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{[ copied from Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation]} ==History== (Thadeus Person)

Human rights violations by graduates[edit | edit source]

WHINSEC has been criticized for human rights violations committed by former students.

According to the Center for International Policy, "The School of the Americas had been questioned for years, as it trained many military personnel before and during the years of the 'national security doctrine' – the dirty war years in the Southern Cone and the civil war years in Central America – in which the armed forces within several Latin American countries ruled or had disproportionate government influence and committed serious human rights violations in those countries."^{[citation needed]} SOA and WHINSEC graduates continue to surface in news reports regarding both current human rights cases and new reports.

The institute itself explicitly denies accusations of teaching torture: in 1999 the School of the Americas FAQ had several answers denying accusations of torture, such as "Q: What about the accusations that the School teaches torture and murder? A: Absolutely false. The School teaches U.S. Army doctrine which is based on over 200 years of success, and includes a variety of military subjects, none of which include criminal misconduct." WHINSEC says that its curriculum includes human rights, and that "no school should be held accountable for the actions of its graduates."

In 2002, Amnesty International USA protested that the WHINSEC should be closed for the graduates' abuse of human rights. The organization blames the school for the containment of violence within the United States and advocates that after the suspension of WHINSEC, the government should make amends to the countries affected by its graduates through reparations to the families of victims and a public apology.

Human Rights Watch says that "training alone, even when it includes human rights instruction, does not prevent human rights abuses."

Colombian Trainee Atrocities[edit | edit source]

Colombian Alirio Urena was trained by WHINSEC, which at the time was still called SOA, before eventually being promoted to major in the Colombia army. In the late 1980's and early 90's, Urena's orders resulted in the murder of over 245 civilians. These murders were notorious as Urena and his soldiers used chainsaws to break down victim's bodies before being thrown into the nearby Cauca River. Urena's crimes are often used to as evidence to question the moral integrity of WHINSEC and it's training process.

William J. Perry Center human rights controversy involving first WHINSEC Commandant[edit | edit source]

Beginning in late 2014 in response to a request by then Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, SouthCom's William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., was under investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. The probe focused on the time (from March 2004-March, 2013) that the first WHINSEC Commandant, West Point graduate Richard D. Downie, headed the U.S. Southern Command training institution. (Downie had in 2012 given WHINSEC the CHDS Dr. William J. Perry Award for Excellence in Security and Defense Education.)  Insider national security whistleblower complaints, some echoing those made about the School of the Americas, included that the Center knowingly protected a CHDS professor from Chile who belonged to the DINA state terrorist organization (whose terrorist attack against a former Chilean foreign minister in 1976 in Washington, D.C. resulted in two deaths, including that of an American); the potential clandestine involvement of Center officials in the 2009 Honduran coup, as well as gross mismanagement, corruption, homophobia, racism, and sexism. In 2015 the Center for Public Integrity quoted an internal Southern Command document that reported that CHDS "staff had exchanged 'racially charged emails' — including one directed at President Barack Obama; used offensive language such as 'faggot,' 'buttboy' and 'homo'; and that 'women employees feel that they are treated inappropriately.' Even senior leaders used 'inappropriate hand gestures,' it said, and mentioned simulations of masturbation." However, unlike the 2012 SouthCom prostitution scandal, there is no public information that suggests any wrongdoers were punished in any way, while those complaining about such malfeasance were harassed by senior officials. "Reports that NDU hired foreign military officers with histories of involvement in human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings of civilians, are stunning, and they are repulsive," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the author of the "Leahy Law" prohibiting U.S. assistance to military units and members of foreign security forces that violate human rights. 

SOA Watch[edit | edit source]

Main article: School of the Americas Watch

Since 1990, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit human rights organization School of the Americas Watch has worked to monitor graduates of the institution and to close the former SOA, now WHINSEC, through legislative action, grassroots organizing and nonviolent direct action. It maintains a database with graduates of both the SOA and WHINSEC who have been accused of human rights violations and other criminal activity. In regard to the renaming of the institution, SOA Watch claims that the approach taken by the Department of Defense is not grounded in any critical assessment of the training, procedures, performance, or results (consequences) of the training programs of the SOA. According to critics of the SOA, the name change ignores congressional concern and public outcry over the SOA's past and present link to human rights atrocities. In 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union finds multiple documents that informs that FBI officials have been keeping a close surveillance upon the SOA Watch as a method of counter-terrorism. The actions made by the FBI were proved to have no basis in the spying of the SOA Watch officials. However, the records recovered by the American Civil Liberties Union also proved that the vigil was shown as peaceful and not hostile in any way. In 2007, the movement won the rights to the release of SOA./WHINSEC students and instructors names from the House of Representatives through a report that accompanied the FY 2008 Defense Appropriation bill and requests that their names will be released to the public in every fiscal year in the future.

Protests and public demonstrations[edit | edit source]

Since 1990, SOA Watch has sponsored an annual public demonstration of protest of SOA/WHINSEC at Ft. Benning. In 2005, the demonstration drew 19,000 people. The protests are timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador on November 1989 by graduates of the School of the Americas. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin López y López, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado López); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran Military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. A United Nations panel concluded that nineteen of the 27 killers were SOA graduates.During the Dirty War in Argentina (1974-1983) the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo led marches at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires as a sign of protest to demand the whereabouts of their children, who were reported "disappeared" and never seen again and their captors and murderers to be brought to justice. The protests were directed at the dictator of Argentina, Jorge Rafael Videlo, a former graduate of WHINSEC. In 2002, Amnesty International USA protested that the WHINSEC should be closed for the graduates' abuse of human rights. The organization blames the school for the containment of violence within the United States and advocates that after the suspension of WHINSEC, the government should make amends to the countries affected by its graduates through reparations to the families of victims and a public apology.