[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 91 (Friday, July 14, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S6834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to express my serious 
disappointment with the Fiscal Year 2001 Department of Defense 
Authorization bill, which passed the Senate earlier this week. I 
opposed a number of provisions in the bill, including language to 
restructure and rename the School of Americas. It is this issue which I 
would like to address today.
  Mr. President, it is clear that the Department of Defense recognizes 
there are serious problems with the School of the Americas, otherwise 
they would not have gone to the trouble of proposing to repackage it. 
But make no mistake, that is all that has happened. While the name may 
not remain the same, the School of the Americas still exists.
  Mr. President, I think a little history is in order here. The School 
of the Americas was founded in 1946, originally in the U.S.-controlled 
Panama Canal Zone. At that time, it was known as the Latin American 
Center-Ground Division. In 1963, the facility was renamed the School of 
the Americas, and in 1984, in compliance with the Panama Canal Treaty, 
the school was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia as part of the U.S. Army 
Training and Doctrine Command.
  SOA was charged with the mission of developing and conducting 
instruction for the armed forces of Latin America. Unfortunately, what 
SOA has produced are some of the most notorious dictators and human 
rights abusers from Latin America including El Salvador death squad 
leader Roberto D'Abuisson, Panamanian dictator and drug dealer Manuel 
Noriega, Argentinian dictators Leopold Galtieri and Roberto Viola, and 
Peruvian dictator Juan Velasco Alvarado.
  Mr. President, the list continues. SOA alumni include 48 of the 69 
Salvadoran military members cited in the U.N. Truth Commission's report 
on El Salvador for involvement in human rights violations, including 19 
of 27 military members implicated in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit 
priests.
  SOA alumni reportedly also include more than 100 Colombian military 
officers alleged to be responsible for human rights violations, and 
several Peruvian military officers linked to the July 1992 killings of 
nine students and a professor from Peru's La Cantutu University.
  SOA alumni include several Honduran officers linked to a clandestine 
military force known as Battalion 316 responsible for disappearances in 
the early 1980s.
  And, SOA graduates have led military coups and are responsible for 
massacres of hundreds of people, including the Uraba massacre in 
Colombia, the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador, the 
assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the torture and murder of a 
UN worker, and hundreds of other human rights abuses.
  Mr. President, it is not merely coincidence that SOA has such an 
egregious list of alumni. In September, 1996, the Department of Defense 
made available excerpts from seven Spanish-language training manuals 
used at SOA and it was revealed that those manuals included instruction 
in extortion, execution, and torture techniques that the Pentagon 
conceded were ``clearly objectionable and possibly illegal.''
  Even today, the SOA legacy lives on. Just this past January, another 
SOA graduate, Guatemala Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, was arrested 
for his involvement in the death of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi 
in 1998. As CRS noted, Bishop Gerardi was murdered in April of 1998 
just two days after he released a report accusing the Guatemalan 
military for most of the human rights abuses committed during the 
country's conflict.
  Mr. President, as I mentioned earlier, while the Department of 
Defense will ostensibly close the School of the Americas, it is 
producing a clone in its place. The Department of Defense Authorization 
bill establishes the Western Hemisphere Institute for Professional 
Education and Training--an institution that appears in every way to be 
nothing more than a repackaged School of the Americas.
  To my knowledge, nothing has been done to ensure that a thorough 
evaluation of SOA is conducted before this new entity is operational. 
As SOA Watch has noted, there appears to be no critical assessment of 
the training, procedures, performance or consequences of the SOA 
training program this new entity copies.
  I regret the Pentagon has not taken more meaningful steps to address 
the horrifying legacy of SOA. I support closing SOA permanently, not 
merely changing its name.
  I am pleased to be a cosponsor of legislation introduced by the 
senior Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin) that would terminate this 
program.
  But, Mr. President, even if there were any justification for 
continuing some portion of the School of the Americas, it should come 
only after a truly serious and independent review is made of the 
purpose, mission, curricula, administrative structure, and student 
selection of the new entity.
  Given the bloody heritage of SOA, the very least we owe the people of 
Latin America and the innocent who have been killed is such a review. 
Unfortunately, that is not what will happen.
  As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I am 
committed to promoting human rights throughout the world. While it may 
be appropriate for the United States military to train its colleagues 
from other nations, it is inexcusable that this training should take 
place at an institution with a reputation far beyond salvage. In my 
view, our government cannot continue to support the existence of a 
school or a simple repackaging of that school which has so many 
murderers among its alumni.
  Mr. President, I will be watching this new institution very closely, 
and so, I have no doubt, will many of my constituents. My concerns 
about accountability and transparency have not been sufficiently 
addressed, and I will continue to raise this issue until I am satisfied 
that the U.S. Government has finally and firmly brought an end to the 
shameful legacy of the School of Americas.

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