Standing Against Militarism and Violence: From Haiti to Fort Benning   http://www.islamtimes.org/vdcipwazyt1azr2.ilct.html  Islam Times - On November 18, thousands of people will gather outside the gates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) to stand in opposition to our government’s involvement in coups, assassinations, torture, disappearances, and other atrocities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Meanwhile, in Haiti, the new president, Michel Martelly, will officially present his plan for the reconstitution of the Haitian army. Although these two events will be separated by over 1000 miles and occur in two different countries, they are directly related. CommonDreams

Twenty-one years ago, the School of the Americas Watch was founded when a small group of friends and I carried out a hunger strike at the gates of Ft. Benning to call for the closing of this school . Today, the movement has grown to the thousands, and our goal remains that of shutting down the now notorious U.S. military facility that has trained numerous Latin American and Caribbean generals, police, and paramilitaries in the brutal techniques through which the poor and disempowered people of the region have been prevented from having a greater role in making decisions that affect their lives. Some of the Western Hemisphere’s most notorious human rights abusers are SOA graduates, and they include Maj. Joseph-Michel Francois, a principal figure in the 1991 coup against President Aristide; other coup figures including Louis Jodel Chamblain, Guy Philippe, and Jean Tatoune also were trained by the U.S. military.\

[CLICK LINK ABOVE FOR REST OF ARTICLE PIECE,AND i posted video of the vigil at soa few posts below,pls share..