SOA Watch Report Back from Sunday Vigil

[roody]

Report Back from November Vigil

www.soaw.org

Solemn voices lifted up the spirits of those killed by graduates of the School of the Americas and filled the air as the music team sang out their names from the stage during this morning's funeral procession in front of the entrance to Fort Benning. The crowd of thousands responded, "PRESENTE!"

Joining actor Martin Sheen on stage this weekend was Georgia NAACP State President Edward DuBose, who told the crowd many had asked him why he'd come here.

“I made a promise to Troy Anthony Davis that I would continue to speak out against any system that takes any innocent life,” DuBose told the crowd. “However long it takes, we'll be here. We're on this road until justice is served!”

United Auto Workers President Bob King also addressed the gathering, lifting up the voice of organized labor standing in solidarity with workers all across the Americas.

Social movement leaders from Colombia, Haiti, Honduras and Costa Rica joined the thousands of activists who made the trek to this year's vigil. Jimena Paz, who helped organize the SOA Watch Encuentro in Venezuela, and who, as a young member of the Honduran Resistance, has lost friends to the SOA-led repression campaign, shared her compelling story from the stage.

Dr. Luther Castillo, a young, Afro-indigenous Garifuna doctor and community organizer, directs the foundation For the Health of Our People ("Luagu Hatuadi Waduheñu" in the Garifuna language), and is the founder and director of the First Popular Garifuna Hospital of Honduras. Exposing the effects of SOA training of Honduran soldiers since the 2009 graduate-led military coup, Luther shared that he and the hospital have been subject to many threats of closure and other attacks by the military and coup government.

Jani Silva, a community organizer from La Perla Amazonica, Putumayo, Colombia, addressed the reality of US foreign policy in her country, which has sent more than 10,000 soldiers to be trained at the SOA with chilling results. Mario Joseph, a prominent Haitian human rights lawyer, is representing political prisoners and victims of political violence in Haiti. He spoke from the stage, urging solidarity with Haitian struggle to keep the army from being brought back.

Also present among those giving testimony to SOA violence was Nelly del Cid, one of the Feminists in Resistance in Honduras. She shared her deep concerns about the huge number of femicides since the coup. Costa Rican lawyer and peace advocate Luis Roberto Zamora also gave updates about the lawsuit he filed against the Costa Rican government for sending police to the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.

Theresa Cusimano, 43, of Denver, Colorado, crossed the line for the second time following the morning's solemn funeral procession. She was arrested by military police and faces up to six months in prison. Stay tuned for a message from Theresa!
See Photos from the November Vigil

Tom Bottolene of MN SOA Watch shared these images from the weekend, including the pictures of the massive procession (left), Jimena Paz from the Honduran Resistance (below), the puppet pageant (below) and Tami Ramirez, Father Roy and Maia Rodriguez on stage (below).

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[Peace Patriot]

1. "Costa Rican government sending police to the School of the Americas/WHINSEC"!

U.S. "free trade for the rich" necessitates certain preparations for defending the new wealth for the rich as it grows exponentially at the expense of the poor, or, in any case, that's how the rich behave when they are going to steal big time: militarizing the police, fostering the fascist elements in the police and military forces, loading them up with weaponry (to the delight of war profiteers), and, in the case of the Latin America's thieving class, inviting the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" into the country, to brutalize society, erode civil rights, enhance domestic spying, provide excuses for kicking in doors and filling prisons and to enlist all those billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars for their war on the poor.

We've seen this terrible pattern recently, in Colombia, Honduras and Mexico. It is as old as the Nixon-Kissinger regime, which first elaborated this method of turning the poor into "the enemy" in the modern era. The Bushwhacks greatly escalated the carnage this century and turned the hose of the U.S. "war on drugs" specifically on trade unionists in Colombia and other advocates of the poor, tens of thousands of whom have been murdered by the U.S.-funded Colombian military and its death squads, under its mafia-like president, Alvaro Uribe, with FIVE MILLION peasant farmers driven from their lands by state terror.

It should be noted that Bill Clinton turned the "war on drugs" into a huge war profiteer boondoggle--prior to the Bush Junta's installation of their mafia don Uribe in Colombia. It is intended as the ground work for U.S. "free trade for the rich." Both U.S. political parties are involved. Obama has now capitalized on the mountain of dead bodies in Colombia--and on the Dieboldization of Congress--to, at long last, get the U.S./Colombia "free trade for the rich" agreement approved by this Scumbag Congress.

It is especially shocking to see this method of brutalizing and controlling the poor arrive in Costa Rica, a country that had vowed to be a demilitarized zone in the U.S. occupied Caribbean. It is a very bad sign. It means that Costa Rica's ruling elite is going the way of Colombia's--in imitation of the U.S. ruling elite--and may also intend to profit from the trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue stream, instigating a crime wave that parallels and enhances Corporate crime and the more official forms of theft, such as looting public services, busting unions, impoverishing workers and creating a large class of desperate poor.

Wherever the U.S. "war on drugs" goes, drug trafficking increases and also becomes bloodier, because one of the purposes of that dreadful war profiteer boondoggle is to eliminate the small or independent drug networks in favor of the big and politically more sophisticated drug lords who "launder" their trillions through U.S. banksters and know who in the CIA, the DEA, the Bush Cartel, etc., to give a cut to. We wonder why the drugs just keep on flowing, after forty years of this awful "war"? This is why. It is not just corrupt, it is inside out. The ruling elite is PROFITING from the drug trade). (Note: more than 70 of Uribe's closest cronies in Colombia are under investigation or already in prison, for ties to drug trafficking and rightwing death squads and other crimes. Serving Exxon Mobil, Drummond Coal, Monsanto, Chiquita, et al, runs parallel to this overt criminal activity; the one enhances the other.)

