Honduran Coup Shines Spotlight on Controversial U.S. Military Training
School
by Chris Kromm
Facing South: July 1, 2009
Before the torture debates about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, there was
the School of Americas -- a U.S. military training school in Fort Benning,
Georgia, which has trained some of the worst human rights abusers in Latin
America.
As Facing South reported yesterday, two of the leaders of the Honduran
coup -- General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, leader of the armed forces, and
Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the Air Force which transported the
president to Costa Rica -- were trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas.
The Honduran coup leaders are just two of over 60,000 Latin American
graduates of the school, which since 1984 has been headquartered at Fort
Benning, Georgia. The SOA Watch database lists 3,566 graduates of the school
from Honduras alone.
As watchdog groups like School of Americas Watch have documented, many of
the school's trainees have been directly linked to death squads, killings of
clergy and other aid workers, kidnappings and other gross violations of
human rights.
The School of Americas/WHISC has also been linked to torture. In 1996, Dana
Priest of The Washington Post broke the story about use of training manuals
at the school that taught students many controversial techniques:
U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military
officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture,
blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents
released yesterday show.
Used in courses at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, the manual says
that to recruit and control informants, counterintelligence agents could use
"fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment,
executions and the use of truth serum," according to a secret Defense
Department summary of the manuals compiled during a 1992 investigation of
the instructional material and also released yesterday.
General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, widely credited with spearheading this
week's military coup, appears to have been trained at SOA when torture was
part of the curriculum.
Torture techniques were introduced at SOA after Vietnam, when the U.S. used
lessons from the counterinsurgency experience in that war to create course
materials for the school. The practice was halted under the Carter
administration in 1976 due to human rights concerns -- the same year that
General Vasquez first attended SOA.
The second time General Vasquez was trained at SOA in 1986, the torture
techniques had been re-introduced into the school's lesson plans and
training manuals under the Reagan administration. An in internal
investigation, the DoD later concluded that the inclusion of torture
techniques in violation of international law was a mistake. An internal memo
dated March 10, 1992 stated [pdf]:
It is incredible that the use of the lesson plans since 1982, and the
manuals since 1987, evade the system of doctrinal controls.
And who was Secretary of Defense when these warning signs about U.S.
involvement in torture practices in Latin America came to a head? Dick
Cheney, whose leadership in national security policy as Vice President would
bring torture back into the media spotlight.
We're not aware of any evidence that General Vasquez was directly involved
in torture, and the Obama administration has strongly condemned the military
coup. But such history is an important backdrop to current events, which are
vividly remembered in Honduras.
© Copyright 2008 by the Institute for Southern Studies
***
From: Sid Shniad
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 12:23 PM
CANTV: Zelaya holds US responsible if putschists continue in power
This is the only site where I saw it reported that President Zelaya is
holding the Obama administration responsible if the country continues
under militarysiege.
His comments can be heard here as well. It is astounding that he was unable
to land at the US air base, 50 miles north-west of Tegucigalpa. That base
is a guest of the Honduran government, of which Zelaya is the constitutional
head.
http://cantv.radiomundial.com.ve/yvke/noticia.php?27969
As Zelaya headed for Managua, after failing to land at the Toncontin airport
in Tegucigalpa, he spoke with TeleSur by phone. The president indicated
that he would meet with the rest of the presidents of the OAS to se what
solution they devise in view of the fact that obstacles were placed on the
runway, and that he will have to seek other ways of entering the country
beginning tomorrow, Monday.
"Beginning tomorrow, the responsibility for this falls on the superpowers,
especially on the United States," he said. "It must take immediate action. I
have received calls today from diverse world figures, and in the coming
minutes, we will give information about our next moves."
"This is a barbarity, I condemn it before the international community.
Someone has to bring order when an armed group assaults the
government of a country, as these putschists did in Honduras." He
added that "The United Nations or another organization has to have
sufficient capacity [to respond] when a people is trampled."
He regretted that the people were not able to break the military
encirclement, because if they had, they would have removed the
obstacles from the runway.
Indicó que se reunirán con el resto de los presidentes de la OEA para ver
qué solución se toman en vista de que colocaron obstáculos en la pista, y
que tendrá que buscar otras formas de entrar al país a partir de mañana
lunes.
"A partir de mañana, la responsabilidad de esto recae sobre las potencias,
especialmente sobre los Estados Unidos", indicó. "Debe tomar acciones
inmediatas. He recibido llamadas hoy de diversas personalidades del mundo, y
el los próximos minutos informaremos de las próximas acciones".
"Esto es una barbarie, lo denuncio ante la Comunidad Internacional. Alguien
tiene que poner orden cuando un grupo armado asalte el gobierno de un país,
como lo hicieron estos golpistas en Honduras". Aseveró que "las Naciones
Unidas y otra organización tiene que tener suficiente capacidad cuando un
pueblo es atropellado".
Lamentó que la gente no hubiera podido romper el círculo militar, porque de
haberlo hecho, ellos hubieran quitado los obstáculos de la pista.
--
"If we do not bring an end to the capitalist system, it will be impossible
to save the Earth." Evo Morales
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