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(Redirected from School of the Americas)
The 'Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation' ('WHISC' or 'WHINSEC'), formerly the 'School of the Americas' ('SOA'; Spanish: ''Escuela de las Américas''), is a United States Army facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Its motto is ''Libertad, Paz y Fraternidad'' (Liberty, Peace and Brotherhood). [1] In its history the now closed School Of The America had many accusations made against it accusing them of supporting controversial dictatorial regimes and death squads.
The institute is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. Around 60,000 people had attended the facility when it was called the School Of The Americas. Approximately 1,000 students per year attend WHINSEC which was created as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
The institute's remit is "to provide professional education and training" while "promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United States customs and traditions".
WHISC's $10 million budget is funded by the US Army and by tuition fees, usually paid through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants, the International Narcotics Control (INC) assistance programs, or through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. [Citation, source, quantity needed]
In 1946, the SOA was established in Panama at Fort Gulick, at what is now called the Melia Hotel[2] as the Latin American Training Center - Ground Division. It was renamed the U.S. Army School of the Americas in 1963. It relocated to Fort Benning in 1984, following the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty.
In 2000, mounting pressure upon the United States Congress to stop funding the SOA caused the Pentagon to rename the school the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, abbreviated as WHISC or WHINSEC. [3]
The school currently known as WHINSEC was first established in the Panama
Canal Zone in 1946 as the Latin American Ground School (LAGS) (Bouvier 122). According to Lesley Gill, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University, “The establishment of the Ground School coincided with renewed U.S. expansionist ambitions in the Americas and partially filled a power vacuum created by WW II, which ruptured long-standing military ties between European imperial powers – particularly France, Italy, and Germany – and Latin America” (Gill, 62). As many European nations faced the daunting task of reconstruction following the war, the “victorious and relatively unscathed U.S. moved in to fill the void left by the Europeans and to consolidate its position as a global superpower.”
Initially, the School’s mandate was to teach nation-building skills such as bridge-building, well-digging, food preparation, and equipment maintenance and repair. However, after President Truman signed the Rio Treaty, an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, in 1947, along with the leaders of twenty Latin American countries, the U.S. Army became increasingly involved in Latin America. The Rio Treaty provided that “any attack on an American nation will be met by collective sanctions in line with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”
Two years later, in 1949, the Army renamed the Latin American Ground School to the U.S. Army Caribbean School – Spanish Instruction and began to instruct Latin American military personnel along with U.S. Army personnel. By 1956, the School began to focus its training efforts primarily on Latin Americans and has instructed its classes solely in Spanish ever since.
However, the School’s curriculum was not altered until after the Cuban revolution in 1959. The success of Fidel Castro and his ragtag band of guerrillas caused the American fear of “conspiring communists in Latin American peasant villages” to magnify in the already intense Cold War era (Gill, 73). The School became known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas in 1963 and its curriculum changed its focus from nation-building skills to counterinsurgency in order to prevent communism from spreading throughout the Western Hemisphere.
According to one SOA official, “The importance of sound, bilateral security relationships in the Western Hemisphere became very clear as Hitler and Mussolini assiduously attempted to court the nations of Latin America.”
Although preparing Latin Americans to repel an attack by a non-hemispheric power, particularly one tainted by Communism, was the highly-publicized reason for the United States’ emphasis on equipping and training Latin Americans, others assert that the United States’ main objective was to protect its economic interests in the region. Some of these economic interests included coffee in Central America (1), the Panama Canal agreements formalized in 1901, and the United Fruit Company and its subsidiary, the International Railways of Central America (IRCA).
