LRB 2541/1
PJD:kmg:km
1999 - 2000 LEGISLATURE 1999 ASSEMBLY JOINT RESOLUTION 51

May 6, 1999  Introduced by Representatives POCAN, B ERCEAU, B OCK, B OYLE, C OLON,
HUBER, KRUG, J. LEHMAN, MILLER, PLOUFF, RHOADES, VRAKAS and YOUNG,
cosponsored by Senators BURKE and RISSER. Referred to Committee on 
Veterans and Military Affairs.

Relating to: memorializing Congress to close the School of the Americas.

Whereas, the School of the Americas was established in Panama in 1946 and
is presently located in Fort Benning, Georgia; and 

Whereas, the School of the Americas has trained over 59,000 troops from Latin
America and the Caribbean since its inception in 1946 and currently trains 900 to
2,000 such soldiers per year at Fort Benning, Georgia, at an annual cost to the
American taxpayers of nearly $20,000,000; and

Whereas, it has been admitted that training manuals used for years by the
School of the Americas have advocated execution, false imprisonment, physical
abuse and other forms of torture; and

Whereas, many School of the Americas graduates have been involved in a wide
range of human rights abuses; and

Whereas, 2 of the 3 Salvadoran officers cited as being responsible for the 1980
assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero were School of the Americas graduates,
including death squad founder and leader Robert D’Aubuisson; and

Whereas, 10 of the 12 officers cited as being involved in the massacre of 900
civilians at El Mozote in El Salvador graduated from the School of the Americas; and

Whereas, 19 of the 26 officers cited in the November 1989 murder of 6 Jesuit
priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in San Salvador, El Salvador, were
School of the Americas graduates; and

Whereas, over half of the human rights violations and torture that occurred in
Colombia by military officials in this decade was performed by officials trained by the
School of the Americas; and

Whereas, Guatemalan Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, a CIA agent who was
implicated in the killings of U.S. citizen Michael Devine and Efraim Bamaca,
husband of U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury, is a School of the Americas graduate; and

Whereas, the editorial boards of the Atlanta Constitution, Bangor Daily News,
Boston Globe, The Capital Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Des Moines Register, New
York Times, San Antonio Express–News and Syracuse Post–Standard, among others,
have called for the closure of the School of the Americas; and

Whereas, the Washington Post, in its November 26, 1997, edition, stated, “over
these years [the School of the Americas] is a school of horrors, a school of assassins,
operating in our back yard with U.S. taxpayer money”; and

Whereas, the California Chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has passed a
resolution urging the closure of the School of the Americas, and the national
organization is deliberating the same resolution; and

Whereas, there is growing opposition to the School of the Americas in the U.S.
house of representatives; and

Whereas, in September 1998 the U.S. house of representatives came within 11
votes (201–212) of passing an amendment to the 1998 foreign aid appropriations bill
that would have cut $1,500,000 from the school’s funding; and

Whereas, the U.S. house of representatives’ vote represents a sharp contrast to
votes in 1993 and 1994, when the school’s reputation was not as widely known and
when amendments to cut the school’s funding were defeated by 82–vote and 42–vote
margins; and

Whereas, among Wisconsin’s 1998 delegation to Congress there was
unanimous support of an amendment to the appropriations bill that would
significantly cut the school’s funding, 4 Republicans and 5 Democrats voting in favor
of the amendment and none voting against it; 

now, therefore, be it Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the Wisconsin
legislature urges the President and the Congress of the United States to support the
closure of the United States Army School of the Americas; and, be it further
Resolved, That the assembly chief clerk shall provide copies of this joint
resolution to President Clinton and to each member of this state’s congressional
delegation.
(END)