Another SOA? A U.S. Police Academy in El Salvador Worries Critics

Abstract

abstractSemi-secretly established in 2005, a Salvadoran branch of the International Law Enforcement Academy, a U.S.-sponsored global network of police schools, has angered critics and human rights activists, who wonder if it will perpetuate long-standing patterns of police and military abuse in the country. A NACLA investigation sponsored by the Samuel Chavkin Investigative Fund finds that establishing transparency in the academy’s operations — including making public its course materials and the names of its graduates — is the first critical step in ensuring it does not become, or has not already become, a new School of the Americas.