Costa Rica to stop sending police to US army school

[Robbien]

Source: Reuters

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, May 16 (Reuters) - Costa Rican President Oscar Arias vowed on Wednesday to stop sending police to train at a U.S. facility criticized for a history of producing soldiers who went on to violate human rights.

Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, made the promise after talks with Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a U.S. activist priest who has campaigned since 1990 for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School for the Americas, at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Though U.S. defense officials closed the original school, a Latin American military training facility, in 2000 and reopened it a year later under the new name and with a new curriculum, critics say the change was purely cosmetic.

Costa Rica currently has three policemen at the center. "We agreed that when the courses end for the three policemen we are not going to send any more," Arias said.

Costa Rica has no army but has sent some 2,600 police officers over the years to be trained at the school, which critics say trained dictators, torturers and assassins.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16283279.htm

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16283279.htm

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Wonderful news!

All the good news these days seem to be coming from Latin America. Not complaining really. YAY for them! Just a little wishful.

[NashVegas]

1. They're Moving It to Paraguay, Anyway

http://www.workers.org/2006/world/pentagon-0223/

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2991

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.78_Washington_Secure_Long_Sought_Military_Outpost_Perhaps_At_the_Expense_of_Regional_Soverignty.htm

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3233rummy_paraguay.html

http://wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/we-hate-to-bring-up-the-nazis-but-they-fled-to-south-america-too-208549.php

[EFerrari]

2. Good for Costa Rica.

[gorbal]

3. Take Action!

SOA watch needs all the help they can get to close these guys down-

http://www.soaw.org/

[Judi Lynn]

4. Doesn't it just kill you when they call torturers/mass murderers "human rights violators?"

It never ceases to simply knock me flat every time I see this outlandish euphemism hauled out again.

We can all be sure that after a death squad has chased villagers down, rounded them up, herded them into a crying, trembling group, and started dispatching them with sledgehammers, machetes, even chain saws that SOMEONE is getting his/her "human rights" violated, somewhat.

They ALWAYS use this term referring to right-wing bloodthirsty puppet dictators in Latin America and the Caribbean. They never NOT use it.

Congratulations and praise to Costa Rica for making this important choice. It's not an easy one to make, considering the pressure a huge, powerful country can apply under the leadership of an idiot right-winger President, who will fight like a madman to keep all the power he can command, no matter who suffers.

[lpbk2713]

5. I've always admired Costa Rica.

Now, even more. I hope they can succesfully deprogram the ones who have been to that school.

I'd like to go there one day. There are a lot of DUers who have visited there and some who now live there.

[Pastiche423]

6. Kudos to President Arias !

It is my hope that other Latin American countries will follow his lead.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Is he related to the Arias from Panama of many decades ago?

You've got a problem with Panama. It is the Libertarian dream come true. Chaos capitalism and a cheap labor force. And they're laughing because Costa Rica's economy is taking a dive. What was truly pure about Panama, is no longer.

[Pastiche423]

11. Why do I have a problem w/Panama?

This thread is about Costa Rica.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Oh, I'm just chit-chatting.

Right now, Panama is sucking up Costa Rica's tourist and real estate prospects. So they tell me.

[burrowowl]

7. Viva Arias for listening to Rev. Bougeois!

K&R!

[Unvanguard]

8. Good for him. The record of this "training facility" is long and ugly.

Hopefully he will be followed in this respect.

[Javaman]

10. Yeah, now they will send them instead to

the school of Americas. A fine upstanding little institute.