Training Ground For Murderers Essay examples -- History Historical Ess

Training Ground For Murderers Continued U.S. support for the School of the Americas, an institution that has trained dictators and political assassins, is completely unjustifiable. At seven o’ clock in the morning on December 11, 1981 an evil force entered the small El Salvadorian village of El Mezote (School of Assasins). With painted faces and army fatigues, the guerillas carried machine guns and automatic rifles into the peaceful village. As survivor Rufina Amaya recounts, â€Å"At ten o’clock the soldiers began to kill the men who were in the church. First, they machine-gunned them and slit their throats† (â€Å"Country Sheets for Close it Down Fast!† 3). After the men, the women were placed face down in the dusty streets and shot to death. Amaya remembers listening as, â€Å"they killed four of my children; my nine-year-old, my six-year-old, my three-year-old, and my eight-month-old daughter. My husband was killed, too†¦ I didn’t see them kill the children, but I heard the children’s screams† (3). After days of hiding in the tall grass that surrounded the village, Amaya emerged to find that over 900 of her neighbors had been brutally massacred. Out of the dead, one hundred and thirty children were massacred in the horrific event, including three infants that had been burned alive (School of Assassins; â€Å"Country Sheets for Close it Down Fast!† 3). Who was to blame for the El Mezote massacre? Surprisingly, ten out of twelve of the officers responsible for the massacre were American trained guerillas and attendees of a Latin American military school located in Fort Benning, Georgia; the School of the Americas (Barber 144). Since its creation in 1946, the American government has provided extensive training for over 58,000 soldiers from se... ... April 2002. â€Å"School of the Americas: U.S. Military Training for Latin American Countries.† GAO/NSIAD-96-178. 22 August 1996. Letter Report. 4 April 2002 Schoultz, Lars. National Security and United States Policy Toward Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. â€Å"Taking Stock: Plan Columbia’s First Year.† Columbia Monitor March 2002: 1. United States. Congressional House. Report of the Subcommittee on International Relations. 116 Cong., 2nd sess. H. Rept. June 16, 1999 Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999. United States. Cong. House. Testimony: Charles E. Wilhelm Before Appropriations Committee and Defense Subcommittee. H. Rept. March 3, 1999. Washington: Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. 1999.