A crowd of protesters gathers around the giant peace puppet during the Close-the-SOA procession at the School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning, Ga., the weekend of Nov. 21, 2003.

While the US commits 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, in part to seek out terrorist training camps, many in the US and Latin America are demanding that President Obama shut down what they believe is a terrorist training camp run on US tax dollars, the School of the Americas. One such person is Pablo Ruiz, who spoke to The Real News during his first-ever trip to the US, where, as a survivor of torture carried out by SOA graduates, he is laying out his argument for the immediate closure of the school.

Pablo Ruíz: US tax dollars are used to train Latin American soldiers how to oppress their own people.

In recent years, one of the largest civil society movements in the US has been the movement to close the School of the Americas. Why? What is the connection between the school and the violence of today in Latin America? Pablo Ruiz and Vera Leone explain that even if they succeed in closing the school, there is plenty of work still ahead of them.