Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), earlier this month re-introduced the Latin America Military Training Review Act, (H.R. 2989), which has been sent to the House Armed Services Committee.
The bill would shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), still more easily recognized as the U.S. Army School of the Americas, even though the name was changed more than a decade ago.
The bill, introduced Aug. 2, has 39 cosponsors, all Democrats but one–Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
There is no expectation the measure will emerge from committee, according to McGovern’s office. Similar measures have failed to date despite the almost 30-year battle over human rights issues with graduates that has included protests, demonstrations and an uproar over training manuals. The legislation is a focal area for activists and others interested in the institute.
In April, a court case in Northern California ruled that the names of the WHINSEC/School of the Americas graduates must be released, but the Justice Department, representing the Pentagon has appealed.
McGovern has been introducing the bill in every congress since 2001. In 2011, a similar measure received 51 cosponsors, all Democrats except for Texas Republican Ron Paul. The high water mark for the bill appears to have been some years ago when McGovern had 134 cosponsors.
For more than a decade, McGovern, a long-time outspoken supporter of human rights in Congress, has called for other ways to build partnership capacity in Latin America, without WHINSEC. He follows in the footsteps of former Massachusetts Democrats, Rep. Marty Meehan and Rep. Joseph Kennedy who drew attention to the school. Kennedy sponsored a failed amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1994 to close the school.
McGovern has continually called for transparency, accountability and specific follow-up with graduates at WHINSEC, which is the only regionally-focused school.
One of the more infamous graduates cited by critics is Manuel Noriega, former Panamanian strong man ousted in 1989 by the United States military in Operation Just Cause. Noriega was subsequently convicted and jailed in the United States on charges of drug smuggling and racketeering. Now in prison in Panama for murder, he also spent time in France for money laundering.
WHINSEC supporters have long pointed out to critics that Noreiga went through the school more than 20 years before Operation Just Cause, and at a low rank, as many do, and that the school can’t predict how someone will behave years later. While there can be bad apples, supporters say, thousands and thousands have graduated from WHINSEC, and School of the Americas courses and gone on to successful, high ranking careers in the military and government.
The school, located at the Army’s Fort Benning, Ga., is undergoing a $28 million renovation to be completed next year.
WHINSEC now has 143 students from 14 countries, with a Peace and Stability Operations Staff Officer Course just getting under way, according to the institute’s website.
Any country in the Organization of American States authorized by the U.S. State Department to send students to U.S. schools may attend the school, and other arrangements can be made through.
For example, this month, two Polish military students attended a Cadet Leadership Development Course.
“WHINSEC exists to share the vocation of the Profession of Arms with the security forces of U.S. partner nations,” the website says, with a three-course ethics program and democracy and human rights classes.