UE Convention Resolutions
School of the Americas:
The Ultimate Union Buster
The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is located at Fort Benning, Georgia and is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. In its 50-year history, the SOA has trained 60,000 Latin American troops in commando tactics, military intelligence, psychological operations and sniper fire. These soldiers are taught to make war against their own people. They have massacred entire villages of women, men, and children.
SOA graduates target grassroots leaders - especially religious leaders, student organizers, and labor leaders - for assassination, torture, rape and intimidation. In 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the SOA up until 199l. These manuals advocated interrogation techniques such as torture, execution, blackmail, and arresting the relatives of those being questioned. Labor organizers were one of the groups singled out in these manuals. SOA training manuals advocated targeting those who do "union organizing or recruiting," pass out "propaganda in favor of the interests of workers," or make "accusations that the government has failed... to meet the basic needs of people."
Consistently, the countries of Latin America with the worst human rights violations against labor leaders and others have received the most SOA training. Over the years, Colombia has sent a total of more than 10,000 military personnel to train at the School of the Americas - more than any other single country. Colombian SOA grads have left a trail of blood and suffering in their home country, and union members have been a prime target. In the early 1990s, one Colombian trade unionist was killed every other day, 180 a year. By 1996, the number had increased to 253. More trade unionists are killed each year in Colombia than in any other country.
The UN Truth Commission Report on El Salvador, released in 1993, cited over 60 Salvadoran officers for the worst atrocities during that country's brutal civil war. Over two-thirds of those named were alumni of the School of the Americas. SOA graduates were also ten of 12 cited for the El Mozote massacre of 900 villagers and nineteen of 26 cited for the massacre of six Jesuit priests.
Our tax dollars train Latin American unionbusters at the SOA. Union members in the U.S. know that an attack on workers anywhere is an attack on workers everywhere. U.S. workers must speak out and join in solidarity with those trying to close this anti-union, anti-American institution. It is not impossible to imagine that, if the SOA trained U.S. police forces, UE members and leaders could be targeted for harassment, torture and elimination.
In the face of a grassroots movement to close the school, minor cosmetic "reforms" were proposed for the SOA, including closing the school and reopening it under a new name on January 17, 2001. What matters is not the name, but the filthy anti-labor conduct promoted by this taxpayer-funded outfit. The SOA can change its name and adopt some minor reforms, but it cannot escape the fact that its dirty, deadly business will someday - and hopefully soon - be abolished.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 69th UE CONVENTION:
- Goes on record to join with others to call for the closing of the U.S. Army School of the Americas or its successor by whatever name, and in the meantime urges its members to demand that their Congressional representatives support the Latin America Military Training Review Act of 2005 (H.R. 1217);
- Encourages UE locals and districts/regions to participate in the annual November demonstration in Fort Benning, Georgia to call for the closing of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, and to provide publicity and support to those who choose to engage in civil disobedience;
- Urges UE locals to order School of Assassins, an Oscar-nominated film, and to show it to all UE members. The film is available through the UE national office;
- Urges UE at all levels to join SOA WATCH at their annual spring protest in Washington, D.C.;
- Urges UE at all levels to subscribe to the publication SOA Watch and to make copies available to all members.