Comments by "LW1zFog" (@lw1zfog) on "Debt, Coups & Colonialism in Haiti: France & U.S. Urged to Pay Reparations for Destroying Nation" video.

  1. Under President Ronald Reagan, school operations were expanded from 1984 (Reagan Doctrine). In 2000, the previous School of the Americas was closed by a resolution of Congress. In January 2001, on the basis of a law signed by President Bill Clinton, WHINSEC was opened in its current form as the successor institution. Since then, human rights studies have also been part of the curriculum. A new body that was formed by law when WHINSEC was founded is the 14-member advisory committee called the Board of Visitors, which has since been charged with independently reviewing, monitoring and making recommendations on the activities of the training facility. The committee, which includes representatives from Congress and the government as well as representatives from the areas of religion, human rights, science and business appointed by the Secretary of Defense, reviews, among other things, the "content and form of teaching and its compliance with law and with the goals of the United States politics". wikisp**ksd*tc*m
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  2. The graduates include Latin American soldiers, officers and later junta generals such as Augusto Pinochet[4], Leopoldo Galtieri, Roberto Viola, the Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez, the Panamanian general, ex-CIA employee and drug dealer Manuel Noriega as well as the Peruvian secret service worker Vladimiro Montesinos, further Efraín Ríimiro Montesinos Montt, Guillermo Rodríguez Lara and Omar Torrijos. Roberto D’Aubuisson, who commissioned the murder of Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was also trained in the SOA. Because many of the military who were involved in coup attempts against Latin American governments graduated from the training facility, it was also known as the "coup school". "Its graduates include most of the worst torturers in Latin America," said former CIA agent Philip Agee in 1999. wikisp**ksd*tc*m
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  3. The School of the Americas was established in 1946 under the name Latin American Training Center - Ground Division in the extra-territorial canal zone of Panama. Its task was to consolidate US interests in Central and South America during the conflict over the Panama Canal through military training of Latin American military personnel and military advisors. During the Cold War, the focus shifted towards preventing the spread of communism in Latin America (domino theory). After the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 and under pressure from the Panamanian government, the location in the extraterritorial canal zone was given up in 1984 and relocated to Fort Benning. The training camp was integrated into the Army Training and Doctrine Command, the highest training and instruction command of the Army. The WHINSEC receives an annual budget of approximately ten million US dollars. wikisp**ksd*tc*m
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  4. The School of the Americas has been criticized by human rights organizations for training predominantly right-wing military and paramilitary groups in torture techniques and for its massive support for right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America. Many of the graduates were later instrumental in so-called dirty wars in their home countries. wikisp**ksd*tc*m
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