After the legal authorization for the former ''School of the Americas'' was repealed in 2001 and the ''Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation'' was established, all students are now required to receive at least eight hours of instruction in "human rights[4], as well as training in the rule of law, due process, civilian control of the military, and the role of the military in a democratic society." In addition, courses now focus on leadership development, counter-drug operations, peace support operations, disaster relief, or "any other matter the Secretary [of Defense] deems appropriate" as well as requiring a Board of Visitors to review "curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, and academic methods" and evaluate whether or not it is "consistent with U.S. economic policy goals toward Latin America and the Caribbean." Several pages on its website describe its human rights initiatives. But, though they account for almost the entire training programme, combat and commando techniques, counter-insurgency and interrogation aren't mentioned. In being questioned about this the school (WHINSEC)has claimed that is has never taught interrogation techniques or any of the other subjects at the school. School of the Americas Watch vigil in November 2006, invitations were given to the members of the public to visit the school.
According to the Center for International Policy [5], the Board of Visitors "must include the chairmen and ranking minority members of both houses' Armed Services Committees (or surrogates), the senior Army officer responsible for training (or a surrogate), one person chosen by the Secretary of State, the head of the United States Southern Command (or a surrogate), and six people chosen by the Secretary of Defense ('including, to the extent practicable, persons from academia and the religious and human rights communities')."
Otto Reich was one of the first appointees in 2002.[1]
In June 2007 the McGovern/Lewis Amendment to shut off funding for the Institute failed by 6 votes. [2] This effort to close the Institute was endorsed by the non-partisan Council on Hemispheric Affairs who called the Institute a "black eye". [3]
2008 Defense Appropriations Bill (HR 3222)
This Directive stipulating that WHINSEC publicly release information on their instructors and students was part of the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill. A request for this information in 2006 was denied.
"The Committee supports the mandate of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (the Institute) to be a transparent and democratic institution. To promote such transparency and democratic values, the Committee directs the Institute to release to the public the names of all students and instructors at the Institute for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. The list shall include all names, including but not limited to the first, middle, and maternal and paternal surnames, rank, country of origin, courses taken or taught, and years of attendance. In all future fiscal years, this same information shall be made available and provided to the public no later than 60 days after the end of each fiscal year." [4] [5]
The school has been at the center of numerous allegations of state terrorism by the US military. In 1999, after the mysterious disappearance of Victor Escobar (a graduate from the school) and disclosures about torture manuals being used in the training, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill to abolish the school, but its passage was stymied in a House-Senate conference committee. In what opponents to the school describe as a cosmetic gesture[6], in 2001 the Pentagon changed the name of the school. A bill to abolish the school with 123 co-sponsors was introduced to the House Armed Services Committee in 2005. [7]
On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). These particular manuals are similar to lesson plans used by the school as far back as 1982 [6] and similar to those of Project X and KUBARK. According to Lisa Haugaard and others, these manuals show how U.S. agents taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe. [8] The manuals contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members. Joseph Kennedy said "These manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society." The Pentagon admitted that these manuals were a "mistake"[9]
The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and of advocating techniques that violate accepted international standards, particularly the Geneva Conventions. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Vladimiro Montesinos, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola, Roberto D'Aubuisson, Victor Escobar and Juan Velasco Alvarado. [10] Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, and coups in Latin American countries, the school's acronym is reparsed by its detractors as the "School of the Assassins".
WHINSEC in recent years has put into place a vetting system aimed as preventing human rights abusers from gaining a seat at the school. The school claims that this system prevents any student from having a seat at the school if there are human rights abuse accusations against them or against any unit they were a member of.
Despite claims of meticulous vetting, there are alleged to be instances of high profile human rights abusers still attending the Institute. Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz of El Salvador was found responsible for the 1983 Las Hojas massacre, killing 16 civilians and throwing their bodies into a river. In 1992, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended prosecution of Col. Cid Diaz for the murders. His name is on a State Department list of gross human rights abusers. Despite the documented record of his murderous past, Diaz was welcomed back to the Institute in 2003. [7] [8]
There is usually a demonstration at the main entrance to Ft. Benning in late November each year. In 2005, the demonstration drew 19,000 people. [11]
The date for the annual demonstration commemorates a Latin American massacre linked to the SOA, which was on November 16, 1989. Six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter were murdered at the University of Central America (UCA). Of the 27 soldiers cited for that massacre by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission, 19 were SOA graduates. The School itself officially denies that its curriculum teaches tactics contrary to human rights standards.
