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 Fraternity).

The institute is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. Around 60,000 people, roughly 1,000 per year, have taken courses. The SOA was renamed to WHISC, in 2001, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The school is frequently cited as an example of United States' alleged support for regimes in both Latin America and South America, regimes which have a history of employing death squads and otherwise infringing upon human rights. The school has attempted to rectify this by introducing courses that cover democracy and human rights topics; however, many have alleged that these classes are only taken by a few students and that the minimum of eight hours of ethical instruction mandated by recent law is not high enough to be effective.

History

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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 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 reached a point where the Pentagon decided to rename the school the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, abbreviated as WHISC or WHINSEC.

Changes

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After the legal authorization for the former School of the Americas was repealed in 2001 and the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation was established, all students are now required to receive at least eight hours of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 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. Nor is the fact that Whisc's "peace" and "human rights" options were also offered by SOA in the hope of appeasing Congress and preserving its budget: but hardly any of the students chose to take them.

According to the website for the Center for International Policy , 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')."

Controversy

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Repeated efforts lead by Representative Jim McGovern in Congress to curtail training at WHISC have failed. In 1999, after 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.

US Training Manual

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.

Human rights abuses

The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and have been found to advocate 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, and Juan Velasco Alvarado. Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, the school's acronym is occasionally reparsed by its detractors as the "School of Assassins".

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. 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.

South Americans refuse to send soldiers

In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of Venezuelan soldiers at the School of the Americas. 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.

SOA 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. They began to research the SOA, educate the public, lobby Congress, and practice nonviolent resistance at Ft. Benning.

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 Novembers to a resistance community of thousands. People come from all over the country and even the world 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

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Trivia

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• The band Anti-Flag released a song titled "The School of Assassins" on the 2004 Rock Against Bush album.
• Uno para todos y todos para uno (the motto) derives from Dumas' The Three Musketeers'motto or Switzerland's .

Sources

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Further reading

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External links

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Military education and training in the United States | History of foreign relations of the United States | Terrorism | Counter-terrorism | Human rights abuses | Operation Condor | United States Army facilities

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation | Escuela de las Américas | École Militaire des Amériques | Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation