Join our delegation to lobby Bklyn Reps on US policy towards Latin America

We submitted signatures requesting meetings to the offices of Representatives Nydia Velazquez, Yvette Clarke and Elliott Engel. Nydia Velazquez is the chair of the Hispanic Caucus. Elliot Engel represents the north-west Bronx as well as parts of Westchester and Sullivan counties. He is chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Relations. We do not yet have appointments. We expect to meet with them, or with their staff, during mid-November.

We will press for active support of HR 2567 which would close WHINSEC/SOA and HR 630, which would restore President Zalaya in Honduras. Reps Velazquez and Clarke are co-sponsors of HR 874, the Freedom to Travel to Cuba bill. Unfortunately, Amendment 375 to HR 3057, which would have reduced military aid to Colombia, has already failed. We know that it is critically important that US facilitation of the violence in Colombia and the failure of the US War on Drugs be exposed in the discussion.

Our delegation of about 8 should include activists as well as constituents. If you live in Bklyn CD 11 (Rep Clarke) or 12 (Rep Velazquez), your participation now is particularly important.

We will get together to develop our ideas for the over-all approach to these meetings in order to make them maximally effective. Then, each person can prepare a presentation, which will also be submitted in a packet of documents. This can begin on-going relationships, holding our elected officials responsible for their votes. Together we will be much more effective.

Saludos solidarios,

Susan,
latinam@brooklynpeace.org

Latin America Committee of Brooklyn for Peace CINEFORO

Thursday, November 12th at 6:30

At the Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture,
53 Prospect Park West near 2nd Street in Park Slope
#2 or #3 train to Grand Army Plaza

More info: latinam@brooklynpeace.org or 718 636 9089


Screening of A MAN FROM TWO HAVANAS the award winning documentary by Vivien Lesnik Weisman about her family’s unexpected experience in Miami and a discussion with John McAuliff of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development about US policy towards Cuba, especially the current travel restrictions and our hopes for change.

Synopsis:
Okay, heres the situation. I was born in Havana. That makes me Cuban. But, I was raised in little Havana, which makes me Cuban-American. However, since I dont see Castro as the root of all evil in the universe, nor would I strangle him with my bare hands given the opportunity, I am a little out of step with my tribe. I always have been. And I really dont care. My dad, on the other hand, does care. He cares a great deal. Back in Havana he was a revolutionary and fought alongside Castro for the freedom of the Cuban people. Then he had a falling out with his old friend and it was Miami, here we come. But his animosity towards Castro did not last and he soon wanted dialogue with the Cuban government. Perhaps, to live in peace. Thats when the shit hit the fan. Bombings, death threats and drive by shootings were a daily occurrence in our home.

But who would do this to us? We were Americans. Surely, it must be the Communists, right? Wrong. My father became the focal point of the anti-Castro terrorists. These are Americans, people, like you and me. Well, not exactly. They were trained by the CIA.

What most Americans dont know is that terrorism in America did not begin on September 11th. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a reign of terror in Miami. There were as many as seven bombings in one day and hundreds per year. The culprits were not Communists. They were Americans. And my family was at the epicenter. Bombs away

Playback Theatre Will Perform Stories About Human Rights

On Friday, November 13th at 7 PM the Village Playback Theatre Company will enact your stories linked to the theme of Human Rights as part of an international project in which Playback companies in 26 countries are going to participate. Playback is a participatory, improvisational theater form in which performers enact experiences told by members of the audience without script or rehearsal and create an event that is unique and magical.

We invite you to the First Presbyterian Church, 124 Henry St near the Clarke St station of the #2 & #3 train on Friday November 13th at 7 PM.

For information Google : Playback Theatre
Email: ptunesco08@gmail.com or call 718 636 9089. Contributions will be most appreciated

Latin America Committee of Brooklyn For Peace

Schedule for the Fall of 2009

Meetings and public events sponsored by the LatinAmCom

as well as those of other BFP committees

SEE DETAILS BELOW

Lisa Sullivan, Latin Am Coordinator for SOA Watch speaks. Currently based in Caracas, Lisa works with Fr Roy in meeting with heads of Latin Am governments to encourage them to withdraw their security personnel from the SOA and all US military training institutions.

Monday, September 21^st at St Mary’s Church, 521 W 126^th St in Harlem. Flyer to follow.

