Tag: SOA

The Andes
Evo Morales

Bolivia: Evo Morales resigns amid ‘civic coup’

MinabAmnesty International called for those responsible for a US strike on an Iranian school to be held accountable. The Feb. 28 strike on the girls' school in Minab, in southern Iran, killed over 100 children. Amnesty's Evidence Lab conducted an investigation into the strike, analyzing over 30 satellite images and reviewing official statements, media reports, and witnesses accounts. The group found that the school was hit by precision-guided munitions, and additionally uncovered that the US may have relied on outdated intelligence to conduct the strike. This would constitute a violation of international law—specifically the duty to verify that an intended target is a military objective. While the school was located adjacent to a military compound of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, satellite images show that the building had been physically separated from the compound by construction of perimeter walls at least since from 2016. (Photo: Mehr via Wikimedia Commons)

Central America

El Salvador: arrest ordered in Oscar Romero killing

Oscar RomeroDays after the Catholic Church declared El Salvador's martyred Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in the Central American country issued an arrest order for a former military captain long suspected of ordering the killing of the religious leader. Judge Rigoberto Chicas issued the order for national and international authorities to apprehend Alvaro Rafael Saravia,  78. He remains at large and is believed to be in hiding. Saravia had been arrested for the crime in 1987, but the case against him was dropped when El Salvador passed its amnesty law in 1993. The case was re-opened after El Salvador's Supreme Court struck down the amnesty law in 2016. (Photo via Catholic News Agency)

The Andes

Caracazo recalled in polarized Venezuela

Official commemorations of the 1989 popular anti-austerity rebellion come amid new protests over economic agony in Venezuela—and regime accusations of a coup conspiracy.

Watching the Shadows

Latin America: IACHR calls for CIA torture probe

While many in the US seemed shocked by the Senate's torture report, some US media wrote honestly about the "direct line" from torture in Latin America to the post-9-11 version.

North America

SOA activists march on detention center

Without losing their anti-militarist focus, the annual School of the Americas actions also protested the US government's enforcement-only approach to immigration.

North America

Police try to block annual SOA vigil

Just when the child migrant "crisis" is drawing attention to abuses by US-trained Latin American military officers, local police are trying to close down the annual SOA protest.

Central America

El Salvador: US judge rules against SOA grad

A former Salvadoran defense minister was given awards by the US in the 1980s, but now a US immigration judge finds that the general's war crimes make him deportable.

New York City

‘Anti-Semite’ de Blasio schmoozes AIPAC

Mayor de Blasio's closed-doors meeting with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) plays into the worst stereotypes about Jews. So no thanks, Bill.