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91_HR0015
LRB9101597CBcb
1 HOUSE RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The School of the Americas was established in
3 Panama in 1946 and is presently located in Fort Benning,
4 Georgia; and
5 WHEREAS. The School of the Americas has trained over
6 59,000 troops from Latin America and the Caribbean since its
7 inception and currently trains 900 to 2,000 such soldiers per
8 year at an annual cost to the American taxpayers of nearly
9 $20 million; and
10 WHEREAS, Training manuals used by the School of the
11 Americas have advocated execution, false imprisonment,
12 physical abuse, and other forms of torture; and
13 WHEREAS, Many School of the Americas graduates have been
14 involved in a wide range of human rights abuses; and
15 WHEREAS, Two of the three Salvadoran officers cited as
16 being responsible for the 1980 assassination of Archbishop
17 Oscar Romero were School of the Americas graduates, including
18 death squad founder and leader Roberto D'Aubuisson; and
19 WHEREAS, Ten of the 12 officers cited as being involved
20 in the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador
21 graduated from the School of the Americas; and
22 WHEREAS, Nineteen of the 26 officers cited in the
23 November, 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, their
24 housekeeper, and her daughter in San Salvador, El Salvador,
25 were School of the Americas graduates; and
26 WHEREAS, Guatemalan Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, who
27 was implicated in the killing of U.S. citizen Michael Devine,
28 and Efraim Bamaca, husband of U.S. lawyer, Jennifer Harbury,
29 is a School of the Americas graduate; and
30 WHEREAS, The editorial boards of the Asbury Park Press,
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1 Atlanta Constitution, Bangor Daily News, Boston Globe,
2 Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Courier News, Des
3 Moines Register, New York Times, San Antonio Express-News and
4 Syracuse Post-Standard have called for the closure of the
5 School of the Americas; and
6 WHEREAS, The New York Times, in its September 26, 1996
7 edition stated, "An institution (the School of the Americas)
8 so clearly out of tune with American values . . . should be
9 shut down without delay"; and
10 WHEREAS, The California chapter of the Veterans of
11 Foreign Wars has passed a resolution to close the School of
12 the Americas, and the national organization is deliberating
13 the same resolution; and
14 WHEREAS, There is growing opposition to the School of the
15 Americas in the United States House of Representatives; and
16 WHEREAS, In September 1998 the House of Representatives
17 came within eleven votes(201 - 212) of passing an amendment
18 to the 1999 Foreign Aid Appropriations Bill which would have
19 cut $1.25 million from the School's funding; and
20 WHEREAS, The House of Representatives vote represents a
21 sharp contrast to 1993 and 1994, when amendments to cut the
22 School's funding were defeated by 82- and 42-vote margins;
23 and
24 WHEREAS, Ten members of the Illinois delegation to
25 Congress have voted in favor of the amendment; therefore, be
26 it
27 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
28 NINETY-FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
29 we urge the President and Congress of the United States to
30 support the closure of the United States Army School of the
31 Americas; and be it further
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1 RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution shall
2 be transmitted to the President of the United States and to
3 every member of the Illinois congressional delegation.