HF 1072

as introduced - 81st Legislature (1999 - 2000) Posted on 12/15/2009 12:00am

  1.1                             A resolution 
  1.2             memorializing the President and Congress to enact 
  1.3             legislation to close the United States Army School of 
  1.4             the Americas, a United States Army training facility, 
  1.5             located at Fort Benning, Georgia. 
  1.6      
  1.7      WHEREAS, the United States Congress established the School 
  1.8   of the Americas in 1946 as a training facility for 
  1.9   Spanish-speaking Latin American cadets and officers; and 
  1.10     WHEREAS, the School has a history of graduates who have 
  1.11  been implicated in, or are alleged to be responsible for, human 
  1.12  rights violations in their countries; and 
  1.13     WHEREAS, the School's alumni include, for example, 48 
  1.14  Salvadoran military members cited in the United Nations Truth 
  1.15  Commission's report on El Salvador for involvement in human 
  1.16  rights violations, including 19 military members implicated in 
  1.17  the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, and more than 100 
  1.18  Colombian military officers alleged to be responsible for human 
  1.19  rights violations by a 1992 report issued by several human 
  1.20  rights organizations; and 
  1.21     WHEREAS, the School's alumni also include ten former Latin 
  1.22  American military heads of state, including General Manuel 
  1.23  Noriega; and 
  1.24     WHEREAS, operation of this school has failed to advance 
  1.25  America's goals of promoting peace and human rights in Latin 
  2.1   America, and instead has been detrimental to those goals; NOW, 
  2.2   THEREFORE, 
  2.3      BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota 
  2.4   that Congress should speedily enact legislation to close the 
  2.5   School of the Americas. 
  2.6      BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the 
  2.7   State of Minnesota is directed to prepare copies of this 
  2.8   memorial and transmit them to the President of the United 
  2.9   States, the President and Secretary of the United States Senate, 
  2.10  the Speaker and Clerk of the United States House of 
  2.11  Representatives, the chair of the Senate Committee on 
  2.12  Appropriations, the chair of the House Committee on 
  2.13  Appropriations, and Minnesota's Senators and Representatives in 
  2.14  Congress.