Overall, what I think we are seeing is the U.S. and its corporate/war profiteer rulers creating a "circle the wagons" region--Central America and the Caribbean-- against the leftist "tide" in South America, where most countries now have strong leftist leaders who are united and cooperating with each other in establishing Latin American independence from the U.S.. The first premise of this huge and historic movement is social justice (so anathema to our Corporate Rulers).

Indeed, one of the coup generals in Honduras stated that their coup was intended "to prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States" (--quoted in a report on the coup by the Zelaya government-in-exile).

By "communism," he means social justice (universal free health care, universal free education through college, etc.), use of a country's resources to benefit the people who live there and curtailment of the monstrous power of the rich with regulation and fair taxation. Venezuela is not a communist country, but fairness looks hostile to the very rich who want all the wealth for themselves, so they try to tag it with a bad name. Further, Venezuela is BY NO MEANS alone in trying to establish a "New Deal" for its people. This is a common project throughout South America. The Honduran general and the Honduran elite whom he serves see themselves as the barricade against social justice "reaching the United States," and are greatly rewarded by the U.S. and its corporate/war profiteer rulers for playing this repressive and very bloody role.

Colombia edges the Caribbean as does Venezuela. They are the southern rim of the U.S. "circle the wagons" region. Control of Colombia (via the "war on drugs," rightwing death squads, billions in U.S. military aid, U.S. military presence on the ground in Colombia, etc.) and toppling of the Chavez government in Venezuela are some of the obvious U.S. policies in creating this zone of U.S. corporate/war profiteer domination. The U.S.-backed rightwing coup in Honduras was another obvious U.S. "circle the wagons" move. (The Pentagon is now building more U.S. military bases in Honduras.) Subversion of Costa Rica's democracy has been a less obvious part of the program. There was a big U.S. "war on drugs" (i.e., promotion of drugs) operation in supposedly demilitarized Costa Rica last year. This news of the Costa Rican police going to the U.S. torture school is further confirmation that Costa Rica's elite has gone fascist and is cooperating in this U.S. strategy, to prevent "communism from Venezuela reaching the United States" (i.e., to prevent social justice ideas, and the notion of RESTORING democracy, as opposed to Corporate Rule--originating in Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Nicaragua and other countries which have elected leftist governments--from reaching the United States and polluting our population with these "New Deal" aspirations.)

Another key to understanding why U.S. corporate rulers/war profiteers feel that they need a barricade against South America is that this social justice movement in South America is creating PROSPERITY and UPWARD MOBILITY. It has, in short, been very successful. All of these countries--ravaged by U.S. "neo-liberal" policies--have turned around. Every one of them has seen surprising, even spectacular, economic growth and quick recovery from the Bush Junta-induced worldwide Depression, precisely because they rejected Wall Street's advice. Social spending works! Spreading the wealth works! Curtailing the rich and the corporate creates the vital balance needed to enhance everyone's lives and to motivate everyone to become productive, creative, active members of the society. Wall Street's advice, and the World Bank/IMF's advice and policy--all generated in Washington--aim at demoralizing the workforce, looting the poor, destroying democratic government and raping and ravaging these countries to enrich the rich.

Washington DOESN'T WANT US TO KNOW that those policies FAILED and that "New Deal" policies are the answer--create prosperity! Further, our leech-like monstrous corporations DON'T WANT TO COMPETE. They want all wealth to be larded on them--by use of U.S. bully power, not by fair, competitive negotiation--with no obligation to society. By cooperating and having each other's backs, South American countries are creating a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, whereby countries and corporations from all over the world have to give something back in order to have access to South American resources and markets.

The Chavez government was the pioneer on this matter--which is one of the reasons they are so hated by our Corporate Rulers--by forcing renegotiation of the oil contracts, to benefit Venezuelans. Exxon Mobil walked out of those negotiations in a snit, and other companies then benefited, by acquiescing to social justice goals. That set the pattern that is now continent-wide. LatAm countries don't have to accept U.S. corporate rape and run terms--and when they fight back, the result is...well... Venezuela was just designated "THE most equal country in Latin America," on income distribution, by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. U.S.-dominated Colombia has one of the worst rich/poor discrepancies in the region; Venezuela has THE best--and all the many leftist countries are now heading in that direction, toward fairer income distribution, and thus, prosperity.

Being the barricade against change for the better in the United States comes at a great price. The countries in the U.S. "circle the wagons" region that have let themselves be used in this way--or that have rich elites that have done so, often with the poor majority having no say at all--are suffering greatly, with vast poverty and other ills. Colombia, Honduras, Haiti, Mexico. These are type cases of what being a U.S. pawn means. And the countries that are fighting back and that are banding together in that fight, are doing very well. In the U.S. "circle the wagons" region, Nicaragua is a good example, and Venezuela, of course, is the star example. And, south of this region, there are numerous examples.

Costa Rica's elite has pretty clearly chosen to become yet another basket case of U.S. corporate/war profiteer looting and domination, in order to increase their own wealth and power. Costa Rica gained a reputation for democracy and fairness because it shared the wealth--and furthermore because of its anti-militarization policies. That began to change with CAFTA (U.S. "free trade for the rich" agreement). The looting has begun and that is why they need to train their police in fascist tactics, at the U.S. School of the Americas. This will not end well, believe me. There is NO MODEL of U.S. domination that has ended well. None!