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‘ Time for America to live up to her creed’
Georgia military school trains anti-union terrorists

Armed guards protect the walls while inside school is in session. Students listen attentively but the day’s coursework isn’t reading, writing and arithmetic.
These students are studying guerilla warfare, sniper training, intelligence and interrogation, commando and psychological warfare, and counterinsurgency techniques.

School manuals openly advocate the use of torture, extortion and execution.
The school has a distinguished list of alumni who have accomplished all types of terrorist activities. Murderers, drug cartels and human rights violators have all gotten their start at this school.

The school is not located in a Taliban controlled area of Afghanistan or an insurgent outpost in Iraq. It’s located right here at home at the Fort Benning military base in Columbus, Ga. The school formally known as the School of the Americas is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but its purpose hasn’t changed.

The SOA dates back to 1946 when it was founded at a U.S. military base in Panama. Its mission was to train mercenaries to carry out political assassinations and coercions throughout South America. In 1984 Panama expelled the school, calling it the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The school was then quietly moved to Fort Benning to continue training murderers in the name of national defense.

In 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker, and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. A U.S. Congressional Task Force investigated the incident and found those responsible had been trained at Fort Benning with our tax dollars picking up the tab. From this incident the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) movement was founded. It is supported by numerous faith-based and human rights groups and labor unions. They work to bring attention to the camp that has been the source of training for some 60,000 Latin American soldiers responsible for thousands of deaths.

With the installation of NAFTA in 1994, the Mexican government began increasing the number of their participants who attended the SOA. Labor leaders at Mexican manufacturing facilities found themselves targets of SOA alumni killers.

In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release SOA training manuals. The manuals encouraged terror tactics on those who “support union organizing or recruiting,” “distribute propaganda in favor of workers’ interest,” and who “sympathize with demonstrations or strikes.”

With the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) looming, the number of recruits being sent through the SOA has increased. A force of assassins is being assembled to further protect the interests of multinational corporations in preparation for further spread of “free trade” across South America. These corporations benefit from the SOA-sponsored terror and murder of union labors.

John Davis
Local 2195