SOA/ WHINSEC Background

On January 17, 2001 the School of the Americas was replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Read more about the school here.

Evo Morales Announces: "No More Bolivian Soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC!

Tags: Bolivia

Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela - to formally announce a withdrawal from this brutal military training school.

"We will gradually withdraw until there are no Bolivian officers attending the School of the Americas” said Morales. Questioning the U.S. government foreign policy he noted that “they are teaching high ranking officers to confront their own people, to identify social movements as their enemies.”

This is a great victory for torture survivors, social movement leaders and human rights activists of Bolivia and the Americas. The SOA/WHINSEC has played a significant role in Bolivia’s recent political history, Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia from 1971-1978 under a brutal military dictatorship attended the school in 1956 and was later inducted into the school’s “hall of fame” in 1988. The SOA has trained tens of thousands of Bolivian military officers in the past fifty years. In October of 2006, two former graduates of the SOA/WHINSEC, Generals Juan Veliz Herrera and Gonzalo Rocabado Mercado were arrested on charges of torture, murder, and violation of the constitution for their responsibility in the death of 67 civilians in El Alto Bolivia during the “Gas Wars” of September-October 2003.

In March 2006 a School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) delegation led by Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio, and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois met with President Evo Morales to request that Bolivia cease to send troops for training at the SOA/WHINSEC.

Read more about the SOA Watch Latin America Project

Costa Rica to Cease Police Training at the SOA/WHINSEC

Tags: Costa Rica

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias announced Wednesday that Costa Rica will cease to send police to train at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

( Photo: President Oscar Arias)

Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, made the decision after talks with an SOA Watch delegation, including Julio Yao of SERPAJ Panama; the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch; and Lisa Sullivan Rodriguez of the SOA Watch Latin America Project.

Costa Rica has no army but has sent some 2,600 police officers over the years to be trained at the school. Minor Masis, leader of Costa Rica’s former “Comando Cobra” anti-drug squad attended the school in 1991 and returned to Costa Rica, only to serve a 42-year jail term for rape and murder committed during a 1992 drug raid. Costa Rica currently has three policemen at the center.

"When the courses end for the three policemen we are not going to send any more," Arias said.

Costa Rica is the fourth country to announce a withdrawal from the SOA/WHINSEC. In 2006, the governments of Argentina and Uruguay announced that they would cease all training at the school, becoming the second and third countries to announce a cessation of training. In January of 2004, Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuela would no longer send troops to train at the school.

Costa Rica Quits U.S. Training at ex-School of the Americas

Costa Rica to Stop Sending Police to Former School of the Americas

Costa Rica to Stop Sending Police to U.S. Army School

Read More about the Latin America Project

Congressman Jim McGovern Discusses the School of the Americas

Tags: Lobby Days 2007

Congressman James P. McGovern of Massachusetts' 3rd Congressional District visited the BC High campus to talk with students about his attempt to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). Formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas, WHINSEC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers.

McGovern has introduced legislation to close WHINSEC in light of numerous instances in which WHINSEC graduates being have been accused of human rights violations, assassinations, and other atrocities. Among the crimes, eighteen WHINSEC graduates are alleged to have participated in the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter at the University of Central America in 1989.

In his talk, McGovern outlined the details of his legislation, which also calls for a full review of U.S. military training programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the students in attendance had already learned about WHINSEC in history or religious studies classes, but McGovern’s visit gave them the rare opportunity to discuss the issue and with one of the key figures in the effort to force WHINSEC to cease operations.

Haiti and the School of the Assassins

Thanks to School of the America's Watch's (SOAW) annual Vigil at the School of the Americas (SOA), the persecution of the religious community in El Salvador during the 1980s is not forgotten. Every year they commemorate the massacre that the Jesuit Provincial called "an act of lavish barbarity," when six Catholic priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, by government soldiers trained at the School of the Americas.

In Haiti, a number of equally barbarous events carried out by SOA graduates are not so well known, and have been neglected by world attention. The perpetrators are still free, and in some instances, still wielding power. It's time we took notice.