BFP Forum on Darfur, Thursday evening, Sept 24^th. Check BFP website for location

David Rovics Concert benefit SOA Watch at Bklyn Ethical Culture Society, Thurs Oct. 1st, 7 PM

Tom Hayden BFP sponsored talk, Fri Oct 2^nd at the Park Slope Methodist Church, 6^th Ave & 8^th St 7

LatinAmCom MEETING Monday, October 5^th 7 PM

LatinAmCom Public Event CINEFORO: screening of VOCES INOCENTES, feature film by Luis Mandoki (2005, Mexico) about El Salvador during the Civil War of the ‘80s and discussion of the connection of the Honduran military with the SOA. Thursday, Oct 8^th 6:30 to 9 PM Film promptly at 6:45. Bklyn Society for Ethical Culture Prospect Park West at 2^nd St in Park Slope

Nuclear Zero Committee of BFP public event Wednesday, Oct 14^th 7 to 9 PMat the Friends Meeting House on Schermerhorn St off Boerum Place in Downtown Brooklyn

Hip-Hop Concert Fundraiser for BFP Sunday, Oct 18^th at 8 PM at Public Assembly on North 6^th St (Kent & Wythe) in Williamsburg. $15 donation suggested. Tell your friends.

Counter-Recruitment during parent-teacher meetings. Wednesday evening, Oct 28^th and Thursday afternoon Oct 29^th. Prospect Heights Campus 883 Classon Avenue near Eastern Parkway

Give out the opt-out forms that allow families to maintain confidentiality of young people’s contact information so they cannot be harassed by military recruiters.

CINEFORO A MAN FROM TWO HAVANAS ( 2006 US) discussion with John McAuliff on Obama policy towards Cuba. Thursday, November 12^th, 6:30 BSEC Film begins promptly at 6:45

PROTEST TO CLOSE The SOA (now called WHINSEC, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia From Friday, Nov 20^th through Sunday the 22^nd.

CONTACT US AT latinam@brooklynpeace.org

Lisa Sullivan's talk on SOA Watch Sept 21 '09

THE COUP IN HONDURAS

WHAT IT MEANS FOR LATIN AMERICA AND WHAT YOU CAN DO!

A School of the Americas Watch Report by

LISA SULLIVAN

Monday September 21, 2009

St. Mary’s Church

521 W. 126^th St., Manhattan

(Take 1/9 Train to 125^th St.)

$10.00 Donation (no one turned away)

Lisa Sullivan directs the School of the Americas Watch Latin America Office and its Partnership America Latina (PAL), based in Venezuela, where she is raising her family. Since 2004, she has accompanied Fr. Roy Bourgeois on visits with the leaders of 17 Latin American countries to inform them of the horrendous human rights records of the graduates of the SOA (WHINSEC). These visits have resulted in six countries withdrawing their military personnel from the SOA.

In April 2009, Lisa met with President Zelaya of Honduras to request him to withdraw his troops from the SOA. In July, Lisa returned to Honduras as part of the SOA Watch human rights delegation, in support of the movement resisting the coup that forcefully removed President Zelaya. This delegation notably exposed SOA graduate, General Romeo Orlando Vasquez, as the person who ordered the gunpoint expulsion of President Zelaya.

In the above photo, Lisa (blue shirt) is shown with Honduran resistance leaders Bertha Oliva (pink shirt) founder and coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared (COFADEH), union leader Carlos Reyes (white shirt), and SOA Watch founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois (far right).

Lisa will share her unique perspective, knowledge and insights on the Honduran coup and the reactionary efforts to roll back recent progressive political gains in Latin America, and how North Americans can take action to support democratic changes in the Americas.

Luis Barrios is a former SOA prisoner of conscience who served three month in federal prison for “crossing the line” onto the Fort Benning military base where the SOA is located. He is Professor/Chair of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College, New York City.

Sponsored by: New York City School of the Americas Watch

For information, call: (201) 207-1493, or go to: www.nycsoaw.org.

For more information, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GS1HbFnYgk.

SOA Graduates Participate in Honduras Coup

The following letter was sent to Congressional Representatives by the Latin America Committee of Brooklyn For Peace. It is reprinted here as a template for your use in formulating your own letters to your Congress member. We urge concerned citizens to write their representatives.

