School of the Americas Changes Its Name

The US Army School of the Americas has been the center of a storm of controversy for nearly two decades. Graduates from this training center for the Latin American military have been linked to nearly every major human rights violation that has occurred in Latin America since the schoolis inception 50 years ago. Last year the heat on Congress to stop funding the School of the Americas got so intense that the Pentagon decided to rename it as "the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation." Nothing else, however, has really changed. According to Defense Department Colonel Mark Morgan, some members of Congress "have told us that they can't support anything with the name 'School of the Americas' on it. Our proposal addresses this concern. It changes the name."