THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

THE CLAIM

That a United States Army institution trained Latin American officers in torture, extortion and assassination, and that its graduates went on to lead death squads and coups.

THE THEORY, AS ITS PROPONENTS TELL IT

This file has an unusual property: the strongest evidence for it was produced by the institution being accused.

A 1992 internal Pentagon review, prompted by congressional pressure, examined the school's training materials and found that seven manuals contained passages advocating coercion, extortion, blackmail, payment of bounties for enemy dead, and targeting civilian supporters. The Defense Department released extracts in 1996 and characterised the passages as improper.

The graduate list is documented. It includes Manuel Noriega, Leopoldo Galtieri, Hugo Banzer, and officers named in United Nations truth commission reports on El Salvador and Guatemala, including several implicated in the murders of the Jesuit priests in 1989 and in the El Mozote massacre.

The institutional response is part of the claim. The school was closed and reopened in 2001 under a new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, with a revised curriculum and human rights instruction. Critics call the renaming cosmetic; supporters point to genuine changes in oversight.

WHAT IS KNOWN

The manuals, the review and the 1996 release are documented and were acknowledged by the Department of Defense.

The UN Truth Commission for El Salvador named graduates among those responsible for major atrocities, and the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification reached comparable findings.

Tens of thousands of officers passed through without incident, which is the school's own defence and is also true. Attribution by graduation is a weak inferential link on its own.

The 2001 renaming and curriculum change were real, and independent monitors have found the current institution substantially different from the 1980s one.

EVIDENCE FOR

• The Pentagon's own 1992 finding and 1996 release of manual extracts advocating coercion.
• UN truth commission reports naming graduates as responsible for specific atrocities.
• Congressional pressure and hearings that produced the internal review in the first place.

EVIDENCE AGAINST (THE STRONGEST READING)

• Over 60,000 people were trained. Listing the ones who became criminals proves less than it appears without a base rate.
• The manuals were withdrawn, and the Pentagon characterised the passages as contrary to policy rather than as policy.
• No document establishes that the school's purpose was to produce death squads, as opposed to counter-insurgency doctrine that included methods it should not have.

ASSESSMENT

Confirmed as to the manuals and the graduates, contested as to what follows from them. This office finds the documented core sufficient without the maximal claim: a United States Army school distributed training materials recommending coercion and bounties, its own department found this and said so, and a meaningful number of its graduates appear in truth commission reports. Whether that constitutes a policy or a failure of supervision is exactly the question the released documents do not settle, and it is the same question OSA-113 leaves open.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE GRADE

• CONFIRMED by the accused: a 1992 Pentagon review found seven training manuals advocating coercion, extortion, bounties and targeting civilian supporters, and extracts were released in 1996.
• Established separately: UN truth commissions for El Salvador and Guatemala named graduates as responsible for specific atrocities.
• What the record does not settle, and what the maximal reading asserts: whether this was policy or a failure of supervision. Over 60,000 people were trained, so listing the criminals proves little without a base rate.

FURTHER READING

• WHINSEC, formerly the School of the Americas · Wikipedia
• US Department of Defense, review of SOA training manuals (1992), extracts released 1996
• UN Truth Commission for El Salvador, From Madness to Hope (1993)