Workers Rally to Shut Down School of Americas
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Hundreds of union members joined religious and human rights activists in a vigil and rally outside the gates of the School of the Americas (SOA) last weekend to demand that it be closed.
Graduates of the school, operated by the U.S. Department of Defense at Fort Benning, Ga., have been linked to human rights violations and suppression of popular movements in the Americas, according to the activist group SOA Watch.
Many targets of assassination and torture in Latin America are trade unionists. More union members are killed each year in Latin America than in the rest of the world combined, primarily due to extreme anti-worker violence in Colombia, according to the International Trade Union Confederation.
Union members, young activists and religious groups joined in a labor caucus Nov. 22 and heard Colombian trade union members describe the dangerous conditions they live under daily. When 14 Colombian unionists were in the United States receiving training through the AFL-CIO over the past two months, four of their union colleagues back home were killed.
