Bolivia withdraws from SOA/WHINSEC

WHINSEC

i guess i'm surprised it didn't happen sooner...

In a letter to the Commandant of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, U.S. Army Col. Gilberto Perez, Bolivian President Evo Morales formally announced yesterday that he will not send Bolivian military officers to attend training programs at the institute formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

The announcement came as confirmation of a previous statement made by President Morales in October of last year when he announced that he would discontinue sending troops to the institute based on its historical ties to oppressive military regimes in Latin America. Bolivia has now officially become the fifth country after Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to announce a withdrawal from the Fort Benning institution due to its negative image amongst Latin Americans.

The SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. tax-payer funded military training facility for Latin American security personnel located at Ft. Benning, Georgia. It was originally founded in 1946 in the Panama Canal zone and relocated to Fort Benning in 1984. The institution was catapulted into the headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution.

operation condor is certainly one of the darkest chapters in u.s.-latin american history...

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