School of the Americas Watch

School of the Americas Watch 

is an advocacy organization founded by former Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois and a group of supporters in 1990 to protest the training of mainly Latin American military officers, by the United States Department of Defense, at the School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning. Most notably, SOA Watch conducts a vigil each November at the site of the academy, located on the grounds of Fort Benning, to protest human rights abuses committed by some graduates of the academy or under their leadership, including murders, rapes and torture and contraventions of the Geneva Conventions.[1] Military officials state that even if graduates commit war crimes after they return to their home country, the school itself should not be held accountable for their actions. Responding to "mounting protests",[2][3] which were spearheaded by SOA Watch , the United States Congress renamed the School of the Americas the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), rather than closing the academy, in 2000. In addition, all students must undergo a minimum of eight hours of class on human rights and the principle of civilian control of the military.

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Thank you for supporting our mission to dismantle US imperialism and end all forms of US-sponsored violence across the Americas!

Your contribution plays a crucial role in sustaining our cross-border organizing efforts. The majority of our support comes from individual donors like you, making this work possible.

Donations are tax-deductible! If you can, please consider becoming a sustaining donor by selecting “Make this donation recurring.” Your ongoing support is vital in building a more just and peaceful world.

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SOA Watch

225 E 26th St, Suite 7

Tucson, AZ 85713 

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• Facebook group - Tucson AZ 
• https://www.facebook.com/Schooloftheamericaswatch?mibextid=ZbWKwL

• WHO IS THE SOAW?
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas_Watch

• Donate! 
• https://soaw.salsalabs.org/donate/index.html
• 
  
• Fact sheet: pdf
• https://educationforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Fact-Sheet_-School-of-the-Americas-Watch_March-2013.pdf

Maryknoll Sisters - 35th Anniversary of El Salvador Martyrs

 

• https://www.maryknollsisters.org/2015/11/19/maryknoll-sisters-to-mark-35th-anniversary-of-el-salvador-martyrs-deaths/

On December 2, 1980, four female Catholic missionaries from the United States working in El Salvador were raped and murdered by five members of the El Salvador National Guard (Daniel Canales Ramírez, Carlos Joaquín Contreras Palacios, Francisco Orlando Contreras Recinos, José Roberto Moreno Canjura, and Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán). The victims were: 

• Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke  and  Ita Ford
• Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel , 
• and missionary lay Jean Donovan .

Kazel and Donovan , who were based in La Libertad, drove to El Salvador International Airport on the afternoon of December 2 to pick up two Maryknoll Sisters returning from a Maryknoll conference in Managua, Nicaragua. Kazel and Donovan were under surveillance by a National Guardsman at the time, who telephoned his commander. Acting on orders from the commander, five National Guardsmen changed out of uniform and continued to stake out the airport. Donovan and Kazel returned to pick up Clarke and Ford , who were returning from the same conference, on a flight due at 7:00 pm, which landed at 9:11 pm.[1] The five Guardsmen stopped the four women's vehicle after they left the airport. They were taken to a relatively isolated spot where they were beaten, raped and murdered by the soldiers.[1]

Peasants living nearby had seen the women's white van drive to an isolated spot at about 10 pm on December 2 and then heard machine gun fire followed by single shots, three hours after the flight was due. They saw five men flee the scene in the white van, with the lights on and the radio blaring. The van would be found later that night on fire on the side of the airport road. Later, the women's bodies with knife wounds were found in a ditch.[1]

Early the next morning, December 3, they found the bodies of the four women and were told by local authorities — a judge, three members of the National Guard, and two commanders — to bury them in a common grave in a nearby field. The peasants did so, but informed their parish priest, Father Paul Schindler, and the news reached Óscar Romero's successor Arturo Rivera y Damas and the United States Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White.[1]

Their shallow grave was exhumed the next day, December 4, in front of 15 reporters, Sisters Alexander and Dorsey and several missionaries, and Ambassador White. Donovan's body was the first exhumed; then Kazel's; then Clarke's; and last, that of Ita Ford. On December 5, a Mass of the Resurrection was said by Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas; and on December 6, the bodies of Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel were flown out for burial. Donovan's body was returned to her parents in Sarasota, Florida, while Kazel's was taken back to her hometown of Cleveland, where she was buried in All Souls Cemetery in Chardon, Ohio. The bodies of the Maryknoll sisters, Clarke and Ford, were buried in Chalatenango, El Salvador,[1] in keeping with Maryknoll practice.