Crime of Passion (Page 3 of 3)

The Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Colombia (Feb. 17, 2004) stated that, “The office in Colombia continued receiving, in growing number, complaints of violations with direct responsibility of public servants, and in particular the Security Forces, on several occasions jointly with the Attorney-General’s office.” Additionally, the Colombian weekly news magazine Cambio, published the comments of a former Colombian Army general, General Jaime Alberto Uscátegui, who claims to have evidence that details the extent of alleged tacit agreements between the paramilitaries and the Colombian military.

 

The issues surrounding paramilitary activities and impunity are just some of the factors that contribute to the continuing poor human rights record in Colombia, as described in the annual State Department and UN reports. Yet despite the well-documented, very serious humanitarian problems, since the spring of 2000, the U.S. has given Colombia more than $2.52 billion in military and police aid (www.ciponline.org, 3/2/04).

According to SOA/WHINSEC, in 2003, 316 out of 903 students were from Colombia; for 2005 (actual figure not yet known) and 2006, 198  and 256 Colombian students (out of 600) are projected to attend (Center for International Policy).

El Salvador

In 1993, the United Nations Truth Commission Report on El Salvador cited the officers responsible for the worst atrocities committed during that country’s brutal civil war. Over two-thirds of those named were trained at the School of the Americas. Their crimes include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero (1980) during a church service; the murder of four U.S. churchwomen (1980); the infamous El Mozote massacre in which hundreds of innocent civilans were slaughtered, including women and children (1980); the Lake Suchitlan massacre  in which 117 people were killed (1983); the Los Llanitos massacre, 68 killed (1984); and the murder of six Jesuit intellectuals and two others at the University of Central America in 1989.

CChile

SOA graduates were involved in Auguste Pinochet’s 1973 coup against Salvador Allende. SOA grad—and an instructor at the school in 1987—Pablo Belmar was involved in the 1976 murder of UN official Carmelo Soria. Graduates of the School of the Americas have comprised one out of every seven members of the command staff of DINA, the notorious Chilean intelligence agency responsible for many of the worst human rights atrocities during the Pinochet years. SOA grads who were members of the DINA command staff include: Luis Alberto Medina Aldea, Jorge Aro Peigneguy, Eugenio Videla, Rene Riveros, and Guillermo Salinas. DINA was responsible for torturing as many as 28,000 people during Pinochet’s 17-year reign of terror.

Sources: School of Americas Watch, UN Truth Commission reports on El Salvador, and Guatemala, U.S. Department of State Country Report for 2004. For more documentation, visit soaw.org.