![]() Army to the militaries of Latin America by the middle of the 1950s, with only Mexico and Argentina as exceptions. Mutual defense assistance agreements bound the U.S. military personnel and 251 Latin Americans representing ten countries in 1949. Some courses were taught in Spanish to accommodate requests from Latin American countries that the school served. The army changed the name of the Latin American Ground School to the U.S. In February 1949, the army consolidated the training schools in the Panama Canal Zone and transferred operations to Fort Gulick. Scholar Lesley Gill has argued that the Ground School not only trained students, but incorporated them "into the ideology of the 'American way of life' by steeping them in a vision of empire that identified their aspirations with those of the United States." U.S. was "enterprising, efficient, and powerful." Administrators leveraged preconceived notions around Argentine racial superiority in Latin America to cultivate feelings of equality between the Argentine officers and their U.S. ![]() When a group of Argentine officers attended a three-month course in 1948, the school painstakingly structured the program to convince them that the U.S. ĭuring the 1940s and 1950s, the school sought to prove that the quality of training provided matched or exceeded training provided by institutions within the U.S. officials led to changes in course structure that created separate classes for officers and lower-ranks. In 1947, discussions of national castes and class divisions in Latin American countries among U.S. ![]() Cadets of varying degrees of education and military experience were placed in the same courses. Chronic under-enrollment occurred during the school's first few years, as Latin American officials preferred to have personnel trained within the continental United States. The school was affiliated with army training schools in Panama that included the Food Service School ( Fort Clayton), the Motor Mechanics School ( Fort Randolph), and the Medical School (Fort Clayton). The army soon renamed the division the Latin American Ground School ( Escuela Latino Americana Terrestre) and divided it into three departments: engineering, communications, and weapons and tactics. service schools in the canal zone." The school trained Latin American military personnel to use artillery and advanced weapons purchased from the United States and provided instruction in nation-building. In 1946, the United States Army founded the Latin American Training Center-Ground Division ( Centro de Entrenamiento Latino Americano, Division Terrestre) at Fort Amador in the Panama Canal Zone to centralize the "administrative tasks involved in training the increasing number of Latin Americans attending U.S. History Latin American Training Center-Ground Division Many of its alumni served in repressive, undemocratic governments and engaged in human rights abuses, such as torture and enforced disappearances. The school is strongly associated with the dirty wars carried out by U.S.-supported military juntas in South America, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. The school was located in the Panama Canal Zone until its expulsion in 1984. ![]() The institute was founded in 1946 by 2000, more than 60,000 Latin American military, law enforcement, and security personnel had attended the school. The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation ( WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Moore in Columbus, Georgia, renamed in the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |