General Romeo Vásquez, now in charge of the Honduran armed forces, trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation—the new name for the School of the Americas—in 1976 and 1984. So too did the head of the air force, General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, who studied in 1996 at the Fort Benning-based school in Georgia.

 

Just days before the overthrow of Zelaya, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that would require the Pentagon to publicly release the names, ranks, countries of origin, courses taken and dates of attendance of all the students and instructors at the institute.

 

Opened in 1946, the School of the Americas has trained more than 64,000 Latin American and Caribbean military members. According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “Its graduates have included ten different Latin American military officers who would later become some of the most notorious strongmen and dictators in the hemisphere, as well as hundreds of senior and mid-level officers who would later be revealed as gross human rights abusers, serial torturers, drug traffickers and confederates of organized crime.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Honduran Coup Shines Spotlight on Controversial U.S. Military Training School (by Chris Kromm, Facing South)

Key Leaders of Honduras Military Coup Trained in U.S. (by Chris Kromm, Facing South)

House Votes to Publicize Names of Infamous School of the Americas Graduates (Political Affairs.net)

Final Vote Results for Roll Call 454 (Clerk of the House of Representatives)

A Thoroughly Un-American Institution (by Louis Wolf, Council on Hemispheric Affairs)

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (School of the Americas) (AllGov)