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Father Roy: It's an honor to be with you. It was after leaving the military for four
years that I became a Catholic priest. After being ordained, I went to Bolivia to serve
the poor who became my teachers. It was in Bolivia that I began to realize that the greatest
enemy in my country, the United States, is ignorance.
There's so much that we don't know about other cultures, other people's histories, and of
course, our country's foreign policy. The people of Bolivia, the poor and the oppressed
of that country, began to educate me. It saddened me to see my country there supporting a brutal
dictator general, General Hugo Banzer, one of the many dictators that we are supporting
at this time. It was in my fifth year that I was arrested.
We were visiting political prisoners in Bolivia. There were many documented cases of torture.
I was arrested in my fifth year and expelled from the country, and became very involved
in El Salvador, a country far worse than the one I came from.
It was in El Salvador that we found, once again, our country at work, the United States
giving guns, training to those who were at war with their people. I've never seen such
brutality as I saw in El Salvador. There were many massacres, many killed. November the
16th, 1989, six Jesuit priests there, two women coworkers, were massacred.
A US congressional task force to investigate and returned reporting that those responsible
for this massacre were trained at the US Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
It was then that I went to Georgia with the support of my religious community, the [Maranot
0:02:27] order, and with others started to investigate this school. I moved into a small
apartment right outside of the main gate of Fort Benning where I continued to live and
monitor this school. Some of the basics of what we've learned:
over 60,000 soldiers from 18 countries in Latin America have been trained here. They
come from these countries to learn commando operations, psychological warfare, counter-insurgency.
What we learned, of course, were that the insurgents were the poor, human rights leaders,
naval leaders as in Columbia where most of the soldiers are coming from today. They have
been the targets of those who have learned their lessons at this school.
In 1996 the Washington Post front page revealed that at the school were these manuals and
advocated torture, "US Instructed Latins on Execution and Torture," the front page of
the Washington Post reported. When the United Nations Truth Commission report
on El Salvador documented that those who assassinated Bishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, those
Salvadoran soldiers who *** and killed four US church women in El Salvador, two of them
of the [Maranot 0:03:48] community who were friends, they were trained at the School of
the Americas along with those who massacred, of course, the Jesuits and the two women ... and
the list went on and on. Word about the school down at Fort Benning,
the School of the Americas, began to spread throughout the country. It was being financed
by the US taxpayers. It was being done in our name. We began to gather at the main gate
each November to try to keep alive the memory of the victims, to try to speak for those
whose voices have been silenced, taken away. That first November when we gathered, we had
a small group there, about a dozen. The next year a hundred came, and then 500, and then
1000 the following year. I'm happy to report that this last November over 19,000 gathered
at the main gate of Fort Benning, and we were there to try to express our solidarity as
North Americans, with sisters and brothers of Latin America who are the victims of this
school down at Fort Benning, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. Because our movement got to such large numbers,
because of editorials appearing in major newspapers like the New York Times, "School of Dictators,"
the Washington Post, "The School of Scandal," the Los Angeles Times, "Bury this Relic,"
and many other major newspapers calling for its closure, the school changed its name but
not its tactics. They say to us now that they're teaching democracy
at this school. We say, "You do not teach democracy behind the barrel of a gun. You
do not teach democracy behind this chain link fence with signs that say, "No trespassing."
What's going on here is that the thousands of soldiers trained here every year, they
return to these countries in Latin America, and they provide the muscle for US foreign
policy. They protect the economic interests of the large corporations. These soldiers
are none other than the watchdogs to protect the economic interests of these economic giants.
We want this school shut down. This is what we're about. I want to say that our movement
is rooted in nonviolence. Early on, as the movement began to grow, we drew on the wisdom
and the experience of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez,
and others. Their way, the way of nonviolence, was going to be our way to shut down what's
know in Latin America as a "school of assassins." That's what we're about. Over 19,000 were
gathered there last November. We're there to shut down the school.
Over half who gathered were college and university students, high school students, lot of nuns,
military veterans, lots of senior citizens, parents with their children, and others. I
can only say that we're not going away. We're going to keep our hands on the plow here until
this school of assassins is shut down. Just months ago we received, from the FBI
and their counterterrorism division, the request that the ACLU filed for us. I must say I was
not shocked to know that our country, that my country, the United States, had been spying
on us, doing surveillance on our organization, along with other grassroots organizations
who are in solidarity with the poor. They have been spying on us for years.
I just want to say I think it's a disgrace. This is an outrage. This is a scandal. What
I've come to realize is that my country, any person or organization who would dare to critique,
to criticize US foreign policy, we become suspect. We are seen as a subversive, as in
Latin America, "El Enemigo." Any person or who dares to walk in solidarity with the poor,
to try to be a voice for the voiceless, are seen as suspect, as subversive.
I want to just say I think it's a scandal, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. These
50 pages that we have received from the FBI, let me just say ... quote from this document
... the FBI is saying in their document, on page 20:
The event has grown dramatically during the past several years, attracting college students
and others sympathetic to the issue. The primary issue of the protest is the funding and training
by the Department of Defense and the Department of State of Latin American military officers
at the Fort Benning, Georgia, military installation. This event draws protestors who object to
the human rights violations conducted in these countries.
The leaders of the SOA watch have taken strides to impart upon the protest participants that
the protest should be a peaceful event. This year's protest was peaceful as it has been
over the past years. This is from the report, and again, we ask,
"What are they doing spying, doing surveillance on our organization? Why aren't they spending
their resources, and personnel, and time, and money investigating the crimes of the
hundreds and hundreds of graduates who have been trained at this school?
I am here representing our movement with the hope that this school, and through your efforts,
that this school can be shut down. We believe that this school should not exist, nor any
school that promotes violence and torture should not exist.
Thank you.