[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 56 (Thursday, April 22, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4132-S4133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


       LEGISLATION TO CLOSE THE U.S. ARMY SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to 
close the U.S. Army School of the Americas. The school is the Army's 
Spanish language training facility for Latin American personnel. It is 
located in Fort Benning, GA. The school is a relic of the cold war with 
a terrible legacy of teaching torture and assassination. It deserves to 
be closed for what it has taught in the past, what it stands for in 
Latin American democracies today, and what its counterinsurgency 
training at such a tainted institution may create in the future.
  This school was formed after World War II. Its mission, starting in 
the 1960s, was to fight Communist insurgencies in Latin America. To do 
this, instruction manuals used at the school from 1982 to 1991 
recommended execution, torture, and blackmail of insurgents. These 
manuals at the U.S. Army School of the Americas advocated that Latin 
American militaries spy on and infiltrate civic organizations such as 
opposition political parties, community organizations, and unions. They 
fundamentally confused what constitutes armed insurgency with genuine 
civic opposition. To the Latin American dictators of the time, 
insurgents were anybody who did not agree with them, leading to a 
virtual war against civilians, religious leaders, and Native Americans.
  The Chicago Tribune recently wrote an editorial noting the fact that 
there would likely be very few reunions of the graduates of the Army 
School of the Americas. It is not surprising when you take a look at 
the list of the graduates of this U.S. Army School of the Americas and 
consider that it contains a list of some of the worst human rights 
abusers in recent Latin American history.
  Let me be specific: 19 Salvadoran soldiers linked to the murder of 6 
Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in El Salvador in 
1989. Among the other graduates of the School of the Americas: 48 of 69 
Salvadoran military members cited at the United Nations Truth 
Commission report on El Salvador for involvement in human rights 
violations. The list goes on: Former Panamanian dictator and convicted 
drug dealer Manuel Noriega and nine other Latin American military 
dictators; El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson; two of 
the three killers of Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.
  I continue reading the list of graduates from the U.S. Army School of 
the Americas at Fort Benning, GA: Mexican General Juan Lopez Ortiz, 
whose troops committed the Ocosingo massacre in Chiapas in 1994; 
Guatamalan Colonel Julio Alpirez, linked to the murder of U.S. citizen 
Michael Devine in 1990, and Efrain Bamaca, husband of Jennifer Harbury 
in 1992; 124 of the 247--more than half--Colombian military officials 
accused of human rights violations in the 1992 work ``State Terrorism 
in Colombia,'' compiled by a large coalition of European and Colombian 
nongovernmental organizations; 2 of the 3 officers prosecuted by 
Guatemala for masterminding the killing of anthropologist Myrna Mack in 
1992, as well as several leaders of the notorious Guatamalan military 
unit D-2.
  I continue to read the list of graduates of the U.S. Army School of 
the Americas at Fort Benning, GA: Argentinian dictator Leopoldo 
Galtieri, a leader of the so-called ``dirty war,'' during which some 
30,000 civilians were killed or ``disappeared;'' Haitian Colonel 
Gambetta Hyppolite, who ordered his soldiers to fire on a provincial 
electoral bureau in 1987; several Peruvian military officers linked to 
the July 1992 killings of 9 students and a professor from La Cantuta 
University.
  I read on from the list of graduates of the U.S. Army School of the 
Americas, Fort Benning, GA: Several Honduran officers linked to a 
clandestine military force known as Battalion 316 responsible for 
disappearances in the 1980s; 10 of the 12 officers responsible for the 
murder of 900 civilians in the El Salvadoran village of El Mozote; and, 
finally, 3 of the 5 officers involved in the 1980 rape and murder of 4 
U.S. churchwomen in El Salvador. These are all graduates of the U.S. 
Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning, GA.
  This school is not a victim of a few isolated incidents of wrongdoing 
by its graduates. This list shows that human rights violations are 
endemic among its graduates, with far in excess of 200 murders and 
other human rights violators by its past roll of honor graduates.
  Can the School of the Americas claim innocence in the actions of its 
graduates? Many do not think it is possible. For example, just a few 
months ago the Guatemalan Truth Commission Report faulted the school's 
counterinsurgency training as having ``had a significant impact on the 
human rights violations during the armed conflict,'' a conflict that 
killed 200,000 people.
  How, in the name of humanity or democracy, can the people of America 
allow this school to remain open? How can we sanction the legacy 
perpetuated by its name today? The Latin American dictatorships of the 
1970s and 1980s have given way to democracy, some fragile, some strong. 
But to the people of these countries, the continued existence of the 
Army School of the Americas perpetuates the unfortunate link between 
the United States and the perpetrators of the heinous crimes I have 
just listed. The school should be closed to send a powerful signal to 
democratic countries of Latin America that America repudiates the 
terror, the torture, and the murder carried out against civilian 
populations by Central and South American military forces run amok.

  I am not proposing that we hold this U.S. foreign military program 
accountable for the actions attributed to the graduates. We know from 
experience that people can be brutal with or without training. But 
neither can we deny the links of those human rights abusers to the 
School of the Americas. Just a few of those examples should have been 
enough for us to quickly close that school in shame.
  In the post-cold-war era, it is more important than ever for the 
United States to promote democratic values and human rights in 
developing countries and to reject militaries that view their own 
countries' citizens as the enemy.
  The Pentagon will tell you that the Army has tried to make changes at 
the school by updating the curriculum to include discussions of human 
rights and by approving the selection process for students and the 
quality of the teaching staff. I do not doubt that some changes have 
been made, but I am not confident that these changes are enough or 
could ever be enough at a facility with such a sorry history.
  To be sure the continuing counterinsurgency training will not lead to 
future abuses against legitimate civic opposition, we must close this 
school. The U.S. Army School of the Americas is trying to sell itself 
with a new mission--certainly a topical mission--counternarcotics 
training. But the Chicago Tribune in an April 16 editorial addressed 
this assertion of a new mission directly:

       Attempts to recast the school as an anti-narcotics center 
     are so much hokum. Little in the curriculum is related to 
     drug interdiction, and it is not at all clear that the U.S. 
     Army is qualified to impart such instruction or that training 
     the notoriously meddlesome Latin militaries to get involved 
     in civilian law enforcement is advisable.

  Most importantly, cosmetic changes in the curriculum cannot salvage 
the savage reputation of this school's graduates or erase the U.S. Army 
School of the Americas' bloody and embarrassing legacy. We offer plenty 
of other training opportunities for Latin American military personnel. 
We do not need this school, Latin America's fragile democracies do not 
need it, and it should be closed.
  Last weekend it was my privilege to be part of a delegation sent by 
the leadership in Congress to go to Germany, Italy, Albania, Macedonia, 
and Belgium. During that visit, we met many of America's finest men and 
women in uniform who are literally doing their duty for this country, 
fighting to protect democracy and to accomplish the mission that has 
been assigned to them. I was so proud to be there and greet those from 
Illinois and from around the country and to thank them for the job they 
are doing for this country.
  What I am about today is no reflection on them. In fact, I suggest to 
the leaders in the Pentagon, in the name of the men and women currently 
in uniform, to make certain that they don't

[[Page S4133]]

have to answer the troubling questions about the existence of this 
School of the Americas, it should be closed forthwith.
  If there are those who want to come forward and suggest there are 
some missions at the school that can be transferred to another place, 
entirely peaceful, entirely constructive, entirely defensible, I will 
listen to that and I am open to it. But, please, once and for all let 
us close this sorry, sad chapter at the U.S. Army School of the 
Americas at Fort Benning, GA.

                          ____________________