Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is a United States Department of Defense training facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. It is the successor of the controversial School of the Americas (SOA), which has trained numerous leaders who have kept most of Latin America from falling under communist regimes. It is used to train Latin American military and law enforcement personnel.
The School has been accused of teaching torture techniques. According to various UN commissions, its graduates include some of the worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere, Hugo Banzer for example, who were trained at US taxpayers' expense. In response to this, a human rights program is taught at the school, but its history has earned it the derogatory nickname of "School of Dictators".