The School Of The Americas Is Still Exporting Death Squads

http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-school-of-the-americas-is-still-exporting-death-squads/204655/
Date Written:  2015-04-22
Publisher:  MintPress News
Year Published:  2015
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23605

Although rebranded as WHINSEC, the School of the Americas uses the same brutal tactics to destabilize governments in Latin America.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

In 2009, just a year before Sebastián Piñera became president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet approved the training of 211 Chilean recruits at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA).

Between 1999 and 2010, Chilean governments sent a total of 1,205 recruits to the school, with Bachelet remaining at the helm of cooperation with the U.S.-based institute that has graduated scores of alumni involved in human rights violations under Chile’s dictatorship era from 1973 to 1990....

Established in 1946 in Panama, the SOA was responsible for training over 64,000 South American soldiers, many of whom later became notorious torturers and murderers in death squads. According to former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca, the SOA was the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America."

Expelled from Panama in 1984, the SOA relocated to Fort Benning, Georgia, and was renamed WHINSEC in 2001, allowing for an apparent termination of the previous program through dissociation. In reality, however, WHINSEC retained its SOA foundations and the U.S. Department of Defense has shielded the institute from criticism and outcry with regard to the school’s historical link to human rights violations.