In an attempt to respond to the annual protest and arrests of concerned citizens outside of Ft. Benning each year an "Open House" program was developed. The school already has an "Open Door" policy in which concerned citizens can contact the school [12] and arrange for a tour of the school, sit in on classes if in session, and ask questions. The Open House arranges for groups of protestors to be allowed into the school for a tour and to participate in a panel discussion.
In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of Venezuelan soldiers at the School of the Americas. The School of the Americas closed 4 years earlier. [13] On March 28, 2006, the government of Argentina, headed by President Nestor Kirchner, decided to stop sending soldiers to train at the School of the Americas, and the government of Uruguay affirmed that it will continue its current policy of not sending soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC. [14][15]
In 2007, Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, decided to stop sending Costa Rican police to the SOA/WHINSEC. Costa Rica has no military, but had sent some 2,600 police officers to the school.[16]
Main articles: School of the Americas Watch
Citing the call of slain Archbishop Óscar Romero, that "we who have a voice must speak for the voiceless", Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois and a small group of supporters formed School of the Americas Watch in 1990. [17][18] They began to research the SOA, educate the public, lobby Congress, and practice nonviolent resistance at Ft. Benning. Each year a number of protesters are arrested and prosecuted for acts of civil disobedience including trespassing onto federal property in an attempt to create more awareness for the School of the Americas Watch.
The November anniversary of the UCA massacre continues to be an important focus for the growing grassroots movement to close the SOA/WHISC. Indeed, the original band of ten resisters who gathered at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 1990, to commemorate the first anniversary of the UCA massacre, has grown in recent years to an attendance of thousands. People attend to honor victims of SOA graduates – as well as their survivors – with music, words, educational workshops, puppets and theatre. Estimates for the 2004 vigil attendance was 16,000 and for the 2005 vigil, nearly 20,000.
Traditionally, the legal vigil and memorial service concludes with a mock funeral procession, using the Presente litany, onto Ft. Benning, with all who choose to march onto the post technically at risk for arrest. Subsequent to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the erecting of a security fence at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 2001, protesters who wish to take their mourning onto the post need to go over, under, or around that fence, as opposed to the simple marching of the past. Over the years, hundreds and even thousands have chosen to risk arrest for criminal trespassing.
At the 2002 protest, the city of Columbus began requiring all attending the event to submit to a metal detector search at the designated entrance. After a lengthy legal battle, however, in October, 2004, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the forced search was unconstitutional.
1. A Welcome from the Commandant Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
2. George Davies, ‘I’ll take the CIA torture suite’, ''The First Post'', dated August 16, 2006, accessed August 14, 2006.
3. School of the Americas changes its name Center for Media and Democracy
4. https://www.benning.army.mil/WHINSEC/democracy.asp?id=95
5. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation Center for International Policy
6. Crossing the Line bestofneworleans.com
7. H.R.1217 The Library of Congress
8. US Training Manuals Declassified Lisa Haugaard
9. Unmatched Power, Unmet Principles: The Human Rights Dimensions of US Training of Foreign Military and Police Forces 2002 Report of Amnesty International USA (Amnesty International USA)
★ Pentagon Investigation Concludes that Techniques in SOA manuals were ‘mistakes.’
10. Notorious Graduates School of the Americas Watch
11. 41 arrested protesting army school in GA, , Mike, Haskey, USA Today, 2005
12. https://www.benning.army.mil/WHINSEC/about.asp?id=155
13. National Venezuela Solidarity Conference School of the Americas Watch
14. Argentina & Uruguay abandon SOA! School of the Americas Watch
15. ¡No Más! No More! School of the Americas Watch
16. Costa Rica to Cease Police Training at the SOA/WHINSEC School of the Americas Watch
17. About SOA Watch School of the Americas Watch
18. The War in Central America Continues Paul Mulshine
19. National Lawyers Guild Calls for Immediate Extradition of Luis Posada to Venezuela, NLG press release, April 20, 2005. Accessed 24 February 2007.
★ Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror, , Mark, Danner, New York Review Books, 2004, ISBN 1-59017-152-7
★ Truth, Torture, and the American Way, , Jennifer K., Harbury, Beacon Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8070-0307-7 Review, "Highlights parallels in the practices of U.S. government operatives and their local “assets” in the current conflict and in the civil wars that wracked Central America in the 1980s and early 1990s."
★ Teaching Torture: Despite a lot of talk about torture being "un-American," Congress is quietly keeping alive the School of the Americas, our country's infamous torture-training school, , Doug, Ireland, LA Weekly, 2004
★ Backyard terrorism: The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it, , George, Monbiot, The Guardian, 2001
★ SOA protesters headed for prison: Sister, students among 14 charged with trespass at Army school, , Patrick, O'Neill, National Catholic Reporter, February 18
★ U.S. Instructed Latins On Executions, Torture; Manuals Used 1982-91, Pentagon Reveals, , Dana, Priest, The Washington Post, 1996
★ The Case for Closing the School of the Americas, , Bill, Quigley, BYU Journal of Public Law (20 BYU J. Pub. L. 1),
★
:
★
★
:
★ ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' Review Leah Wells
:
★
★ More than an image problem: During the familiar annual processing ritual for School of the Americas protesters this year, new information surfaced about a comprehensive plan devised by the U.S. Army to deflect criticism of the school, , Author, Unknown, National Catholic Reporter, 2005
★ United States-Latin American relations
★ School of the Americas Watch
★ Official website Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
★ School of the Americas (defunct website) US Army War College
★ Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation Center for International Policy
★ History of the School of the Americas World History Archives
★ School of the Americas Info Anarchy Wiki
★ Updates & Actions School of the Americas Watch
★ 20,000 demonstrate against US military torture training center Axis of Logic
★ Military Training Manuals Latin America Working Group
★ Torture is Un-American: The SOA and its Devastating Legacy Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Official seal of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
The 'Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation' ('WHISC' or 'WHINSEC'), formerly the 'School of the Americas' ('SOA'; Spanish: ''Escuela de las Américas''), is a United States Army facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Its motto is ''Libertad, Paz y Fraternidad'' (Liberty, Peace and Brotherhood). [1] In its history the now closed School Of The America had many accusations made against it accusing them of supporting controversial dictatorial regimes and death squads.
The institute is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. Around 60,000 people had attended the facility when it was called the School Of The Americas. Approximately 1,000 students per year attend WHINSEC which was created as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
History
The institute's remit is "to provide professional education and training" while "promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United States customs and traditions".
WHISC's $10 million budget is funded by the US Army and by tuition fees, usually paid through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants, the International Narcotics Control (INC) assistance programs, or through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. [Citation, source, quantity needed]
In 1946, the SOA was established in Panama at Fort Gulick, at what is now called the Melia Hotel[2] as the Latin American Training Center - Ground Division. It was renamed the U.S. Army School of the Americas in 1963. It relocated to Fort Benning in 1984, following the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty.
In 2000, mounting pressure upon the United States Congress to stop funding the SOA caused the Pentagon to rename the school the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, abbreviated as WHISC or WHINSEC. [3]
The school currently known as WHINSEC was first established in the Panama
Canal Zone in 1946 as the Latin American Ground School (LAGS) (Bouvier 122). According to Lesley Gill, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University, “The establishment of the Ground School coincided with renewed U.S. expansionist ambitions in the Americas and partially filled a power vacuum created by WW II, which ruptured long-standing military ties between European imperial powers – particularly France, Italy, and Germany – and Latin America” (Gill, 62). As many European nations faced the daunting task of reconstruction following the war, the “victorious and relatively unscathed U.S. moved in to fill the void left by the Europeans and to consolidate its position as a global superpower.”
