Undo the coup Amy Goodman
The first coup d’etat in Central America in
more than a quarter-century occurred on June 28, 2009 in Honduras. It
was led by a graduate of the US Army’s School of the Americas, a
military facility that has trained some of Latin America’s worst
torturers, murderers and human rights abusers.
The first coup d’etat in Central America in more than a
quarter-century occurred last Sunday in Honduras. Honduran soldiers
roused democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and
flew him into exile in Costa Rica. The coup, led by the Honduran Gen.
Romeo Vasquez, has been condemned by the United States, the European
Union, the United Nations, the Organization of American States and all
of Honduras’ immediate national neighbors. Mass protests have erupted on
the streets of Honduras, with reports that elements in the military
loyal to Zelaya are rebelling against the coup.
The United States has a long history of domination in the hemisphere.
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can chart
a new course, away from the dark days of military dictatorship,
repression and murder. Obama indicated such a direction when he spoke in
April at the Summit of the Americas: “At times we sought to dictate our
terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is
no senior partner and junior partner in our relations.”
Two who know well the history of dictated US terms are Dr. Juan
Almendares, a medical doctor and award-winning human rights activist in
Honduras, and the American clergyman Father Roy Bourgeois, a priest who
for years has fought to close the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA)
at Fort Benning, Ga. Both men link the coup in Honduras to the SOA.
The SOA, renamed in 2000 the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is the U.S. military facility that
trains Latin American soldiers. The SOA has trained more than 60,000
soldiers, many of whom have returned home and committed human rights
abuses, torture, extrajudicial execution and massacres.
Almendares, targeted by Honduran death squads and the military, has
been the victim of that training. He talked to me from Tegucigalpa, the
Honduran capital: “Most of this military have been trained by the School
of America. ... They have been guardians of the multinational business
from the United States or from other countries. ... The army in Honduras
has links with very powerful people, very rich, wealthy people who keep
the poverty in the country. We are occupied by your country.”
Born in Louisiana, Bourgeois became a Catholic priest in 1972. He
worked in Bolivia and was forced out by the (SOA-trained) dictator Gen.
Hugo Banzer.
The assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the murders of four
Catholic churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980 led him to protest where
some of the killers were trained: Fort Benning’s SOA. After six Jesuit
priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in El Salvador
in 1989, Bourgeois founded SOA Watch and has built an international
movement to close the SOA.
Honduran coup leader Vasquez attended the SOA in 1976 and 1984. Air
Force Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, who also participated in the coup,
was trained at the SOA in 1996.
Bourgeois’ SOA Watch office is just yards from the Fort Benning
gates. He has been frustrated in recent years by increased secrecy at
SOA/WHINSEC. He told me: “They are trying to present the school as one
of democracy and transparency, but we are not able to get the names of
those trained here - for over five years.
However, there was a little sign of hope when the US House approved
an amendment to the defense authorization bill in late June that would
force the school to release names and ranks of people who train here.”
The amendment still has to make it through the House-Senate conference
committee.
Bourgeois speaks with the same urgency that he has for decades. His
voice is well known at Fort Benning, where he was first arrested more
than 25 years ago when he climbed a tree at night near the barracks of
Salvadoran soldiers who were training there at the time.
Bourgeois blasted a recording of the voice of Romero in his last
address before he was assassinated. The archbishop was speaking directly
to Salvadoran soldiers in his country: “In the name of God, in the name
of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day,
I implore you, I beg you, I order you: Stop the repression.”
Almost 30 years later, in a country bordering Romero’s El Salvador,
the US has a chance to change course and support the democratic
institutions of Honduras. Undo the coup.
- Third World Network Features
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