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After Honduran coup SOA still training soldiers
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Despite President Obama calling the coup in Honduras illegal the U.S. is still training Honduran officers at the WHINSEC/SOA military base in Ft. Benning, Georgia. Allegedly the Obama administration claims that the U.S. has cut ties with Honduras since the military coup that occurred on June 28. According to James Hodge and Linda Cooper from the National Catholic Reporter, “The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.”
General Lee Rials who is a public affairs officer for WHINSEC and a frequent commenter on SOA articles even admitted that Honduran officers were still being trained at the school in Ft. Benning, Georgia. The general who led the coup on democratically elected president Zelaya of Honduras was Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez who was trained at the School of the Americas.
The School of the Americas now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is notorious for its controversial history of training officers who have caused great turmoil in Latin America. U.S. tax dollars support the WHINSEC/SOA, which has produced eleven Latin American dictators. President Obama stated the coup was not legal so the question is why is the U.S. still training Honduran soldiers?