Initially, the School’s mandate was to teach nation-building skills such as bridge-building, well-digging, food preparation, and equipment maintenance and repair. However, after President Truman signed the Rio Treaty, an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, in 1947, along with the leaders of twenty Latin American countries, the U.S. Army became increasingly involved in Latin America. The Rio Treaty provided that “any attack on an American nation will be met by collective sanctions in line with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”
Two years later, in 1949, the Army renamed the Latin American Ground School to the U.S. Army Caribbean School – Spanish Instruction and began to instruct Latin American military personnel along with U.S. Army personnel. By 1956, the School began to focus its training efforts primarily on Latin Americans and has instructed its classes solely in Spanish ever since.
However, the School’s curriculum was not altered until after the Cuban revolution in 1959. The success of Fidel Castro and his ragtag band of guerrillas caused the American fear of “conspiring communists in Latin American peasant villages” to magnify in the already intense Cold War era (Gill, 73). The School became known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas in 1963 and its curriculum changed its focus from nation-building skills to counterinsurgency in order to prevent communism from spreading throughout the Western Hemisphere.
According to one SOA official, “The importance of sound, bilateral security relationships in the Western Hemisphere became very clear as Hitler and Mussolini assiduously attempted to court the nations of Latin America.”
Although preparing Latin Americans to repel an attack by a non-hemispheric power, particularly one tainted by Communism, was the highly-publicized reason for the United States’ emphasis on equipping and training Latin Americans, others assert that the United States’ main objective was to protect its economic interests in the region. Some of these economic interests included coffee in Central America (1), the Panama Canal agreements formalized in 1901, and the United Fruit Company and its subsidiary, the International Railways of Central America (IRCA).
Changes
Former logo of the School of Americas.
After the legal authorization for the former ''School of the Americas'' was repealed in 2001 and the ''Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation'' was established, all students are now required to receive at least eight hours of instruction in "human rights[4], as well as training in the rule of law, due process, civilian control of the military, and the role of the military in a democratic society." In addition, courses now focus on leadership development, counter-drug operations, peace support operations, disaster relief, or "any other matter the Secretary [of Defense] deems appropriate" as well as requiring a Board of Visitors to review "curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, and academic methods" and evaluate whether or not it is "consistent with U.S. economic policy goals toward Latin America and the Caribbean." Several pages on its website describe its human rights initiatives. But, though they account for almost the entire training programme, combat and commando techniques, counter-insurgency and interrogation aren't mentioned. In being questioned about this the school (WHINSEC)has claimed that is has never taught interrogation techniques or any of the other subjects at the school. School of the Americas Watch vigil in November 2006, invitations were given to the members of the public to visit the school.
According to the Center for International Policy [5], the Board of Visitors "must include the chairmen and ranking minority members of both houses' Armed Services Committees (or surrogates), the senior Army officer responsible for training (or a surrogate), one person chosen by the Secretary of State, the head of the United States Southern Command (or a surrogate), and six people chosen by the Secretary of Defense ('including, to the extent practicable, persons from academia and the religious and human rights communities')."
Otto Reich was one of the first appointees in 2002.[1]
Legislative action
In June 2007 the McGovern/Lewis Amendment to shut off funding for the Institute failed by 6 votes. [2] This effort to close the Institute was endorsed by the non-partisan Council on Hemispheric Affairs who called the Institute a "black eye". [3]
2008 Defense Appropriations Bill (HR 3222)
This Directive stipulating that WHINSEC publicly release information on their instructors and students was part of the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill. A request for this information in 2006 was denied.
