CITIZEN ALERT v1.3SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

Earlier this month, Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Spanish National Courts issued arrest warrants for 8 former Guatemalan high officials for crimes of genocide committed against the Guatemalan people from 1978-1984. Among the accused are notorious School of the Americas graduates José Efraín Rios Montt and Romeo Lucas García. In June, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court blocked Judge Pedrazs attempt to lead an Investigative Commission that would have gathered evidence and defendant testimony. Upon returning to Spain the judge filed international warrants calling for their arrests and the freezing of all financial assets.

Nobel Peace Price Laureate Rigoberta Menchu originated the case of the Guatemalan dictators in the Spanish Courts in 1999 in grievance to the 1980 bombing of the Spanish Embassy that claimed the life of her father and thirty-eight others. SOA violence continues. Resurging violence in El Salvador and Guatemala and the ongoing war in Colombia are grave reminders that we need to increase our efforts to put an end to the cycle of violence. Demand accountability, an end to the failed approach of "solving" any problems with military means, and the closure of the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC).

www.SOAW.org