Terrorist
Training, American Style
by Heather Wokusch
Dissident Voice
October 28, 2002
Insisting that global terrorism can only be stopped by
"destroying it where it grows," George W. Bush has conveniently
forgotten the US military's own terrorist training facility: the infamous
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). Located in Fort
Benning, Georgia, WHISC has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in the
most heinous of counter-insurgency warfare techniques, and its graduates have
gone on to comprise a bloody who's who of coups, chaos and destruction.
WHISC is also the reason several non-violent protestors
languish in US jails today, and with a massive demonstration planned at the WHISC site November 15-17, that number is about to
skyrocket. Between the upcoming protest and a House bill aimed at shutting down
the operation once and for all, it's clear America's very own terrorist
training camp will soon be in the spotlight. Less certain is whether the result
will be a brutal chapter of our history closed, or a deadly double standard
expanded.
Established by the US military in Panama in 1946, WHISC(or
School of the Americas/SOA, as it was previously known) was booted out and
forced to relocate stateside in 1984. Its graduates have repeatedly been
implicated in cases of torture, rape, massacre and assassination, their victims
frequently social rights activists and other civilians. Small wonder that
former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca described the school as the
"biggest base for destabilization in Latin America."
Bowing to public pressure back home, in 1996 the Pentagon
released several of the school's training manuals, detailing a curriculum
advocating the use of blackmail, psychological warfare, torture and execution.
By 2000, the appalling degree of human rights abuses committed by SOA graduates
prompted several in the House of Representatives to try closing the school, but
just before the key congressional vote, SOA personnel presented the Department
of Defense with a compromise: "Some of your bosses have told us that they
can't support anything with the name 'School of the Americas' on it. Our
proposal addresses this concern. It changes the name." And with that SOA
was closed, WHISC was duly opened, and in spite of a few cosmetic additions to
the curriculum, America's terrorist training camp continued business as usual.
The farcical charade doesn't get very far with Fr. Roy
Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch. One of the remarkable
priests whose untiring social activism is detailed in Strabala & Palacek's "Prophets
Without Honor," Bourgeois sees
the Latin American military's role as keeping "the poor on edge and the
small elite in power. The School of Americas is connected to that."
Bourgeois has done repeated stints in US prisons due to criminal trespass, or
"crossing the line" into Fort Benning - but he isn't alone. Of the
10,000 who peacefully protested at WHISC last November, a full 36 were given
sentences of up to six months in federal prison, and it's anyone's guess how
many new US political prisoners will result from the upcoming protest.
A bipartisan effort to shut down WHISC was narrowly
defeated in the House last year, but a similar bill (HR 1810) has been
reintroduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). HR 1810 already has 112 sponsors, and
if passed would not only close the school but also establish a joint
congressional task force "to conduct an assessment of the kind of
education and training that is appropriate for the Department of Defense to
provide to military personnel of Latin American nations."
Which is probably why the Bush administration is pushing
through plans to set up a successor to WHISC
in Costa Rica. With billions in US
military aid funneled to dirty wars throughout Latin America, local fighters
are needed to carry out Washington's agenda, and their training cannot hinge on
such niceties as law or public opposition. Case in point: Colombia has received
military equipment and a $1.3 billion aid package- not to mention over 250 US
military personnel on the ground - to help the government fight against what it
calls counter-insurgents (frequently peasants or community leaders such as
educators, union organizers and religious workers). Add to that a full 10,000
Colombian WHISC/SOA graduates and plans to set up WHISC-oriented training
locally, and it's clear the US is not only inviting mission creep, but more
importantly entering a bloody and unethical quagmire.
The choice is ours: pay lip-service to fighting global terrorism as we secretly conduct terrorist training on the side, or confront this beast wherever it grows, both abroad and at home.
Heather
Wokusch is a free-lance writer with a background in
clinical psychology. Her work as been featured in publications and websites
internationally. Heather can be contacted via her website: http://www.heatherwokusch.com