For 62 years, the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, has trained some of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere. From Pinochet's soldiers in Chile, D'Aubuisson's death squads in El Salvador, Banzer's minions in Bolivia, Galtieri's operatives in Argentina and Rios Montt's soldiers in Guatemala to the present-day generals responsible for the coup in Honduras and the drug war killings in Colombia, the School of the America has a dark legacy. Renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the school has graduated 65,000 soldiers from 18 countries. This weekend, tens of thousands of activists will converge at its gates to demand an end to the militarization and the massacres, the human rights violations and the secrecy... and fight to close the School of the Americas.
