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The military training facility formerly known as the School of the Americas, is planning a $28 million renovation of a museum into its new campus. The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, as it’s now known as, is located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Even though it claims to have been founded in 2001, its predecessor, the School of the Americas, has been around since 1946. The name change was prompted by growing grassroots pressure to shut down the organization’s practice of training military commanders primarily from Latin America in techniques of warfare, torture, and other oppressive tactics. Even though its name was changed, the instructors and curriculum remained the same. The School of the Americas, as it is still called by most activists, is hoping to train up to 1,700 students a year on its new campus which will be ready in 2014. On its website, the organization says its mission is to provide “professional education and training to eligible military, law enforcement, and civilian personnel of nations of the Western Hemisphere within the context of the democratic principles set forth in the Charter of the Organization of American States.” But watchdogs of the School of the Americas have traced its graduates to some of the most anti-democratic episodes in Latin American history. Students trained in this US facility have been linked to massacres, death squads, coups, and more, in countries like Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, and more. Each November, thousands of activists gather in Fort Benning to protest the School of the Americas, and ahead of this year’s gathering, we turn to Nico Udu Gama, the field organizer for the principle watchdog group, SOA Watch, who is on a national speaking tour.

GUEST: Nico Udu Gama, US field organizer for School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), who spent several years in Colombia, learning first hand the negative effects of US-military training

Find out more at www.soaw.org.