WHEREAS the United States Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, GA, has provided training for over 59,000 Latin American military personnel, and is currently training hundreds of such soldiers per year at an annual cost to the United States taxpayers of nearly 20 million dollars. This training includes counter-insurgency tactics that have resulted in the assassination of religious leaders, labor organizers, and human rights advocates, and the massacre of thousands of unnamed poor;

WHEREAS in September 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals used by the SOA throughout the 1980s recommending interrogation techniques including torture, execution, blackmail, and the arrest of relatives;

WHEREAS in a February 12, 1998, report, the Latin American Working Group, a project of the National Council of Churches, revealed severe, ongoing problems in curriculum oversight at the SOA and a complete lack of monitoring of SOA graduates;

WHEREAS since the 1994 uprising in Chiapas, Mexico has had the highest number of Latin American military personnel receiving United States military training; and, concurrently, Representative Joseph Kennedy’s January 12, 1998, “Dear Colleague” letter directly linked SOA graduates to the December 22, 1997, massacre in Chiapas; and, in addition, Amnesty International reports that throughout 1997 the Mexican Army committed “widespread human rights violations” during their operations in Chiapas;

WHEREAS twenty-five United States citizens, including five Unitarian Universalists, have been arrested and imprisoned for petitioning for the closing of the SOA, yet SOA graduate officers cited by the United Nations Truth Commission for atrocities in El Salvador have not been imprisoned;

WHEREAS the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey has passed a resolution urging the President and Congress of the United States to support the closure of the SOA; and

WHEREAS the Faith in Action Department of the Unitarian Universalist Association has issued a statement of support for the protesters, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee has passed a resolution on February 22, 1998, to close the SOA, and numerous other religious groups representing many denominations have called for the closure of the SOA;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 1998 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association urges individual Unitarian Universalists, member congregations, and the Unitarian Universalist Association to urge their Congressional representatives to co-sponsor H.R. 611 or S. 980 (or to commend them if they already have), advocate for its immediate passage, and take all other appropriate action to secure the closure of the SOA and the cessation of all operations and programs therein or in any other location;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the 1998 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association requests the President of the United States to grant immediate and total clemency for all persons imprisoned for their peaceful participation in protests to close the SOA; and

FINALLY, BE IT RESOLVED that the 1998 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association requests a congressional investigation to determine the accountability of those persons who ordered, prepared, and distributed the SOA torture manuals in direct defiance of the United States and international law.