Ask Amnesty

From Barbara from Rochester, MI:

What happened to the School of the Americas? I understand they teach torture. Is that correct?

Amnesty International USA's Executive Director Dr. William F. Schulz responds.

The US government's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) -- and formerly known as the "School of Americas" or SOA -- based in Fort Benning, Georgia has trained hundreds of Latin American officers who were later implicated in human rights violations. In 1996, the US Department of Defense disclosed evidence that the school had used manuals from 1982 to 1991 that advocated torture, blackmail, beatings and executions. While some curriculum changes have since been implemented at this training institute, no one has ever been held accountable for the unlawful training manuals or for the behavior of SOA graduates.

In its 2002 report, Unmatched Power-,Unmet Principles: The Human Rights Dimensions of US Training of Foreign Military and Police Forces, Amnesty International called for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate past activities of SOA and its graduates and for the school to be suspended pending publication of its findings.

In order to ensure that reforms at the school are not just cosmetic, the report calls for continued monitoring of the school, including review of its courses and training manuals by the Secretary of Defense. It also asks Congress to require the Department of Defense to assess and report annually on the school’s progress in integrating human rights and rule of law education into military training.

WHINSEC-SOA is only one small part of a vast and complex network of US programs for training foreign military and police forces that is often shrouded in secrecy; currently, approximately 275 known US military schools and installations in the US provide such training. Thus, the report recommends increased transparency and accountability of training provided to foreign militaries, increased oversight of US training provided to foreign militaries, and mainstreaming human rights law and humanitarian law education into all foreign military training.