[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 56 (Thursday, May 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E795]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE U.S. ARMY SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS: COMMITTED TO HUMAN RIGHTS AND 
                      DEMOCRACY IN OUR HEMISPHERE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MAC COLLINS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 7, 1998

  Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues have come to know, 
there is an ongoing movement led by the Maryknoll Order of the Catholic 
Church to attack American foreign policy and her right to defend her 
interests through closure of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. The 
School is our nation's preeminent training facility for Spanish 
speaking militaries and police forces and for U.S. military officers 
slated to be stationed in South America, Central America, or the 
Caribbean. The School of the Americas provides training in professional 
military and police operations (including a Spanish-language Command 
and General Staff Officer Course). Other coursework includes drug 
interdiction and eradication, peacekeeping, and resource management. 
Most importantly, each course focuses on supporting and maintaining 
democracy and protecting human rights. The School is widely recognized 
as having developed the foremost human rights training program 
available at any military training institution in the world, including 
other U.S. training centers.
  Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him 
drink. While the vast majority--well over 99 percent--of the School's 
graduates have returned to serve their nations honorably, those who 
oppose U.S. foreign policy in the region have seized upon the horrible 
actions of a very few School graduates as justification for U.S. 
disengagement throughout our own hemisphere. These former students have 
acted illegally and immorally in spite of what they learned at the 
School, not because of it. Suggestions that the Army's School of the 
Americas has somehow been responsible for, or complicit in atrocities 
committed by rogue Latin American soldiers are outrageous, 
inflammatory, and completely unsubstantiated. Implicating our own 
dedicated soldiers in the wrongdoings of criminals throughout Latin 
America represents an attack not only on the School, but also on the 
U.S. Army, on the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole, and on American foreign 
policy and the American government's right to protect her national 
interests abroad.
  Today, the United States pursues its foreign policy in Central 
America, South America, and the Caribbean with fewer military 
deployments than are required in any other region of the world. We are 
able to accomplish this because of the confidence that we have in the 
American-trained military leadership of the region's democracies. If 
there were no School of the Americas, pursuit of our foreign policy in 
Latin America would be very costly both in human and monetary terms.
  Large military deployments would probably be required to continue 
current international drug interdiction, peacekeeping, and humanitarian 
relief missions throughout the region. Such deployments would not only 
put thousands of American lives at risk, but would also vastly increase 
the region's burden on the taxpayer. Currently, the entire Southern 
Command Area of Responsibility (which encompasses \1/6\th of the 
Earth's surface, including all of Central America, South America, and 
the Caribbean) requires an investment of only about $550 million per 
year to protect our national security interests. Compare this to the 
costs associated with operations in the much smaller regions of Bosnia, 
costing over $2 billion last year, or Iraq, costing over $1.6 billion 
last year.
  An honest assessment of Latin American history over the last 50 years 
demonstrates clearly that the U.S. Army School of the Americas saves 
lives.
  Recently, Latin American military officers trained at the School were 
responsible for negotiating a peaceful settlement to the Ecuador/Peru 
border dispute.
  During the 90s, military coups threatened in Venezuela and Paraguay 
have been averted through U.S. contacts and cooperation with soldiers 
trained at USARSA.
  Jose Serrano, Colombia's new drug czar who was featured recently in 
the Wall Street Journal, has made great progress in eliminating police 
corruption and in attacking the operations of that nation's drug 
kingpins. He is a former guest instructor at the School.
  Jaime Guzman, the Minister of Defense of El Salvador, has nearly 
eliminated human rights abuses by the Salvadoran military. During the 
1980s, such abuses numbered nearly 2000 incidents each month. Now they 
nearly never occur, thanks to the School of the Americas human rights 
training that General Guzman received at Fort Benning, and then 
implemented in El Salvador.
  While most of the turmoil of the 1980s has receded in the region, new 
threats have emerged and must be addressed. The Army School of the 
Americas continues to be an important support structure for many of the 
region's fledgling democracies, particularly in fighting on the front 
lines of the war on drugs. With all of the progress that has been made 
in the region, it would be irresponsible to turn our backs while drug 
traffickers and terrorists chip away at freedom and democracy in 
Central and South America and continue to kill our children on our own 
streets.
  Recently, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Southern Command General 
Charles Wilhelm referred to the inter-American drug supply as the 
greatest chemical weapons threat currently faced by the United States. 
Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of deadly, addictive 
chemicals flow across our borders from Mexico and South America and end 
up in the bodies of American citizens--many of them children. We must 
have the School so that we may continue to train Spanish-speaking 
soldiers and police to interdict drugs and eradicate them at their 
source. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of the effects of 
narcotics smuggled from without our hemisphere, yet the School's 
opponents still seek to close this institution which is having a more 
profound impact on inter-American drug trafficking than any other 
military training facility in the world.
  Opponents of the Army School suggest that it should be closed in the 
interest of human rights. But whose human rights are we talking about? 
Through its training programs, the School of the Americas protects the 
human rights of Latin American citizens from both wayward military 
officials and drug death squads (like the one that recently ambushed a 
Colombian National Police scout team, killing them all). Furthermore, 
the School protects U.S. human rights and interests by attacking the 
drug crisis at its source and by maintaining peace and constructive 
relations throughout the militaries of our region. The only humans 
whose rights would be protected by closing the School are those of the 
drug lords and criminals who are the enemies of democracy and the 
murderers of our children and those of Latin America.
  Ironically, the School's closing would eliminate the opportunity for 
Latin America soldiers to study democracy and human rights. Not only 
are such courses unavailable at other nations' military training 
facilities, they are not even offered at other U.S. Department of 
Defense schools. The School's critics seem to be suggesting that the 
best way to effect a better understanding of human rights and democracy 
in Latin American militaries is to close down the only facility 
providing Latin American soldiers and police with training in democracy 
and human rights. I respectfully disagree.

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