Late last week, the United States Congress fell just six votes short of passing an amendment to cut funding for the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in 2001.

This vote marks a step forward for the grassroots movement which has been organizing to close the school in Fort Benning, Georgia since 1990. The final vote count tallied 203 in favor with 214 opposing. New supporters were obtained including new Republicans and new members of Congress. Efforts to shut down the school haven’t been so close to success since May 2000.

In the days leading up to the vote, tens of thousands of emails, faxes and calls were received by Congress members. Many, including students, clergy, union members and veterans also traveled to Washington DC to visit congressional offices. And while they faced tough opposition from representatives of WHINSEC and high-ranking Pentagon officials spending taxpayers money to put pressure on Congress, several new co-sponsors for the legislation were achieved in the final week, bringing the total to 111 bipartisan supporters.

The legislation, HR 1707 or the “Latin America Military Training Review Act,” was introduced by Representative McGovern (D-MA) and would have had operations at the school suspended and investigations opened into its history of human rights abuses and failed policies. The SOA/WHINSEC trains Latin American security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. This year, a number of military and government officials in Colombia who received training or who have served as instructors at the school were cited by former Commander of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Salvatore Mancuso, as collaborators with the violent paramilitaries.

A press release from the School of the Americas Watch indicates that targets for continued organizing are clear, “There were Representatives that committed to vote to cut funding for the SOA/WHINSEC, and then shifted their vote.” In addition to ongoing moblization to maintain current support, they suggest that these representatives will become focal points for new efforts particularly at the district level. This is necessary they say in order to “make clear to constituents in those districts how their candidates feel about supporting Pentagon policies and this school of shame.”

The movement has also made other recent gains. This year, Costa Rica became the fourth Latin American country to pull out of the SOA/WHINSEC. While Costa Rica does not have its own army, Nobel Peace Prize winner President Oscar Arias declared that no other member of the police will be sent for training at the school. Costa Rica joined Uruguay and Argentina which made similar declarations in 2006. In January 2004, President Hugo Chavez made Venezuela the first country to disassociate from the institution.

As well this year, over 80 fasts and demonstrations took place in April in opposition to the school and in support of HR 1707. Protests in front of federal buildings, congressional offices and university campuses occurred in 25 states across the US concurrently with events in Central America, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina.

It was in January 2001 that the US Department of Defense (DOD) made the successful proposal to change the name of the school to WHINSEC as part of the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001. Critics say that this was an attempt to deflect public criticism after the House of Representatives defeated the bi-partisan amendment to close the school and begin investigations in May 2000 by a narrow ten vote margin. SOA Watch characterizes the changes implemented by the DOD as purely superficial and “not grounded in any critical assessment of the training, procedures, performance, or results (consequences) of the training program it copies.”

The SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works through creative protest and resistance, legislative and media work to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy that institutions like the SOA represent.