Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

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The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC), formerly 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] It has a history of supporting controversial anti-communist regimes and guerilla organisations.

The institute is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. As of 2006 the school now offers its Command And General Staff course to United States military for whom Spanish is their primary language. The course which is formally called ILE is the same which United States military officers attend only in Spanish. Somewhere around 60,000 people attended the now closed School Of The Americas. Presently roughly 1,000 students per year attend WHINSEC which was created as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The school has frequently in the past supported regimes in Latin America with a history of employing death squads and otherwise infringing upon human rights, something the school has staunchly denied. In response to this type of past criticism, the school in 2004 created a human rights protection training course, requiring each student to take eight hours of instruction. The school has also included in much of its course work training in the 'principles of democracy'. Critics accuse the school of teaching these classes to only a few students and argue that the minimum of eight hours of ethical instruction mandated by recent law is not sufficient.

Contents 1 History 2 Changes 3 Controversy 3.1 US Training Manual 3.2 Human rights abuses 3.3 Demonstrations 3.4 South Americans refuse to send soldiers 3.5 SOA Watch 4 Notable graduates 5 Trivia 6 Sources 7 Further reading 8 See also 9 External links 9.1 Official government websites 9.2 Other websites

[edit] 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.

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 nonhemispheric 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).

[edit] Changes

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, 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. 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. At the 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 website for the Center for International Policy ^[4], 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')."

[edit] Controversy

The school has been at the center of numerous allegations of state terrorism by the US military. Repeated efforts led by Representative Jim McGovern in Congress to curtail training at WHISC have failed. 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. As a cosmetic gesture, 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. ^[5]

[edit] US Training Manual

See also: Torture manuals

On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 for intelligence training courses in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). According to the Third World Traveler, these manuals show how U.S. agents taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe. ^[6] Amnesty International describes the contents of the document to contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members. ^[7]

[edit] 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. ^[8] 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. 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. There was an attempt made in 2006 by the Board Of Visitors to work cooperatively with the SOA Watch to prevent human rights abusers from getting seats at the school. The attempt was unsuccessful as of the end of 2006.

[edit] 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. ^[9] 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.

[edit] South Americans refuse to send soldiers

In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of Venezuelan soldiers at the School of the Americas. ^[10] On March 28, 2006, the government of Argentina 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. ^[11][12]

[edit] SOA Watch

Main article: 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. ^[13][14] 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.

[edit] Notable graduates

[edit] Trivia

• The words Uno para todos y todos para uno (one for all, and all for one!) are taken from Dumas' The Three Musketeers. They are also the official motto of Switzerland.
• The band Bobot Adrenaline released a song titled "School of the Americas."
• The hardcore band Kaospilot, from Norway, released a song titled "School of Assassins" on their 2003 self-titled album on Level Plane records.
• The band Anti-Flag released a song titled "The School of Assassins" on the 2004 Rock Against Bush album.
• David Rovics has a song entitled "Song for the SOA #2," discussing the theoretical shutting down of the School of the Americas.

[edit] Sources

[edit] Further reading

[edit] See also

• United States-Latin American relations

[edit] External links