by Gerry J. Gilmore
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, April 20, 1999) - The senior officer in charge of a U.S. Army school that provides military training to Latin American and Caribbean service members said his facility's curriculum fosters democratic ideals and teaches principles of human rights.
The lesson plans at the U.S. Army School of the Americas, located at Fort Benning, Ga., since 1984, "reflect U.S. Army doctrine and U.S. law," said Col. Glenn R. Weidner, the school's commandant.
"Our intent is to transmit through course content and by example the same values and professional standards taught to our own soldiers," said Weidner, 50, who graduated from the USARSA's Command and General Staff Officer Course in 1986, and then served on the faculty as course director the following year.
Weidner said current U.S. national security strategy stresses engagement with foreign governments and militaries in order to shape the international environment in ways favorable to U.S. security interests. The USARSA plays an important role in this endeavor, he said.
In recent years, said Weidner, the school has come under attack by human rights groups that allege the USARSA has trained and continues to train Latin American military officers and police officials in techniques of cruelty to suppress populations back home seeking societal and governmental reform.
Specifically, those critics who want to close the school say some USARSA graduates have committed abuses, such as torture and murder, against government dissidents in their home countries, such as El Salvador, during the 1980s.
Weidner, a 1971 West Point graduate and 28-year Army veteran, strongly denies critics' allegations that the USARSA "has trained or trains anyone to commit crimes or take political power."
"I believe the campaign to close USARSA has relied upon a systematic distortion of the record in order to achieve its purpose," said Weidner. "My own reading of that record, as well as my own experience at the school in 1986-87 convince me that the school, despite allegations to the contrary, has promoted values entirely consistent with those espoused by its fiercest critics."
In 1991, the U.S. government conducted a review of the USARSA's curriculum and operations, said Weidner. During the review, he said, 26 inappropriate sentences or passages left over from 1960s sources prepared by other agencies, not USARSA, were found among seven instructional manuals.
Those manuals were recalled as a result of the review, said Weidner, who noted six separate investigations requested by the Department of Defense and Congress were conducted. As a result, oversight of the school, which has included biannual reviews since July 1996, "has been greatly improved," he said.
The USARSA curriculum, certified by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, includes courses in military organizations, combat operations, civil-military operations, counter-drug operations, peace operations, border observer techniques, humanitarian de-mining, defense resource management, principles of democratic government, and human rights, said Weidner.
Since the early 1990s, he said, USARSA has required that every course include a special block of instruction, which examines human rights from the ethical, legal and operational perspectives.
"No other U.S. service school," said Weidner, "provides as intensive a program of human rights instruction in its curriculum."
It would be "grievously wrong" not to have "an institution like the U.S. Army School of the Americas," said Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera during his visit to the USARSA last fall.
"This school has made tremendous efforts to make sure human rights are part of every course of instruction," said Caldera. "It should be that way because it is an important principle for our nation. It is a principle we seek to share with the nations throughout the world, not just Latin and South America."
Around 1,000 foreign students and approximately 20 U.S. students take USARSA courses each year, said Weidner. About 60,000 Latin American soldiers and officials, he said, have attended the USARSA in its 50-year history.
"[The USARSA] promotes U.S. values with respect to democracy, the proper role of the military in society, and adherence to international standards of human rights," said Weidner. "Bottom line, USARSA did not, and does not teach torture or violations of the law. Rather, it does just the opposite."
(Editor's note: The Latin American Training Center - Ground Division was established in 1946 in the Panama Canal Zone. It became the U.S. Army School of the Americas in July 1963, with Spanish as the official language. In October 1984, the school departed Fort Gulick to comply with the terms of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty. Three months later, USARSA reopened at Fort Benning, Ga.)