U.S. Instructed Latins On Executions, Torture. 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.
Its graduates have included some of the region's most notorious human rights abusers, among them Roberto D'Aubuisson, the leader of El Salvador's right-wing death squads; 19 Salvadoran soldiers linked to the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests; Gen. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past. Declassified Army and CIA Manuals - Latin America Working Group. Declassified Army and CIA Manuals Used in Latin America: An Analysis of Their Content On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released to the public seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 for intelligence training courses in Latin America and at the U.S.
Army School of the Americas (SOA). A selection of excerpts was distributed to the press at that time. The Pentagon press release accompanying the excerpts states that a 1991-92 investigation into the manuals concluded that "two dozen short passages in six of the manuals, which total 1169 pages, contained material that either was not or could be interpreted not to be consistent with U.S. policy. " A January 1997 "information paper" sent out by the School of the Americas in response to public inquiries on the manuals claims that SOA training material merely contained several passages with "words or phrases inconsistent with U.S. government policy. " The Seven Army Manuals THE MANUALS' CONTENT. A. B. War on democracy - School of Americas. US Intelligence Oversight Board cites SOA (1996) | SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas. Intelligence Oversight Board Cites U.S.
Army School of the Americas for Training That Condoned Executions, Extortion, Abuse Report Discredits Pentagon Assertions that Army School Strengthens Latin American Democracies The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) used training materials that condoned "executions of guerillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment" asserts an Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) Report issued June 28, 1996, in Washington, DC.
The IOB, a four-person, independent board created three years ago by President Clinton, is charged with investigating excesses and abuses by the US intelligence community. "This IOB Report is the 'smoking gun,'" responded Carol Richardson from SOA Watch, an organization headed by Maryknoll priest Fr. The IOB Report discredits repeated statements from SOA and Pentagon officials that the SOA seeks only to professionalize Latin American armies and strengthen democracies. SOA Watch, 1996. Human Rights Watch | Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links (Summary) The Ties That Bind: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links Human Rights Watch here presents detailed, abundant, and compelling evidence of continuing close ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations.
This information was compiled by Colombian government investigators and Human Rights Watch. Several of our sources, including eyewitnesses, requested anonymity because their lives have been under threat as a result of their testimony. Far from moving decisively to sever ties to paramilitaries, Human Rights Watch's evidence strongly suggests that Colombia's military high command has yet to take the necessary steps to accomplish this goal.
Human Rights Watch's information implicates Colombian Army brigades operating in the country's three largest cities, including the capital, Bogotá. Based on the enclosed evidence, Human Rights Watch found that: The actions that the Colombian government should be required to take include: Bay Area protesters sentenced in Georgia / Jail, probation for 3 convicted of trespassing at Army school. 2002-07-13 04:00:00 PDT Columbus, Ga. -- One of three Bay Area residents found guilty of trespassing at Fort Benning, the site of a U.S. Army school that allegedly trains foreign officers in assassination techniques, was sentenced to six months in jail Friday by a federal judge. The Rev. Bill O'Donnell of St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley also was fined $1,000 after being convicted earlier this week of trespassing at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in the fall.
Two other protesters from the Bay Area, Berkeley peace activist Leone Reinbold and the Rev. Louis Vitale of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco, also were convicted and were awaiting their sentences late Friday night. They were among 43 demonstrators arrested last year while protesting the school's alleged involvement in training foreign security and intelligence officers in lethal arts. Thirty-seven of the demonstrators were tried on trespassing charges before U.S. But critics such as U.S.