[Cispes-Alert] ALERT: Congress Votes on SOA/WHINSEC (and ILEA) this week!

Tue Jun 19 16:04:44 UTC 2007

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ALERT: Congress Votes on SOA/WHINSEC and ILEA this week

June 19, 2007

This is a big week in Congress!  The House of Representatives will vote to
cut funding to the School of the Americas (SOA) as part of the Foreign
Operations appropriations bill.  The bill also includes funding for the
International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador.  CISPES has
organized a national call-in day for today (June 19) in conjunction with the
SOA Watch call-in days, in order to put pressure on Congress to cut funding
for the SOA and to do oversight on the ILEA with the ultimate goal of
shutting down the US-sponsored police academy in the future.  If we win the
vote to close the SOA this year it will be a huge victory and a big step
forward in our campaign around the San Salvador ILEA!  

Please respond to the alert by our partners at SOA Watch (which can be found
at www.soaw.org <http://www.soaw.org/> ) and use the expanded script and
talking points below.

Shut it down!

-CISPES National Office

  _____  

Congressional Call-in script - Tell Congress to vote to close the SOA and
Push for Oversight of the ILEA! 

June 19, 2007 National Call-in Day

Background: This week the House of Representatives will vote on the Foreign
Operations Appropriations bill.  Included in this bill is funding for the
infamous School of the Americas (SOA, now known as the Western Hemispheric
Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC) as well as funding for the
International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), the US-sponsored police
schools which recently began operating in El Salvador.  The ILEA in El
Salvador is functioning like another SOA, under a new name and in a new
location.  The issue of the ILEA is relatively unknown to most of Congress,
and the U.S. government has tried to keep Congress and the U.S. public in
the dark about the ILEA since it opened a year and a half ago.   

Through calling this week we hope to educate Congress, and to build support
for oversight of the ILEA as part of our campaign to shut down the police
academy ,   We also hope to celebrate in our effort to shut down the SOA
this year once and for all!  Rep. James McGovern (MA) is prepared to present
an amendment to cut the funding to the SOA/WHINSEC. With a shift in Congress
and over 100 bipartisan cosponsors, this year's House vote is our best
chance ever to shut down the SOA.

Call the House Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 

When you call:

1) Ask the operator for your Representative, and then ask to speak to your
Representative's foreign affairs legislative assistant, chief of staff or
legislative director.

2) Tell them you are a constituent and want to know your Rep's position on
the McGovern amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which
would cut funding to the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.

3) If the Rep. is going to vote for the amendment, thank him/her.  Then ask
if they have heard of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) and
move on to # 5.

4) If the Rep is undecided or against the amendment, urge them to vote in
favor of it.  Explain to them the horrible history of the SOA in teaching
torture and human rights abuse to Latin American military officials.   For
more SOA talking points, see http://soaw.org/article.php?id=96. 

5) Using the talking points below, explain why the ILEA is another extremely
worrisome project of U.S. training of Latin American police forces and why
groups in El Salvador are demanding that it be closed.  Ask if your Rep.
will work with us to get more information from the State Department about
the classes, instructors, human rights records of the teachers and students
at the ILEA. 

6) If the Rep. agrees to help work on the ILEA issue, send an email to
CISPES (krista at cispes.org) with the name of the person you spoke with and
your Rep's name, and we can get that office more details about the ILEA and
specific information we need for our campaign.

--------------------

Talking Points:

* Resurgence of death squad-style threats and murders: In early May 2007 the
Archbishop's Legal Aid and Human Rights Defense Office (Tutela Legal)
released a report implicating the Salvadoran National Police (PNC) in eight
death squad style assassinations in 2006 alone. CISPES has published a list
of recent repression beginning with the July 2006 murder of the Manzanares
couple, the parents of long-time activist "Mariposa". In many of these
cases, the evidence leads us to believe that the police and/or death squads
were involved in their disappearances; meanwhile, the calls of family
members for investigation have fallen on deaf ears. The ILEA does nothing to
remedy the central problem of the high-up corruption and links to death
squads within the Salvadoran police. 

* The Salvadoran government is militarizing the police, which is a direct
violation of the Peace Accords. The separation between police and military
in El Salvador has declined dramatically since originally established by
Peace Accords in El Salvador. It is now common to have groups of soldiers
"patrolling" rural and urban neighborhoods in El Salvador.  El Salvador's
National Civilian Police (PNC) was created by the 1992 Peace Accords to do
the work of law enforcement in El Salvador. However, the PNC has
increasingly been used to violently repress protests in El Salvador,
especially the protests against CAFTA, such as those led by market vendors
struggling under new-CAFTA imposed intellectual property laws.  The addition
of the military to these repressive policing tactics violates the Peace
Accords and the U.S. government, through the ILEA, should not be
collaborating so closely with a police that violates the Peace Accords. 

* Salvadoran Government using anti-terrorism law to target social movement
organizing: The Salvadoran right wing passed an "anti-terrorism" law in
September 2006, followed by an "anti-organized crime" law later that year.
The language in these new laws is very vague, leaving them open to
interpretation and a wide variety of applications. The anti-terrorism law is
similar to the Patriot Act in that it threatens civil liberties supposedly
protected by the constitution of El Salvador. The laws criminalize and
labels terrorist - with long jail sentences - protest tactics commonly used
by Salvadorans.  The US Ambassador to El Salvador even expressed explicit
support for this law in a speech, condoning the use of police force in
protecting US trade interests.  Similarly, the stated purpose of the ILEA is
also to protect U.S. interests and this is not the kind of training
Salvadoran police need. 

* El Salvador has become the satellite for U.S. military and police training
in Latin America, despite its poor human rights record: El Salvador is
already the second largest recipient of military training in Central
America, is the host of a U.S. military base and an FBI office. The ILEA has
the capacity to train 1500 students per year, more than the current Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation, also known as the SOA.
Salvadorans fear a return to the sort of torture and repression practices
used by the graduates of that US-sponsored school in the 1980s. Meanwhile,
U.S. officials refuse to acknowledge the corruption, misconduct and human
rights violations committed by the PNC, and continue to support the
Salvadoran police, both through explicit statements and by sponsoring the
ILEA in El Salvador.

* ILEA has a lack of oversight and transparency: Congress has not been given
sufficient information about the ILEA and its activities, and human rights
groups that have sought to monitor it have been denied basic documentation,
such as course descriptions and names of students and instructors.  Though
backers of the ILEA promise that only civilians would be trained there, in
fact the agreement leaves the possibility of military training open. Such
lack of transparency is especially alarming given that the ILEA would offer
immunity to all foreign officials involved in designing the curriculum and
teaching the courses. 

Go here to see the list of COSPONSORS OF H.R. 1702 (102+ Rep. McGovern) (as
of 6/12/07): http://soaw.org/article.php?id=96 

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C 2006 CISPES - The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
CISPES National Office | ph. 212-465-8115 | P.O. Box 8560, NY, NY 10116 |
cispes at cispes.org

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