Organization calls on Costa Rica to stop sending police to School of the Americas

March 26^th, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) The organization SOA Watch, founded by former priest, Roy Bourgeois and which describes itself as a non-violent grassroots movement to close the controversial School of the Americas, has made a public appeal to the government of Costa Rica, calling on the country to stop sending its police to the training academy located at Fort Benning in the U.S. state of Georgia.

The organization participated in an event at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) along with the Centro de Amigos para la Paz student organization.

According to human rights activists, since 1946 the School of the Americas has served as a training center for military personnel responsible for killings and acts of repression in Latin America against insurgent movements, peasants, and students.

As an example, they point to a 1989 incident in which a special military unit murdered six Jesuits and two staff members of the José Simeón Cañas University in El Salvador.

SOA Watch has so far traveled and met with political leaders in 15 countries in its attempt to convince governments to stop sending personnel to the School of the Americas.

So far, six countries have decided to withdraw from the training program: Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, they said.

This is the second trip to Costa Rica by the founder of SOA Watch.  The first was in 2007, when he met with then-president Oscar Arias.  Arias promised to stop sending personnel to the training center.  However, “Arias did not honor his commitment,” Bourgeois said.  “We hear that top Pentagon officials, the U.S. Embassy and the government of Costa Rica worked for that not to happen,” he said.

Between 2006 and May of last year, Costa Rica has sent 63 police officers to the training center.  SOA Watch requested a meeting with President Laura Chinchilla and Public Security Minister Mario Zamora during this trip, but neither responded to the request.

“Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and sending police to Fort Benning contradicts its pacifist tradition,” Bourgeois said.