With the Fourth of July celebration still fresh in our minds, here's something we can do to help other people become free. In this case, free from the violence of kidnapping, rape, torture and death perpetrated by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas (the U.S. government keeps changing the name) at Ft. Benning, Ga.

First a very brief history.

Between 1946 and 2001, the SWHISC/SOA trained more than 61,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen in “security tactics” (torture). Some of them became notorious for human rights violations, including Gen. Manuel Noriega and some of the dictator Augusto Pinochet's officers, and the founders of Los Zetas, a mercenary army for one of Mexico's largest drug trafficking organizations, the Gulf Cartel. Also among the notable graduates is the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who took some classes there in 1961 but never actually received his sheepskin. The educational curriculum encouraged such practices as kidnapping, murder, rape and beheading.

The graduates are responsible for such illustrious acts as the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero while he was celebrating the Eucharist and the shootings of the Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador. In the latter, the assassins split open the victims skulls and pulled their brains out, placing them next to the skulls; the message being “do not dare to think for yourselves." They also kidnapped, murdered the five missionaries (two Maryknoll nuns and three other volunteer women) after raping and beating them.

All of this is of course denied by the WHINSEC, and according to the WHINSEC, the education now emphasizes democracy and human rights. (I'm not sure how much I would trust edification on these two topics from a government that illegally spied on its citizens and then voted to let the telecom companies who were doing so off the hook. But I digress.)

School of the Americas Watch is a social justice organization founded by Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois and a small group of supporters in 1990 to protest these crimes being committed in our name with our money, via the training given there. Most notably, SOA Watch conducts a vigil each November at the site of the academy. Crossing onto Ft. Benning during that vigil earns you three months in federal prison for a first offense – even if you happen to be an 80-year-old nun – no questions asked. (And I mean NO QUESTIONS ASKED).

In 2006 the FBI placed SOAW on the counter-terrorism list. Your tax dollars in action protecting you from a group that is working to end violence. (Feeling any safer?)

You can learn more about the SOA Watch at: www.soawatch.org

Here's the action part: Watch the video "No Running Water – Close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and oppose Plan Colombia” by clicking HERE. This video is short and effective and covers the basics in less than 7 minutes.

Then call your congressional representative and ask them to sponsor HR 2567, the Latin America Military Training Review Act. The congressional switch board number is 202-234-3121.

The WHINSEC/SOA was almost closed a year or so ago – just a few votes short. We can do this!