The Case Against the School of the Americas

This piece concerns the School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (Whisc), located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Funded by the U.S. government, the school has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen. However, among its graduates are many of the continent’s most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators, and state terrorists. I feel quite strongly that the horrors this organization has helped produce should be evidence enough to have it shut down. My hope with this piece is to raise awareness and give voice to the victims, in a form of art that speaks to everyone.

Blown up to about 4' in height, this piece was shown in the Type/Writer show at the Hokin Gallery, Chicago, in December/January 2004. It is now on permanent display in the Hokin Annex at Columbia College, Chicago.

The School of the Americas Watch, an independent organization that seeks to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas, uses the piece in various print material, like stationary. Prints are also on display at the offices of a number of human rights watch activists, like Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights, Jim McGovern, Representative of Massachusetts, and Joseph Margulies, professor of Law at University of Chicago.