Argentine Official Blasts U.S.-Run Police Program

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Wall Street Journal

FEBRUARY 3, 2011, 3:59 P.M. ET.
Argentine Official Blasts U.S.-Run Police Program

By MATT MOFFETT

BUENOS AIRES—Argentina's relations with the U.S. hit a new bump as President Cristina Kirchner's foreign minister suggested that a U.S.-sponsored police-training program was teaching oppressive tactics to members of the Buenos Aires police force.

Analysts said Héctor Timerman's comments partly reflect an undercurrent of frustration in the Kirchner government that President Barack Obama will be sidestepping Argentina during a visit to El Salvador, Brazil and Chile next month. The flap is also a sign of the growing political tensions between the leftist Mrs. Kirchner and Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, a conservative who looms as a rival candidate ahead of October presidential elections.

Mr. Timerman criticized Mr. Macri's decision to send two Buenos Aires police officers to the International Law Enforcement Academy in El Salvador. The academy is part of a global network of five academies established by President Bill Clinton in 1995 to improve coordination and training of foreign police in areas such as combating narcotics trafficking, money laundering and terrorism. "As a (Buenos Aires resident) I'm frightened that Macri continues sending police to study 'antiterrorism' in courses taught and financed by the USA," Mr. Timerman wrote Wednesday on his Twitter account.

In subsequent comments to the local press, Mr. Timerman likened the Law Enforcement Academy to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., which trained a number of Latin American military officials who would later be implicated in human-rights abuses during the dictatorships that reigned during the 1970s and 1980s.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104576122374127425098.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[RufusTFirefly]

1. But teaching oppressive tactics is the American Way!

Who do you think created the SAVAK, the Shah of Iran's bloodthirsty secret police? Who aided the organization, training, and funding of death squads in El Salvador?

[corpseratemedia]

2. never ends

...sigh