"The Committee supports the mandate of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (the Institute) to be a transparent and democratic institution. To promote such transparency and democratic values, the Committee directs the Institute to release to the public the names of all students and instructors at the Institute for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. The list shall include all names, including but not limited to the first, middle, and maternal and paternal surnames, rank, country of origin, courses taken or taught, and years of attendance. In all future fiscal years, this same information shall be made available and provided to the public no later than 60 days after the end of each fiscal year." [4] [5]
Controversy
The school has been at the center of numerous allegations of state terrorism by the US military. In 1999, after the mysterious disappearance of Victor Escobar (a graduate from the school) and disclosures about torture manuals being used in the training, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill to abolish the school, but its passage was stymied in a House-Senate conference committee. In what opponents to the school describe as a cosmetic gesture[6], in 2001 the Pentagon changed the name of the school. A bill to abolish the school with 123 co-sponsors was introduced to the House Armed Services Committee in 2005. [7]
Training Manuals
On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). These particular manuals are similar to lesson plans used by the school as far back as 1982 [6] and similar to those of Project X and KUBARK. According to Lisa Haugaard and others, these manuals show how U.S. agents taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe. [8] The manuals contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members. Joseph Kennedy said "These manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society." The Pentagon admitted that these manuals were a "mistake"[9]
Human rights abuses
The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and of advocating techniques that violate accepted international standards, particularly the Geneva Conventions. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Vladimiro Montesinos, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola, Roberto D'Aubuisson, Victor Escobar and Juan Velasco Alvarado. [10] Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, and coups in Latin American countries, the school's acronym is reparsed by its detractors as the "School of the Assassins".
WHINSEC in recent years has put into place a vetting system aimed as preventing human rights abusers from gaining a seat at the school. The school claims that this system prevents any student from having a seat at the school if there are human rights abuse accusations against them or against any unit they were a member of.
Ongoing participation of human rights abusers
Despite claims of meticulous vetting, there are alleged to be instances of high profile human rights abusers still attending the Institute. Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz of El Salvador was found responsible for the 1983 Las Hojas massacre, killing 16 civilians and throwing their bodies into a river. In 1992, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended prosecution of Col. Cid Diaz for the murders. His name is on a State Department list of gross human rights abusers. Despite the documented record of his murderous past, Diaz was welcomed back to the Institute in 2003. [7] [8]
Demonstrations
There is usually a demonstration at the main entrance to Ft. Benning in late November each year. In 2005, the demonstration drew 19,000 people. [11]
The date for the annual demonstration commemorates a Latin American massacre linked to the SOA, which was on November 16, 1989. Six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter were murdered at the University of Central America (UCA). Of the 27 soldiers cited for that massacre by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission, 19 were SOA graduates. The School itself officially denies that its curriculum teaches tactics contrary to human rights standards.
In an attempt to respond to the annual protest and arrests of concerned citizens outside of Ft. Benning each year an "Open House" program was developed. The school already has an "Open Door" policy in which concerned citizens can contact the school [12] and arrange for a tour of the school, sit in on classes if in session, and ask questions. The Open House arranges for groups of protestors to be allowed into the school for a tour and to participate in a panel discussion.
South Americans refuse to send soldiers
In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of Venezuelan soldiers at the School of the Americas. The School of the Americas closed 4 years earlier. [13] On March 28, 2006, the government of Argentina, headed by President Nestor Kirchner, decided to stop sending soldiers to train at the School of the Americas, and the government of Uruguay affirmed that it will continue its current policy of not sending soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC. [14][15]
Costa Rica withdraws
In 2007, Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, decided to stop sending Costa Rican police to the SOA/WHINSEC. Costa Rica has no military, but had sent some 2,600 police officers to the school.[16]
SOA Watch
Main articles: School of the Americas Watch
Citing the call of slain Archbishop Óscar Romero, that "we who have a voice must speak for the voiceless", Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois and a small group of supporters formed School of the Americas Watch in 1990. [17][18] They began to research the SOA, educate the public, lobby Congress, and practice nonviolent resistance at Ft. Benning. Each year a number of protesters are arrested and prosecuted for acts of civil disobedience including trespassing onto federal property in an attempt to create more awareness for the School of the Americas Watch.
The November anniversary of the UCA massacre continues to be an important focus for the growing grassroots movement to close the SOA/WHISC. Indeed, the original band of ten resisters who gathered at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 1990, to commemorate the first anniversary of the UCA massacre, has grown in recent years to an attendance of thousands. People attend to honor victims of SOA graduates – as well as their survivors – with music, words, educational workshops, puppets and theatre. Estimates for the 2004 vigil attendance was 16,000 and for the 2005 vigil, nearly 20,000.
