Vice President Dick Cheney would like the CIA to have the legal right to practice torture, when authorized by the president. In addition, a recent directive from the Department of Defense prohibits torture but permits the secretary of defense to override this ban.

For years, the U.S. government has been implicated in practicing torture and in teaching torture to foreign troops. The U.S. government is also alleged to have engaged in �extraordinary rendition,� also known as �torture by proxy.� When the government practices that technique, foreign nationals are deported to countries in which torture is routinely practiced. In that way, the most gruesome forms of torture can be applied to the alleged terrorist, and the U.S. government is not directly involved.

�Torture by proxy� is not an especially new concept, however. During the time that the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador were at their bloodiest, in the 1980s, most of the Central American refugees seeking asylum in the United States were summarily deported to their countries of origin. Upon deportation, many of them were never seen again. Later, it was revealed that many of those deportees had been tortured and killed by death squads.

Some of those death squad members had been trained in torture and assassination by the U.S. military, both in their own countries and at military installations in the United States. One of the most well-known military training facilities is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas. The school was founded in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone shortly after World War II to train Latin American troops to stop the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. By the 1950s, it was referred to as �la escuela de los golpes� (the �school of coups�) and, later, as �the school of the assassins.� In the late 1970s, Panama regained control of the Panama Canal Zone after renegotiating terms of the Panama Canal Treaties. One of the provisions of the new treaties was the eviction of the School of the Americas from Panamanian soil. In the mid-1980s, the School of the Americas was officially moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, where it remains to this day, although the U.S. government insists that the cold war school was �closed� and replaced with WHINSEC, a �new school for a new century.�

Graduates of the school continue to be implicated in human rights abuses, however. In Colombia, the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community has been targeted for massacres and assassination by members of the Colombian military. The 17th and 11th brigades of the Colombian Army have been implicated in a February massacre that resulted in the death of Peace Community founder Luis Eduardo Guerra and seven other community members. The commander of the 17th Brigade, General Hector Jaime Fandino Rincon, had attended the School of the Americas for a course on �Small-Unit Infantry Tactics,� where he was trained in �planning and conducting small-unit tactical operations.�

Is there a connection between the new skills that the general acquired at the School of the Americas and the allegations of torture and assassinations in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America?

The U.S. government�s official position is that the United States neither practices nor teaches torture. It claims that any incidents of torture were perpetrated by �bad apples.� Furthermore, it claims ignorance about the misdeeds of SOA/WHINSEC graduates as tracking graduates is a violation of official policy.

On November 19 and 20, more than 19,000 of us gathered at the gates of Fort Benning to say that we have serious questions about the government�s official story. The military stayed behind the fences, unwilling to offer answers. Even its �Welcome to Fort Benning� sign was covered with tarp and hidden behind a fence constructed for the SOA Watch�s weekend event.

We had come to Fort Benning to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the brutal torture, rape, and murder of Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Lay Missioner Jean Donovan, and Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel in El Salvador. We came to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. We came to remember babies, children, adults, and the elderly, who had been killed, disappeared, and tortured as a result of U.S. government policy, in Latin America, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatanamo, and elsewhere.

Torture survivors came to the gates of Fort Benning, as well, to tell their stories. Patricia Isasa of Argentina told her story from the stage. The widow of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, Jennifer Harbury, spoke about the part that the School of the Americas played in her husband�s torture and murder.

On November 20, science teacher Carlos Mauricio spoke during the puppetista show immediately following the annual vigil and funeral procession. As the puppetistas broke cardboard guns in two, Mauricio described having been kidnapped from the classroom in front of his students and his subsequent torture. After he escaped from El Salvador, he came to the United States, where he tried to find out the truth about who was responsible for the crimes that had been perpetrated against him.

Mauricio now travels around the United States to tell his story and to encourage Americans to put pressure on their elected representatives in Congress to abolish the practice and teaching of torture.

It is quite possible that Congress will heed this call. HR 1217, sponsored by Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), is legislation to close and investigate WHINSEC. It was introduced earlier this year and already has 122 cosponsors. It is quite possible that, by this time next year, WHINSEC could be closed.

The members of the military who emerged from behind the three fences to express their own concerns about war and torture were not officially sanctioned. One of those individuals was SPC Katherine Jashinski of the Texas Army National Guard. For eighteen months, she has been trying unsuccessfully to achieve conscientious objector status. Early in November, she was ordered to Fort Benning to complete weapons training to deploy for war.

�Because I believe so strongly in non-violence, I cannot perform any role in the military. Any person doing any job in the Army contributes in some way to the planning, preparation, or implementation of war,� Jashinski said. She added that she felt strong and well-supported in her decision not to participate in war, even if ordered to report for deployment.

Jashinski is one American soldier who has said that she will not participate in war and torture.

Will the U.S. government follow her example of non-violence and officially ban torture and torture training? Or will military training simply be relocated abroad, where protesters will have a more difficult time putting it under a spotlight?

Unfortunately, while these issues are being debated, the violence continues. On November 17, another member of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community was killed. The U.S. trained Colombian military is alleged to have participated in that assassination. By Alice E. Gerard

Torture has never been legal in the United States. In fact, it is considered such a heinous crime that the penalty in the federal criminal code for persons convicted of it is life imprisonment or death. Torture is also prohibited under the federal war crimes act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The U.S. Congress has ratified a number of treaties that prohibit torture, including the Geneva Conventions.

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