Still a School of Assassins
The US Army School of the Americas has been the center of a storm of controversy for nearly two decades. This training center for Latin American military has turned out more than 60,000 soldiers. Its graduates have been linked to nearly every major human rights violation that has occurred in Latin America since the school’s inception 50 years ago. As the public learned that SOA graduates were responsible for the assassination of Archbishop Romero, the murder of the 6 Jesuits and their co-workers, the massacre of more than 900 at El Mozote, and countless other atrocities, a tremendous grassroots movement to close the school developed. In 1999, a budget amendment cutting funds to the school passed the House by 30 votes. It lost by a one-vote margin in a House-Senate conference committee. The Pentagon took this threat very seriously and in 2000 introduced a "reform" package changing the name of the school to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Critics were not fooled by this PR campaign and the movement to close the School of Assassins continues.
Known Human Rights Abusers
Continue to be Trained
at the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC)
Important New Findings Continue to Detail the Atrocities of the Past, the Fraudulent Nature of Cosmetic Reforms Made in 2001, and the Continuation of Support for Human Rights Abusers
Washington DC
- Despite the U.S. Army’s claim that Latin American soldiers
and police undergo a stringent vetting process before receiving
military training at the controversial Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), the successor
institute to the School of the Americas (SOA), new research
reveals that a number of students with well documented histories
of human rights abuses in their home countries have recently
attended the institution. These students were Colonel Francisco
del Cid Diaz of El Salvador, Major Filmann Urzagaste Rodriguez of
Bolivia, and three Colombian police officers Captain Dario Sierro
Chapeta, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Patino Fonseca, and Captain
Luis Benavides.
In a well known and high profile case, Col. Francisco del Cid
Diaz was investigated by the 1992 U.N. mandated El Salvadorian
Truth Commission as having bound, beat, and shot 16 residents
from the Los Hojas cooperative of the Asociacion Nacional de
Indigenas** (see note below).
Despite record of this massacre in the State Department Human
Rights Record Country Reports, Col. del Cid Diaz attended WHINSEC
in 2003. While a Captain, Urzagaste Rodriguez, was one of those
responsible for the kidnap and torture of Waldo Albarracin, then
the director of the Popular Assembly for Human Rights in Bolivia,
the now Major took a 49-week officer training course at WHISC in
2002. The three Colombian police officers were under
investigation for personal use of counter-narcotics funds at the
same time they attended the WHINSEC in 2002-03. These cases
undermine the claim that WHINSEC "teaches" respect for
human rights, and could be interpreted as WHINSEC's, or more
seriously the Pentagon, rewarding human rights violators with the
honor of studying in the United States.
Additional research provides startling findings about the effects
on the human rights records of students who attended courses at
the SOA. Katherine McCoy (as part of a Master of Science in
Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison) conducted a
statistical study of nearly 12,000 students from six countries.
She concluded that the more classes a student took at the SOA the
more likely they were to commit human rights abuses in their
country of origin. The study also found that the reforms to the
school’s curriculum over the last 40-year period do not
appear to have been successful in curbing the abuse rate of
graduates. Given this fact, the question naturally arises, how
effective are current reforms in curbing similar abuses?
Furthermore, none of the fundamental issues raised around the
need to close the SOA have been addressed in the renamed WHINSEC
- not its training methods, nor its lack of oversight, nor the
school's record of graduating human rights abusers. The Latin
America Military Training Review Act of 2003 (HR 1258), sponsored
by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA), calls for the closure of WHINSEC
and a full assessment of all Defense Department training in Latin
America.
“I am deeply disturbed by the recent revelations that known
human rights abusers have been chosen to receive U.S.
taxpayer-paid training at the WHINSEC. Coupled with other
information -- like Katherine McCoy's ground-breaking statistical
study on how training at the School affects a graduate's human
rights record and the continuing poor record of more recent
graduates -- I remain more convinced than ever that the WHINSEC
needs to be shut down. Our brave men and women in uniform do not
need this unnecessary and unwelcome stain upon their own
honorable record and traditions.” Stated Rep. James Mc
Govern sponsor of HR 1258.
Grassroots pressure forced them to change the name but . . .
. . . Here’s what SOA supporters have to say:
"Some of your bosses have told us that they can’t support anything with the name ‘School of the Americas’ on it. Our proposal addresses this concern. It changes the name." Col. Mark Morgan told Congressional aides at a Defense Dept. briefing just prior to the May, 2000 vote.
