Monitoring Military Aid in Latin America

U.S. Security Assistance and Human Rights in the Americas Today: This Much at Least Must Be Done

Statement by Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director, Latin America Working Group Education Fund at the Just the Facts Conference:
Security, Civil-Military Relations, and U.S. Policy in the Americas Today

September 28, 2012

How do you ensure that U.S. security assistance supports and does not undercut human rights? 

As a human rights advocate, my best answer is quite simple:
The United States should not provide training and assistance to highly abusive military or police forces.

However, the U.S. government often does give assistance and training to abusive security forces. 

In those cases, at an absolute minimum, there must be enforceable human rights conditions over all military and police assistance, through all sources, including through the Defense as well as State budget, and the State Department and the Congress must be willing to enforce them.

Waiting for Change reviews the first year of the Obama Administration’s Latin America policy, especially regarding military relationships and aid trends. Barack Obama’s message of change resonated in Latin America, but we’re still waiting for real shifts in policy. This report by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Center for International Policy and the Washington Office on Latin America offers a detailed evaluation of what has been modified, and what remains the same, in U.S. policy towards the region.

Read our publication Waiting for Change (PDF)
Lea nuestra publicación Esperando el cambio (PDF)

Blurring the Lines: Trends in U.S. Military and Training Programs in Latin America reveals that the number of Latin American troops trained by the United States jumped 52% in one year and U.S. training increasingly blurs the line between military and civilian roles. This short, graph-filled publication gives you a snapshot of U.S. military programs in the hemisphere. 

Read our publication Blurring the Lines (PDF)
Lea nuestra publicación Diluyendo las Divisiones (PDF)

U.S. military aid and training programs with Latin America have nearly tripled since the early 1990s. Paint by Numbers: Trends in U.S. military programs with Latin America and challenges to oversight, an analysis of U.S. military programs in Latin America, is based primarily on the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Training Report for 2002.

Read our publication Paint by Numbers (PDF)

Declassified Army and CIA Manuals Used in Latin America: An Analysis of Their Content
On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released to the public seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 for intelligence training courses in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). A selection of excerpts was distributed to the press at that time. The Pentagon press release accompanying the excerpts states that a 1991-92 investigation into the manuals concluded that "two dozen short passages in six of the manuals, which total 1169 pages, contained material that either was not or could be interpreted not to be consistent with U.S. policy." A January 1997 "information paper" sent out by the School of the Americas in response to public inquiries on the manuals claims that SOA training material merely contained several passages with "words or phrases inconsistent with U.S. government policy." A close reading of all seven manuals, however, reveals many more passages, and indeed an entire framework, that should be deemed inconsistent with U.S. policy and democratic standards. This memo contains excerpts from these manuals, and two other CIA manuals declassified in January 1997 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Baltimore Sun.