Dear Editor:
President Obama has just visited El Salvador where he paid homage to the bravery of Archbishop Oscar Romero, famous for supporting the cause of the indigenous population during the terrible civil war in the eighties. In his last regular Sunday sermon broadcast throughout the country, Archbishop Romero implored the soldiers to lay down their arms and stop killing their countrymen. Days later, on March 24, 1980 he was murdered while celebrating mass. This atrocity was committed by Salvadorian military trained in the School of the Americas, SOA, now euphemistically called WHINSEC the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation and more truthfully called School of Assassins, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. To our shame this facility is still in operation. President Obama must acknowledge the U.S.’s roll in this tragedy and close this facility.
James T. Dette