"The School of the Americas would still be able to continue its purpose," Stated the late Paul Coverdell, influential GA Senator, in an April, 2000 interview with the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. In the same interview, he called the proposed changes to the SOA "basically cosmetic."
In a December, 2000 interview with El Tiempo, Colombian Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez and Commander of the Armed Forces Gen. Fernando Tapias stated that Congress and the U.S. Government had assured them that the School of the Americas will continue to function and that the Colombian military can still train there.
. . . Past "reforms" have involved only a re-packaging of the same courses:
Previously, the Pentagon responded to grassroots pressure to close the school with a "reform" package that eliminated some of the most notorious courses, such as Psychological Operations, and added new offerings with friendly-sounding names like Peace Operations. This was not true reform, but simply a smokescreen designed to deflect attention from human rights violations associated with the school. An examination of the course descriptions revealed that little, if anything had changed. "Peace Operations" included military intelligence, psychological operations and methods of controlling the civilian population, such as establishing roadblocks and checkpoints. The website of the re-named school offers very little information about the content of the course offerings. Why should we believe the reform rhetoric of an institution with a history of blatant deception?
. . . Keeping the school open under any name sends a powerful anti-human rights message:
This school has a legacy of providing training to some of the most notorious human rights abusers of this hemisphere. SOA graduates have gone on to become dictators, defense ministers and heads of secret police agencies where they have crafted genocidal policies resulting in torture, murder, disappearances and displacement for hundreds of thousands of people. Defenders of the re-named SOA would have us believe that the atrocities are all in the past; but the people of Latin America will continue to suffer the effects of this training for generations. It is not up to those responsible for the atrocities to say, "let’s put this all behind us." Keeping this school open without investigating its connections to past atrocities sends a powerful message to Latin American militaries that the United States is not concerned with human rights. This school must close and there must be an investigation into its role in human rights abuses before the past can be put behind us.
. . . The names of SOA graduates continue to turn up wherever there are human rights violations in Latin America:
In Guatemala, SOA graduate Lima Estrada is currently imprisoned awaiting trial for the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi. The year 2000 saw former Guatemalan dictators Efrain Rios Montt and Fernando Lucas Garcia brought into court on genocide charges. During their regimes, thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands forced into refuge or exile. Both men, as well as a number of their high-ranking cabinet officials also named in the suit, were SOA-trained.
When the Bolivian government sold the public water system of Cochabamba to a private corporation, water prices skyrocketed and thousands took to the streets in protest. Bolivia’s president and former military dictator, SOA Graduate Hugo Banzer, declared a state of siege and ordered the troops into the streets. A 17 year-old boy was shot and killed by a Bolivian army officer.
. . . Look at what’s happening in Colombia:
Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the SOA, is the school’s largest customer. Not surprisingly, Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in all of Latin America. In February of this year, SOA graduate Hernan Orozco was sent to prison by a military tribunal for complicity in the Mapiripán torture and massacre of 30 peasants by a paramilitary group.
General Mario Montoya Uribe, an SOA graduate with a history of ties to paramilitary violence, commands the Joint Task Force South, which includes the 24th Brigade. The 24th brigade is ineligible for U.S. military aid due to its complicity in paramilitary violence. A leading Colombian newspaper identifies Gen. Montoya as "the military official responsible for Plan Colombia."
U.S. Military aid under Plan Colombia has been sold to the U.S. public as part of the war on drugs. In actuality, the forces under Montoya’s command are engaged in a counter-insurgency war against leftist guerillas. The aid is directed to troops taking offensive action against guerillas in areas targeted for coca fumigation. Evidence shows that these offensives often happen in conjunction with paramilitary attacks. Robert Zoellick, a top foreign policy advisor to President Bush, was recently quoted as saying, "We cannot continue to make a false distinction between counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics."
A large portion of the U.S military aid to Colombia will pay for Blackhawk helicopters to be used in the counter-narcotics/counter-insurgency war described above. Flight training for these helicopters takes place at the Helicopter School Battalion (HSB) at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. The HSB has been a part of the School of the Americas since it opened in 1991. Until recently, it was part of WHISC also. The web site of WHISC reported, as part of its course listings, "Helicopter School Battalion remains unchanged." As public attention to the controversial Colombia aid package increased, the HSB disappeared from the course catalog. The public affairs officer had no explanation for the change.
This is consistent with the history of the School of Assassins. The rhetoric changes, classes are shifted and re-packaged; but the same training continues and the poor continue to suffer.
