SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS USA FOREIGN POLICY

Melia Panama Canal Hotel with its vast pool, well kept lawns and palm-fringed path leading to a secluded section of Gatun Lake, beyond the mighty Gatun  locks at the entrance of the Panama Canal.


But the hotel, despite the luxurious appearance hides a terrible past.

From 1948 till 1984 it was the School of the Americas (SOA) a training ground for Latin American military personnel. 


“It was the School of Assassins and Dictators” says Julio Yao, a retired professor and former adviser to the Panamanian Government “Most of the continent’s worst human rights abusers were graduates of the school.”


Today’s luxurious suites were once classrooms for torture and anti-communism and the surroundings were ideal use for jungle commando training.


The students turned out to be the most notorious right-wing despots and paramilitary leaders of South America’s history.


The mounting pressure on Venezuela for regime change the SOA is still a reminder of US intervention which created anti-US feelings. 


“Closing the SOA down along with other US military bases in Panamanian territory was a principal goal of our negotiations with the Americans” says Yao who was an adviser to Gen. Omar Torrijos, the Panamanian national hero. He signed a treaty with President Jimmy  in 1977 which gave Panama sovereignty of the interoceanic canal and closure of American military bases.


In 1984 the SOA was moved to Fort Benning in Georgia but the principles haven’t changed. Every declassified document tells new crimes involving graduates of the SOA.


In February forensic teams continued to dig for the remains of victims in El Mozote, El Salvador, where over 900 civilians, including children, were slaughtered by the Atlacatl Battalion which was formed and trained at the SOA.


Other SOA graduates  are Honduras 3-16 which kidnapped, tortured and murdered 184 civilians.

Efrain Rios Montt, Guatemalan general and dictator convicted of the genocide of indigenous peoples in 2013.

Declassified documents tell stories reaching well into the 21^st century.

Over 30,000 people were killed or disappeared in Argentine under Argentine military rule 1976-83. One head of state, LEOPOLDO Galtieri was a SOA alumnus.

Bolivian tyrant Hugo Banzer had torture chambers in the basement of the Ministry of the Interior, discovered in 2009.

Chile’s Augusto Pinochet never was at the school but the human rights abusers of his regime were.

President Donald Trump told a Miami crowd “the days of socialism  and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela but Nicaragua and in Cuba”. It not only brings back painful memories but also resentment and foster hate towards USA.