Uncle Sam's School of Assassins

Activists work tirelessly to close a training ground for death squads and murderers

by Holly Borba
The Free Press

Also See: Related Story

On November 15, 1994, Father Bill Bichsel was arrested at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. Bichsel, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma, and Louis DeBenedette, a veteran from New Haven, Conn., had chained and locked the doors of the school as an act of protest in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the massacre in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter. Nineteen of the 26 officers implicated in the 1989 assassination were graduates of the School of the Americas, a U.S.-sponsored training academy for army officers from throughout Latin America.
While known for years by many Latin Americans as the "Escuela de Golpes" or "School of Coups," the cloaked role of the school as a death squad training ground was unveiled for many Americans with the release of the United Nations Truth Commission Report in 1993. Of the 60 Salvadoran officers cited in the report for committing the worst atrocities during El Salvador's brutal civil war, over two-thirds were alumni of the school.
Most recently, in March of this year, the school again received attention with the release of information showing that Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez of Guatemala, a paid agent of the CIA and a graduate of the School of the Americas, allegedly ordered the murder of American citizen Michael Devine in 1990. Alpirez also allegedly ordered the 1992 execution of Guatemalan guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, husband of U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury.
It was not the Truth Commission's report alone, however, which led to growing criticism of the school. Long before the report was released, Roy Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran and Maryknoll priest, had begun staunch efforts to call attention to the school. In 1990, while awaiting trial for an act of civil disobedience at Fort Benning, Bourgeois established an office called the School of the Americas Watch or S.O.A. Watch. The office, located across the street from the school's headquarters in Columbus, Georgia, gathers documented information about the school's activities throughout the hemisphere. When not demonstrating or imprisoned for his civil disobedience actions, Bourgeois speaks at gatherings across the nation. It was at one such gathering that Bichsel, the Jesuit priest from Tacoma, learned of the school.
According to Bichsel, Bourgeois forced the issue into the halls of Congress when he began an open-ended fast in Minneapolis at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Bourgeois and another priest declared they would continue on a water-only fast until Congress agreed to investigate the school. Thirty-five days into the fast, Speaker of the House Tom Foley assured Bourgeois that something would be done. Subsequently, Representatives Joseph Moakley, Marty Meehan, and Joseph Kennedy all became interested in the issue. Moakley went so far as to travel to El Salvador to conduct an investigation of his own.

Related Graph: School of Assassins: A Legacy of Infamy


Then in September 1993, congressional attention intensified when Rep. Kennedy proposed an amendment to the Army Operations and Maintenance Account which would have eliminated funding for the school. Unfortunately, the amendment was submitted without warning late in the legislative process. According to a bulletin by S.O.A. Watch, there was little time to do the educating and lobbying necessary for the amendment to pass. The amendment failed by a vote of 256-174. However, a similar amendment was back the following year, this time accompanying the House Defense Appropriations Bill. Now able to anticipate the vote, S.O.A. Watch organized a 40-day juice-only fast to take place on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. in the days leading up to the vote, from April 11 through May 20.
Bichsel and Bruce Triggs, also of Tacoma, were among the 15 who fasted the entire 40 days. They were joined throughout the fast's duration by hundreds of activists from all over the country, including a 35-member delegation of Veterans for Peace from Minneapolis, the first national organization to come out against the school. It was an intense period of lobbying, with constant leafletting and discussions with passersby from 11am to 6pm each day on the Capitol steps.
During this time, Bichsel and Triggs met with Washington Representative Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), whose views Bichsel describes as "tremendously militaristic." Bichsel and Dicks were not strangers. Bichsel had previously been arrested in Dicks' office in Tacoma for his protest against Dick's support of military aid to Central America.
When the vote on the amendment to close the school was taken for the second time, it again failed, this time with a vote of 217-175. Uncharacteristically, Dicks voted in favor of closing the school, as did all the other Washington state representatives with the exception of Republican Jennifer Dunn.
During lobbying efforts, Bichsel says the "It's just a few bad apples" argument was frequently used in defense of the school. Defenders argued, "Just because Milkin, the junk bond defrauder, came out of Harvard, you don't close down the Harvard School of Business, do you?" To which Bichsel responds, "We aren't talking about a few bad apples here. We're talking about a barrelful and the barrel itself has got wood rot."
Defenders also speak of the school as an institution necessary for the transmission of democracy. "If this was a way to import democracy, there would have been a change in the government structure of these countries. Yet, in fact, the exact opposite has occurred," said Bichsel. "The regimes under which these soldiers operate have become more and more repressive. It's like saying the wolf is a good guardian of the chicken coup."
Despite the continued operation of the school, critics like Bichsel and Bourgeois are not dissuaded. "It was a real breakthrough," said Bourgeois in an October 1993 interview with the National Catholic Reporter. "It was the first time since the school began in Panama in 1946 that there has ever been a public debate about its role, let alone its funding. The school can only operate in secret, in the shadows. Now that it's being brought into the light, the votes will come to close its doors."
Bichsel's arrest in November for chaining the doors of the school followed on the heels of the congressional debate. His actions serve as proof that efforts to shut down the school will continue. Despite the fact that Bichsel was held for six hours, charged with criminal trespass and interference with government property, and presented with a mandatory court appearance, he and another Jesuit priest, Fr. Fred Mercy of Spokane, were back the following day, this time to pour blood over the sign at the entrance to the school. In a signed statement of conscience released at the time, Bichsel and Mercy stated:

"In these days when the School of the Americas has convened high-ranking military officers from Central and South American countries to continue and solidify their counter-insurgency measures against their own people, we come to pour our blood in union with the martyred of El Salvador as a sign that enough blood has been spilled. The counter-insurgents in these countries are the poor who cry for land to grow food, for health care, education, and a human life for their children and themselves. For this they and those that stand by them are branded subversive enemies of the state. There is a punitive temperament in our country against the poor, the immigrants, and the growing underclass. We pray that the hearts of the people of this country be converted to move our representatives in government to change the murderous policy they have maintained in keeping the School of the Americas open. We pray that this move will help lift the death penalty from the poor in Central and South America and lift the long-term death penalty of the poor in the U.S."

Arraignment of charges against Bichsel will be heard in district court. He anticipates that the date for his arraignment will be announced in September. In the meantime, organizing to shut down the school continues.

For more information on these efforts, call the Tacoma Latin America Support Office at 925-0979.

To e-mail Holly Borba:
WAfreepress@gmail.com

Related Story:
"School of Assassins" Video Available




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