ask that you produce a program on the School of the Americas. I believe Americans would appreciate learning why a recent report released by Amnesty International called for an immediate suspension of military training there, recommending the US establish an independent commission to investigate activities of the SOA due to human rights abuses by its graduates... MORE AT: http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=323 "Hidden in Plain Sight" - New Documentary On The School Of The Americas This new 71 min documentary presents different points of view which illuminate the turbulent reality of Latin America, demystify the policy-making process and shed light on some of the most complex and urgent problems facing us today. Enter noted scholars Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Christopher Hitchens, and Michael Parenti, who broaden the debate about the SOA/WHISC to include such subjects as militarism, corporate globalization, national security, and international terrorism. Personal accounts from victims of the violence and repression in Latin America raise questions and concerns about the nature and consequences of U.S. policy in Latin America. This new doc about the School of the Americas, opens nationwide in Nov. of 2003. The doc is available for authorized public screenings ONLY with the filmmakers' and the distributor's written permission! Please contact Raven's Call Productions for more information. MORE INFO & SCHEDULED PUBLIC SCREENING AT: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=547 Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is an in depth story on The U.S. Government's School Of Assassins published in 2002 by the London Sunday Times. The piece was an "Amnesty International Media Award Winner."  Amnesty International UK Communications Director Richard Bunting said: "Journalists play a crucial role in exposing human rights abuses and putting a human face to what otherwise can be dismissed as a distant tragedy. These awards recognize the fact that the media's role is often difficult but can be enormously powerful in changing the actions and even policies of the perpetrators of human rights abuses." 7:38:05 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - The Killing Fields The Killing Fields by Christine Toomey, The Sunday Times Magazine For decades, murderers, torturers and dictators came from many Latin American countries to a military academy in Georgia for 'professional training'. Now thousands have learnt the truth, and are joining the campaign to have it closed down. Christine Toomey investigates As Major Joseph Blair - United States Army, retired - tells it, the incident was 'funny as hell'. There was Colonel Pablo Belmar, one of Augusto Pinochet's most notorious henchmen - accused of torture and murder during Chile's military dictatorship - his chest puffed out, in full-dress uniform, delivering a four-hour lecture on human rights. Snickering and joking among themselves at the back of the class were senior military officers from Guatemala and El Salvador. 'Guys,' says Blair, 'who had just participated in the genocides of Central America. No one asked any questions. They just sat listening to Belmar go, 'Here's the Geneva Convention. Here's the Hague Convention. It's on the slide. Read it. Now let's get onto the next thing.' No one was interested.' Blair gulps back laughter as he recalls their reaction: 'They were going, 'Oh, bullsh. Human rights exist at the point of a gun.'' IT'S ALL AT: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=624 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:24:17 AM    comment

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