Dear Friends in the Struggle,



This week we have the opportunity to make history in the campaign to close the School of the Americas and celebrate a major victory for all of you who have contributed so much to this work. We need to seize the moment and keep up the pressure in Congress to send a strong message of support for human rights throughout the hemisphere.

Please take a few minutes today to call your Representatives in Congress and to ask them to support the McGovern-Lewis amendment to cut funding to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the place the world knows as the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC). You can contact your Representative's D.C. office by calling the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Calls to the DC office of your Representative are the most effective tool to make sure your voice is heard this week, so please take the time to call your Representative! We are hearing that the volume of calls you are making is overloading the House Switchboard number so if you cannot get through, please call their office directly. You can look up their phone number by accessing the Clerk of the House phone directory and note that all phone numbers have a "202" area code. Keep the calls coming and make a call every few hours before the vote happens on Wednesday afternoon!!!

You can also email and fax your Representative right from the SOA Watch website: Click here to send an email/fax to your Representative!(Please check the "Send a Fax" box to also send a fax)

Right now and all day today, many SOA Watch activists and our partner organizations are on Capitol Hill, talking with Legislative Aides and Members of Congress and distributing information about the McGovern-Lewis amendment that will be introduced this week on the Foreign Operations Bill.

Some of the groups that are walking the halls of Congress today are my order, Maryknoll, the Torture Abolition Survivors and Support Coalition (TASSC), Grandmothers for Peace along with their grand children, members of the United Church of Christ, the SHARE Foundation, priests of the Franciscan order, Pax Christi USA, EPICA, Sisters of the Precious Blood and others.

People across the country are mobilizing this week to continue to build support for the McGovern-Lewis Amendment. The United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) are both faxing Members of Congress to let them know how important a vote to cut funding to the SOA/WHINSEC is to union members.

Yesterday, human rights advocates from around the country flooded the phone lines of Members of Congress asking for them to take a real stand for human rights and military accountability by voting to cut funding to the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.

Please join us this week and add your voice to the growing wave of people speaking up for a more just world. Thank you for giving me hope.

For a victory,





Fr. Roy Bourgeois
School of the Americas Watch