THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1996
Old U.S. Army Manuals for Latin Officers Urged Rights Abuses
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON Sept 21-Training manuals used by the United States Army's
special school tor Latin American military and police officers in the
1980's recommended bribery blackmail threats and torture against insurgents
according to documents made public by the Pentagon late Friday.
The manuals-written in Spanish and carrying titles like
Interrogation and Revolutionary War and Communist Ideology -advocated
tactics that the Pentagon said violated American policy and principles.
The tactics Included motivation by fear, payment ot bounties for
enemy dead, talse Imprisonment executions and the use ot truth serum
according to a secret report on the manuals that was prepared In 1992 but
only recently declassified.
Army Intelligence officials compiled the manuals In 1987 trom
lesson plans that had been in use since 1982 at the School of the Americas,
a mllitary academy that opened in 1946 In Panama and moved to Fort Benning
Ga In 1984.
It has trained nearly 60,000 officers including many dictators and
military leaders accused ot abusing human rlghts. The school's graduates
include the late Roberto d'Aubuisson, the leader ot death squads In El
Salvador; 19 Salvadoran soldiers linked to the 1989 assassination ot six
Jesuit priests and Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama. now imprisoned in
the United States on a drug conviction. The Pentagon said "as many as a
thousand copies ot the manuals had been used at the school or dlstributed
by the United States Southern Command's training units in Colombia,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. The objectionable passages-only
two dozen the Pentagon said, out of 1100 pages in six manuals uncovered in
an internal investigation in 1991. At the time the Pentagon notified
Congress and an of the passages was made public.
But the specific passages remained secret until they were issued
Friday night-a time well after evening news programs when agencies often
release embarrassing information.
The manual titled "Handling of Sources," for instance refers to
information obtained involuntarily from insurgents and suggests that
intelligence officers dealing with a source could "cause the arrest of the
employee's parents, imprison the employee or give him a beating."
The release of the manuals is almost certain to intensify the
long simmering debate over the School o~ the Americas.
Representative Joseph P. Kennedy 2d, Democrat of Massachusetts,
who has argued that the school Is a cold war rellic, said the disclosure
showed that "taxpayer dollars have been used to train military officers in
executions, extortion, beatings and other acts of intimidation- all clear
civil rights abuses which have no place In civilized society."
In its statement, the Pentagon said the Army and the Southern
Command had begun a review ot all intelligence and counterintelligence
training to make sure materials are in "complete compliance with law,
regulatlons and policy." It also defended the school as "an Important
strategic asset."
The manuals were mistakenly based on what the Pentagon called "old
material" reflecting policles of the 1960's that have been scrapped.
The Pentagon said it destroyed all the manuals in its possession
- except for one copy of each kept by its general counsel- after the
passages were discovered. The Army's Southern Command notified governments
in Latin America that "the manuals contained passages that did not
represent U.S. Government policy," according to the statement.
Maryann Bell
University at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4392
Phone: 516-632-7107
FAX: 516-632-7132
E-Mail: mabell@provos2.prov.sunysb.edu