Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Moakley amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. This amendment will officially close down the School of the Americas until a report to Congress is submitted assessing the training procedures and their effect in Latin America. Without this amendment, this bill would merely change the name of the School of the Americas to the Defense Institute for Hemispheric Security Cooperation and make other cosmetic changes. The School of the Americas needs more than superficial changes. I would like to take a moment to provide a roster of human rights violators who graduated from the School of Americas. Nineteen of 26 Salvadoran officers accused of the 1989 massacre of the Jesuits were graduates of the School of the Americas. Ten of twelve cited for the El Mozote massacre graduated from the school of the Americas. Two of the three officers cited in Archbishop Romero's assassination were School of the Americas graduates. And four churchwomen--including Dorthy Kazel, a nun from Cleveland and a friend of mine--were raped and brutally murdered in El Salvador. The UN Truth Commission investigating the murders verified that the School of the Americas trained three of the five officers responsible for the churchwomen's deaths. Dorthy Kazel was more than a friend to me. She was a friend to humanity. She went to El Salvador to bring about peace and justice for those who most desperately needed it. And she was brutally murdered for her efforts.”