. . There is still no adequate tracking of graduates:
The Department of Defense (DOD) claims that only a small percentage of the school’s 60,000 graduates have been implicated in human rights abuses. In reality, they have no documentation for making this assertion. DOD reports state "The Department of State and Department of Defense have no formal program to monitor School of the Americas graduates for human rights abuse or other crimes . . ." and ". . . there is no formal tracking of School of the Americas graduates." SOA Watch’s painstakingly researched list of human rights violators associated with the school is not comprehensive, just a chilling sample. Only those soldiers who attended the school under the IMET program (about 1/3) are subject to any scrutiny of their human rights records and this information is not made public. The truth is that the DOD has no idea how many of the SOA’s graduates have returned to their countries to commit crimes. Nothing in this "reform" package changed this. The DOD still takes no responsibility for monitoring the human rights impact of training at the School of Assassins.
Additional Talking Points:
THEY SAY: Only a few "bad apples" have committed human rights abuses. The majority of SOA graduates have gone on to have respectable military careers.
WE SAY: Every time a human rights report comes from Latin America, SOA graduates are "front and center." For example, over 2/3 of the Salvadoran officers cited by the United Nations Truth Commission Report for human rights abuses are SOA graduates. Over 50% of the Colombian officers cited in a definitive human rights report on Colombia are SOA graduates, and 40% of the cabinet members under three brutal Guatemalan dictatorships were SOA graduates. It’s not just a "few bad apples."
THEY SAY: SOA-connected abuses -- if they happened at all -- are a thing of the past. Closing the SOA is old news.
WE SAY: Not true: The February 2000 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombian military implicates seven SOA graduates in 1999 crimes including kidnapping, murder, massacres and setting up paramilitary groups. The 1998 and 1999 US State Department Reports on Human Rights in Colombia provide information implicating SOA graduates in abuses including a 1997 massacre, an illegal raid on a human rights group in 1998, and involvement in kidnapping and murder in 1999. Furthermore, the Colombian 20th military brigade, which was disbanded in 1998 for human rights abuses, was commanded by an SOA graduate.
THEY SAY: The SOA is key to the war against drugs. Counter-narcotics training is the new SOA mission.
WE SAY: The drug-scare tactic is just a smoke screen to allow the School to keep functioning as it always has. For example, although Colombia is in a drug crisis, only 5 of the 141 Colombians trained at the SOA in 1999 took the counter-narcotics course. In total, less than 5% of the SOA soldiers took counter-narcotics in 2000. This is down from 8% in 1998. The vast majority took the same old SOA commando and combat courses -- the training that has had such devastating human rights consequences in the past. "Cold War, Drug War, whatever they call it, it’s still a War Against the Poor."
THEY SAY: The now-infamous "torture" training manuals released by the Pentagon in 1996 contained only a few egregious passages and were otherwise consistent with US law and doctrine.
WE SAY: These manuals used at the SOA are brimming with anti-democratic content, far beyond just a few passages. From start to finish, they advocate the infiltration of opposition political parties, youth groups, and labor unions. They even view political campaigning as subversive. Instead of promoting democratic ideals, these manuals undermine democracy and weaken civilian institutions. (See www.soaw.org for texts of the manuals.)
THEY SAY: Counterinsurgency, as taught at the SOA, is still valid military doctrine, necessary to fight armed insurgents who "terrorized the region."
WE SAY: The 1999 Guatemalan Truth Commission Report concluded that 93% of human rights abuses during that country’s civil war were committed by military forces or state-connected civil patrols or death squads, not by armed insurgents. The report also concluded that US counterinsurgency training had "a significant bearing on human rights violations", and that the SOA was one location where such training took place.
THEY SAY: The focus of the "new" SOA is respect for human rights and democratic values.
WE SAY: Despite efforts to spin itself as a school for democracy, the SOA remains primarily a military combat school. Of 31 courses the SOA lists as available, only five are related to human rights, democracy or humanitarian issues, and less than 18% of the students took these courses in 1999. Furthermore, although the SOA has made much of its new Human Rights "Train-the-Trainer" course, no student attended the course in 1997, 1998, or 1999. The majority of courses taught at the SOA are standard military fare, including Cadet Combined Arms Operations (attended by more soldiers in 1999 than all of the "democracy" courses combined), Military Intelligence, and Psychological Operations.
Revised from an SOA Watch, DC info sheet