What's in a name: Has renamed School of the Americas changed?

Published: 2003-11-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- There's an old French political proverb: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Is this true of the former School of the Americas, the U.S. military training center accused of teaching torture and assassination techniques to Latin American troops? The school has changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and revamped its curriculum to include courses on democracy, human rights and preserving the rule of law. Its defenders say these are not cosmetic changes and reflect the redrafting of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War era as communist subversion supported from outside the Americas is no longer the main threat to Latin American governments. Many of the school's critics are unimpressed. "This is a bottle of poison and they're calling it penicillin," answered Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, a former missionary in Latin America and founder of the group SOA Watch, which wants the school -- under any name -- to close down. SOA stands for School of the Americas.

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