From: [C reuters] at [clari.net] (Reuters)
Newsgroups: clari.usa.top,clari.usa.gov,clari.usa
Subject: Perry: U.S. Won't Teach Terror Tactics Again
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Reuters
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:16:25 PDT
Expires: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 11:20:16 PDT
                                         
         BARILOCHE, Argentina (Reuter) - U.S. Defense Secretary  
William Perry vowed Tuesday that the U.S. Army's School of the 
Americas would never again train Latin American soldiers in 
terror tactics to fight guerrillas, calling such methods 
''totally unacceptable.'' 
    ``What is shocking for me is not only that it happened but  
that it had gone on for so long,'' he told reporters in 
Argentina's Andean resort of Bariloche. He was at a meeting of 
Western hemisphere defense ministers where the military's need 
to respect human rights and democratic rule was high on the 
agenda. 
         Perry said he has ordered a review of the school's  
curriculum ``to make sure we are absolutely certain that nothing 
like this can ever happen again.'' 
         The School of the Americas, which trains military, police  
and civilian security personnel from Latin America, has a 
chilling reputation as a place where leaders of the brutal 
military dictatorships of past decades, such as Argentina's 
1976-83 regime, were taught how to fight leftist guerrillas. The 
school is based at Fort Benning, Georgia. 
         Late last month the U.S. Defense Department acknowledged  
that the school had issued ``improper'' training manuals, 
written in Spanish, with phrases suggesting the use of beatings, 
death threats and truth serums -- practices that were U.S. 
policy in the 1960s but supposedly outlawed by the 1980s. 
         ``This was a very small percentage of the total manuals and  
instruction materials but that is not an excuse. What was done 
was wrong and was totally unacceptable,'' said Perry. 
         One manual called ``Handling of Sources'' recommended  
''threats should not be made (against informants) unless they 
can be carried out.'' Another titled ``Terrorism and the Urban 
Guerrilla'' refers to extortion as a method of interrogation and 
talks about an agent's role in recommending ``targets for 
neutralizing.'' 
         The Pentagon says the half-dozen manuals were used for  
training in Latin America from 1987-89 and by the school from 
1989-91, when they were recovered and destroyed. Defense 
officials say the material was developed by specialists at the 
Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca in Arizona from 1982 
and by U.S. Southern Command in Panama. 
         Perry, who took over the top defense job in early 1994, said  
his predecessor Dick Cheney had taken ``entirely appropriate 
actions'' when he discovered the ``offensive'' training material 
in 1991. 
         Since then, Perry said, the Pentagon has added human rights  
to the school's curriculum and ordered a complete review of 
training. 
         ``Today the school is training about 1,400 people a year,  
everything from programs in medical assistance to command and 
general staff training. It is in my judgment performing a useful 
function,'' Perry said. ``But I want to be absolutely 100 
percent sure that not only is there no such material on the 
course today but that it never has the opportunity to slip in 
again.''