Monday, August 24, 2009

I am writing to you this afternoon about the coup in Honduras on behalf of the School of the Americas Watch NYC and the Latin America Committee of Brooklyn For Peace. We call upon you, as a member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign relations, to support two resolutions that will soon come before the House of Representatives and to sign on to the letter to President Obama written by Rep Raul Grijalva. These action are aimed at appealing to President Obama to fulfill campaign promises he made that he would initiate a new era of neighborly relations with the countries of Latin America. Respect for the United States will be enhanced by closing the notorious School of the Americas (SOA), now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) and by implementing US law requiring our government impose sanctions against a military that seizes power through illegal use of force.

President Obama must call a military coup a coup, acknowledging the illegal kidnapping and expulsion of the duly elected President Zalaya from Honduras on June 28th. Extremely important and according to US law, Ambassador Hugo Llorens should be immediately recalled. Ambassador Llorens was appointed by President Bush and was his security advisor for Latin American Affairs at the time of the 2002 coup attempt against President Chavez of Venezuela. President Zayala requested Llorens replacement citing that he was ‘provocative’. Withdrawing diplomats is a clear act that shows to the world that the US joins the OAS and the EU nations in denying legitimacy to the junta. Cutting off all aid, freezing bank accounts and denying all visas to those who participated in the coup, tourist visas as well as diplomatic visas, will quickly bring the Micheletti junta to their senses.

The San Jose Accords negotiated by President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica require the restoration of President Zalaya with limited powers, and he has agreed to accept these conditions. The Micheletti government still refuses to do so. We encourage you to call upon President Obama to insist upon the immediate return of President Zalaya, the only condition that will stabilize the country now torn apart by violence perpetrated by the police, army and paramilitaries against ordinary people defending the president for whom they voted. Please sign on as a cosponsor of HR 630, the Delahunt-Serrano-McGovern Resolution.

Violent repression of Zalaya supporters’ protests presents a terrible throw-back to the days of chaotic impunity in Central America. We are shocked by the public presence of Billy Joya, the leader of a notorious death squad Battalion 316 who is still under indictment for torture he allegedly committed during the 1980s. Nine assassinations, numerous beatings and thousands of detentions and arrests show that the Micheletti junta uses brute force to intimidate the population in the run-up to the presidential election scheduled for November. Elections cannot be free and fair under these conditions. If Zalaya is not returned now, how can any one certify that the Honduran people have been given an opportunity to express their political will. The situation requires immediate action to restore order and stability. Action by the US government is the key.

We have a particular responsibility to act. The military leaders who gave the orders to kidnap Zalaya and are now giving the orders to the troops firing on demonstrators were trained in and by the US at the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Romeo Vasquez Velazquez, head of the Honduran armed forces administered the seizure and expulsion of Zalaya and is now in command of the forces protecting the Micheletti regime and attacking opponents. He was trained at the SOA/WHINSEC.

So was General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the Honduran air force. Two-time SOA graduate General Daniel Lopez Carballo said the coup was justified to minimize the influence of Chavez.

Two previous military coups suffered by the Honduran people were perpetrated by graduates of the SOA. General Juan Melgar Castro was the military ruler of that country after a taking over the government by force in 1975. He was overthrown by another SOA grad, Policarpo Paz Garcia in 1978. Another graduate, Gustavo Alverez Martinez helped found and run Battalion 316. All these connections led UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto to comment that ‘Honduras has a history of total collaboration with the US’. For that reason it is of paramount importance for us to take clear and immediate steps.

You can take leadership by speaking out on the three initiatives mentioned above: Co-sponsor and strongly support HR 630 to implement the San Jose Accords and restore President Zalaya; cosponsor and support HR 2567 to close down SOA/WHINSEC, and sign the Grijalva letter calling on President Obama to bring US policy into line with the rest of the world in showing outrage that a duly elected president can be captured in his pajamas and expelled in the middle of the night and the army can perpetrate crimes against citizens.


Here are some sites that will provide documentation and more information:

Click here for : Obama and the Honduran Crisis: Friend or Foe of Enlightened Change? – Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Click here for: Ad Hoc Memorandum by Honduran Human Rights Activists

Click here for: Resolution on SOA Coup in Honduras - SOAWatch

Click here for: Honduras and Washington: A Few Contradictions – North America Congress on Latin America

Click here for: WOLA Urges Tougher Sanctions on Honduran de facto Government,
Pressure on Both Sides to Accept San José Accord – Washington Office on Latin America

Click here for: Wednesday, August 12 in Tegucigalpa – Nicaragua Network


Saludos Solidarios,

Susan Metz