Subject: [Y4M] SOA / Mumia Abu Jamal – DC: March 30th - April 2nd Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 01:19:59 -0500 Two of the most powerful and far-reaching resistance movements in the recent US history happen to mobilize for the same weekend for events to Washington DC. March 30th – April 2nd 2001 - National Mumia Emergency Conference called for by the National Coordinators of Mumia's Defense - Anti SOA Rally in front of the White House and massive Civil Resistance Action at the Pentagon (to subscribe to the SOA Watch/NE email Newsletter send a blank email to SOAWatchNE-subscribe@topica.com *more information at the end of this email* THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE By Mumia Abu-Jamal, M A. #495 Column Written 2/10/2001 Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author. ..."A society that becomes accustomed to using violence to solve its problems, both large and small,is a society in which the roots of human relations are diseased." -- Ignacio Martin-Baró, O.J. It is virtually impossible for anyone to consider the horrific violence that has taken place in Central and Latin America, without accounting for the hideous roots of that violence, that grow and thrive in America. For decades, the bloody flood from murders, massacres, rapes, torture and carnage, created a trail that could be traced to the doorsteps of a U.S. military training institution known as the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia. Human rights activists have held increasingly swelling demonstrations at the SOA, and have dubbed it the "School of Assassins." For years the Pentagon dismissed such criticism, and defended the SOA as an elite international training academy for "counter-insurgency," or, more obliquely, for "teaching democracy." The graduates of SOA, however, constituted a kind of rogue's gallery of military despots and dictators, like Bolivia's Gen. Hugo Banzer Suárez, who brutally suppressed progressive church workers and striking tin miners; like Guatemalan dictator Gen. Romeo Lucas García (1978-82), whose rule saw over 5,000 political killings and about 25,000 civilians murdered by the Guatemalan army; and Gen. Juan Rafael Bustillo, of El Salvador, former airforce chief, who, according to a UN report of 1993, both planned and then covered up the massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter, for starters. If you mention a massacre, the chances are great that the men who either ordered or committed the deed were SOA grads. The El Mozote, El Junquillo, Las Hojas, and San Sebastian Massacres were all the work of SOA- trained "death squads." When four U.S. churchwomen were raped and murdered, when Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated, when union members were killed, it was SOA grads who led in the carnage. U.S.-trained and armed SOA people have been involved in so many military coups that in Latin America the school is known as the escuela de golpes-coup school. Recently, the Defense Deptartment, stung by decades of negative publicity, officially "closed" SOA, only to immediately reopen it under the name Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (WHISC). Although not as catchy as SOA, WHISC promises to play the same game, by another name. Shortly after the Jesuit murders, U.S.-trained Salvadoran troops surrounded the office of the Catholic archdiocese, and shouted, "Ignacio Ellacuría and Ignacio Martin-Baró have already fallen and we will continue murdering communists! Ellacuría and Martin-Baró were two Jesuit priests involved in Christian base communities, where the poor learned literacy, history and how to organize for human rights in the midst of monstrous repression. Martin-Baró was a brilliant liberation theologist and psychologist, who, like the revolutionary Frantz Fanon, chose the side of the oppressed rather than the rich and powerful oppressors. For this he was targeted by the U.S.-trained terrorists of the SOA, and it is for men and women like him, who seek an end to economic and social oppression, that imperial training camps, like SOA/WHISC exist. Its name has changed, but the game remains the same. (c)MAJ 2001 ****************************************************** Schedule of events for March 30th – April 2nd 2001: Friday, March 30th & Saturday, 31st 2001 Mumia Emergency Conference In Washington DC Called for by the National Coordinators of Mumia's Defense - call 215.476.8812 for more information on the Mumia Conference Sunday, April 1st 2001 Rally to close the “School of the American Empire” (SOA) in front of the White House (Lafayette Park) from 11-2 with speakers and music. Puppets, leafleting, and street theater on the Mall. Action planning for the Pentagon at St. Aloysius Church (19 I St. NW) from 7-9pm. Monday, Aril 2nd 2001 Massive Civil Resistance Action at the Pentagon, 7 AM. Autonomous affinity group actions to demand a closing of the SOA and a change of US foreign policy throughout Washington DC. For more information about the SOA, the upcoming Rallys (Philadelphia March 24th & DC April 1st) and the planned Direct Actions at the Pentagon and in Washington DC, subscribe to the SOA Watch/Northeast email Newsletter by sending a blank email to SOAWatchNE-subscribe@topica.com or call SOA Watch/NE @ 215.473.2162 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details http://us.click.yahoo.com/kWP7PD/pYNCAA/4ihDAA/xrOVlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Stop the execution! New trial for Mumia! Youth & Students for Mumia http://www.mumia2000.org To subscribe or unsubscribe email: youth-4-mumia-owner@egroups.com