NewsMax.com
Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001

According to Reuters news service:

The United States Army School of the Americas is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and is open for business.

The location is the same – the Army's Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga., on the Alabama border 100 miles southwest of Atlanta.

But its predecessor school, whose alumni included former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and Salvadoran death-squad organizer Roberto D'Aubuisson, was shut down last December after years of stormy protests over the role its graduates played in Latin American human-rights abuses.

The big difference is that the new institute will be run by the Department of Defense, whereas the previous school was strictly an Army operation.

Opponents of both contend that's a distinction without a difference, and they want the new facility shut down as well.

"It's a whitewash," charges Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest who heads the School of Americas Watch group, a long-time protester of the school. "It's a name change.

"This school is still about men with guns, and we will not go away until it is closed.''

But Rudy de Leon, deputy secretary of defense, who officially unveiled the new institute Wednesday, insists it will instill democratic values in its students – soldiers and civilians from 22 Latin American countries and the United States.

Addressing a small crowd at the institute, he said:

"We look to you to enhance the professionalism of our young citizen-soldiers with course work that will build their leadership skills, broaden their knowledge of human rights, constitutional governance and international law."