Editor:

The weekend of Nov. 16-18, 2007, residents of the Casper community will join thousands from across the nation at Fort Benning, Ga., to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the controversial U.S. Army's School of the Americas. The participants will demand "zero tolerance for torture."

Despite a shocking human rights record, the school continues to operate with U.S. taxpayer money. Closing the SOA would send a strong human rights message to Latin America and the world.

The SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Corporation, made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. New research confirms that the school continues to support known human rights abusers. Despite having been investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA/WHINSEC in 2003.

Support for the SOA/WHINSEC continues to erode. Recently, the governments of Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Bolivia announced that they would cease all training at the school. Last November, 22,000 people gathered at the gates of Fort Benning to call for the closure of the school, the largest demonstration yet in a 17-year history of opposition to the school.

Despite numerous attempts to meet with Wyoming U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin to discuss this school, she has not responded to our requests. In June 2007, when a bill was voted on to end the funding for the school, it was defeated by six votes. Ms. Cubin was not present to vote.

ROX MONTERSTELLI, Casper

RAY PACHECO, Casper

TOM and JOAN ANDERSON, Casper

The Rev. MICHAEL CARR, Torrington