Notorious Army School of the Americas Connection: Sen. Ortiz y Pino Speaks Out Against Susana Martinez's Nomination of Dr. Jose Garcia for Higher Ed Secretary

Just prior to the holidays, Republican governor-elect Susana Martinez announced she was nominating Dr. Jose Z. Garcia, 65, an associate professor of government at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, for the post of Secretary of Higher Education. Garcia, a conservative who chaired the Democratic Party of Dona Ana County during the early 1980s and still claims to be a Democrat of sorts, was a member of the steering committee of "Democrats for Martinez" during the gubernatorial campaign.

The following is a statement from New Mexico State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino upon learning Dr. Jose Garcia once taught at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. The school has been roundly criticized for the human-rights violations performed by a number of its graduates throughout Latin America.

"The Army School of the Americas has a deeply troubling history of training human-rights abusers throughout Latin America. Dr. Jose Garcia and Susana Martinez must come out and explain his involvement with the school. The halls of New Mexico government are no place for anyone who condones the types of abuses that were spawned from the School of the Americas in the 1980s and early 1990s. Dr. Garcia owes anyone who values human rights a full accounting of his time working for the school."

Jose Z. Garcia, PhD, was “appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Army School of the Americas from 1989-1991, where he was named instructor of the year for 1990.” (1)

Background on the Army School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation):

On June 28, 1996, a report was issued by the Intelligence Oversight Board a four-person, independent board created by President Clinton. The IOB, headed by attorney Anthony S. Harrington and including Gen. Lew Allen, Jr., USAF (Retired), found that the "School of the Americas ... used improper instruction materials in training Latin American officers from 1982 to 1991 ... certain passages appeared to condone practices such as execution of guerillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment." (2)

According to School of the Americas Watch, these manuals taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe. The manuals contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members. The Pentagon admitted that these manuals were a "mistake."(3)

Notes:
1) Jose Garcia Bio
2) US Intelligence Oversight Board Cites SOA (1996)
3) Pentagon Investigation Concludes That Techniques In SOA Manuals Were "Mistakes"

According to a Get the Facts page on SOA Watch:

Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.

... From its beginning, the mission of the SOA has been to train soldiers to protect the interests of multinational corporations and maintain the economic status quo for the few rich and powerful in the US and their cohorts in Latin America. Labor leaders and union organizers have always been among the primary targets of SOA violence.

Many readers are probably familiar with SOA Watch because of its annual protest against the School of the Americas:

Since 1990, SOA Watch has sponsored an annual public demonstration of protest of SOA/WHISC at Ft. Benning. In 2005, the demonstration drew 19,000 people. The protests are timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador, on November 1989, by graduates of the School of the Americas. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin López y López, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado López); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran Military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. A United Nations panel concluded that 19 of the 27 killers were SOA graduates.

Given Dr. Garcia's connection with the notorious School of the Americas, it's disturbing that Susana Martinez believes he's a good choice to head New Mexico's Department of Higher Education.