Traditionally, the legal vigil and memorial service concludes with a mock funeral procession, using the Presente litany, onto Ft. Benning, with all who choose to march onto the post technically at risk for arrest. Subsequent to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the erecting of a security fence at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 2001, protesters who wish to take their mourning onto the post need to go over, under, or around that fence, as opposed to the simple marching of the past. Over the years, hundreds and even thousands have chosen to risk arrest for criminal trespassing.
At the 2002 protest, the city of Columbus began requiring all attending the event to submit to a metal detector search at the designated entrance. After a lengthy legal battle, however, in October, 2004, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the forced search was unconstitutional.
Notable graduates of The School Of The Americas
Sources
1. A Welcome from the Commandant Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
2. George Davies, ‘I’ll take the CIA torture suite’, ''The First Post'', dated August 16, 2006, accessed August 14, 2006.
3. School of the Americas changes its name Center for Media and Democracy
4. https://www.benning.army.mil/WHINSEC/democracy.asp?id=95
5. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation Center for International Policy
6. Crossing the Line bestofneworleans.com
7. H.R.1217 The Library of Congress
8. US Training Manuals Declassified Lisa Haugaard
9. Unmatched Power, Unmet Principles: The Human Rights Dimensions of US Training of Foreign Military and Police Forces 2002 Report of Amnesty International USA (Amnesty International USA)
★ Pentagon Investigation Concludes that Techniques in SOA manuals were ‘mistakes.’
10. Notorious Graduates School of the Americas Watch
11. 41 arrested protesting army school in GA, , Mike, Haskey, USA Today, 2005
12. https://www.benning.army.mil/WHINSEC/about.asp?id=155
13. National Venezuela Solidarity Conference School of the Americas Watch
14. Argentina & Uruguay abandon SOA! School of the Americas Watch
15. ¡No Más! No More! School of the Americas Watch
16. Costa Rica to Cease Police Training at the SOA/WHINSEC School of the Americas Watch
17. About SOA Watch School of the Americas Watch
18. The War in Central America Continues Paul Mulshine
19. National Lawyers Guild Calls for Immediate Extradition of Luis Posada to Venezuela, NLG press release, April 20, 2005. Accessed 24 February 2007.
Further reading
★ Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror, , Mark, Danner, New York Review Books, 2004, ISBN 1-59017-152-7
★ Truth, Torture, and the American Way, , Jennifer K., Harbury, Beacon Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8070-0307-7 Review, "Highlights parallels in the practices of U.S. government operatives and their local “assets” in the current conflict and in the civil wars that wracked Central America in the 1980s and early 1990s."
★ Teaching Torture: Despite a lot of talk about torture being "un-American," Congress is quietly keeping alive the School of the Americas, our country's infamous torture-training school, , Doug, Ireland, LA Weekly, 2004
★ Backyard terrorism: The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it, , George, Monbiot, The Guardian, 2001
★ SOA protesters headed for prison: Sister, students among 14 charged with trespass at Army school, , Patrick, O'Neill, National Catholic Reporter, February 18
★ U.S. Instructed Latins On Executions, Torture; Manuals Used 1982-91, Pentagon Reveals, , Dana, Priest, The Washington Post, 1996
★ The Case for Closing the School of the Americas, , Bill, Quigley, BYU Journal of Public Law (20 BYU J. Pub. L. 1),
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★ ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' Review Leah Wells
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★ More than an image problem: During the familiar annual processing ritual for School of the Americas protesters this year, new information surfaced about a comprehensive plan devised by the U.S. Army to deflect criticism of the school, , Author, Unknown, National Catholic Reporter, 2005
See also
★ United States-Latin American relations
★ School of the Americas Watch
External links
Official government websites
★ Official website Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
★ School of the Americas (defunct website) US Army War College
Other websites
★ Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation Center for International Policy
★ History of the School of the Americas World History Archives
★ School of the Americas Info Anarchy Wiki
★ Updates & Actions School of the Americas Watch
★ 20,000 demonstrate against US military torture training center Axis of Logic
★ Military Training Manuals Latin America Working Group
★ Torture is Un-American: The SOA and its Devastating Legacy Council on Hemispheric Affairs
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