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

...Charges against the vendors have been dropped, but guard U.S...

...On November 11, 2006, three PNC officers in the town of tenancingo severely beat 22-year-old Oscar César vanegas amaya after arresting him for drinking in a park...

...tax dollars...

...allowsforneartotal ter of governance Rene After a brief, aborted Figueroa signed an agreeattempt to establish the secrecyandthe ment officially establish inclusionofmilitary ing the school...

...line: Officials, including HobartHenson,havesaidElSalvadorwas chosen to host the school in the first place because of the PNC’s supposedly exemplary record...

...Gómez tells me his experience was a positive one and explains that it focused on technical matters like gathering evidence and crime-scene investigation, with a lesser focus on counter-terrorism (“This isn’t aprobleminElSalvador,”hesays,“but I suppose it could be...

...The raid on the bootleg vendors accused under the anti-terrorism law occurred less than a year after the ILEA opened its doors, and labor leader Berrios believes it is likely that ILEA graduates participated in the raid...

...El Salvador is, in many ways, one of the most important frontiers of Washington’s unquestioned economic influence, governed by a president whocitedadesiretopleasetheUnited States as a prime reason for why he supported CAFTA...

...For this reason, many in the anti-ILEA campdistrusthimandbelieveheisimplicated in the school’s secrecy...

...human rights courses during every Many observers are troubled by six-week “core program...

...This report, written in February 2005, is the foundingdocumentoftheILEASanSalvador, and was prepared by criminal justice expert Anthony Pate and the law-andorder think thank Police Executive Research Forum...

...As Lesley Gill, an anthropologist at American University and author of the book School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas, explains, “The use of human rights discourses in U.S...

...Ombudswoman de Carrillo believes that rather than reforming the PNC, the ILEA will only make it more “professional and elegant in its use of violence...

...in El Salvador can long after she completed her training at the ILEA...

...In 2005,atypicalyear,anaverage15peopleadayweremurderedinElSalvador...

...By the end of 2007, the United States had spent at least $3.6 million on the academy, according to an estimate by ILEA director Hobart Henson...

...ambassador to El Salvador, would not go on record to comment about PNC abuse,buthedidaskthatIprovidehim with the human rights reports, which I did, offering to translate key passages forhim.NeitherGlazernorhispressattachés responded...

...For his part, Cuellar does not deny PNC abuse and says the ILEA will nonetheless improve and reform the policeforce.“Inthewaythat[theILEA] will develop the technical skills of police officers . . . many victims [of human rights crimes] will see results, and update we will be able to denounce their victimizerswithmoreclarityandobjectivity,” Cuellar says...

...De Carrillo’s report also notes that between 2001 and 2006, 40% of abuse complaintssubmittedtoherofficeconcerned the PNC...

...Ramírez survived and reported the case to the PddH...

...The legacy of U.S...

...By Wes Enzinna W ith a salt-and-pepper beard and darting, intelligent eyes, Benjamin Cuellar explains how he has built a successful career as a human rights defender in El Salvador, where more than 40,000 political assassinations have taken place since 1977...

...T he ilea has arrived in el sal vador in a context of decadeslong turmoil...

...Presenting PNC badges, they marched the laborers outside, lined them up, and made them identify themselves...

...The pair of brothers, both members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, were pulled from their beds...

...officials...

...We’re not Bourgeois’s acquisition of with any instructor...

...cept for course titles, which are avail-For its participation, the IDHUCA able online), as are the names of all its would be paid $500 for two days of students and graduates...

...A September article by Raúl Gutiérrez for the Inter Press Service titled “Death Squads Still Operating in El Salvador” details numerousinstancesofmurdercommitted by PNC agents since 1993, including a “social cleansing” death squad called BlackShadow,allegedlyresponsiblefor a spate of killings in 1994 and 1995...

...In a March 2007 visit to the school, ILEA officials promised to send course materials to leaders of a CISPES and SOA Watchdelegation.Thematerialsnever arrived, and to date the ILEA has not made public any information on its courses or graduates...

...to reform the military or police forces they are involved with...

...Sources: “Grave afectación a los derechos humanos en El Salvador: Informe de las investigaciones y lucha contra la impunidad realizadas por Tutela Legal del Arzobispado,” Tutela Legal, San Salvador, 2007...

...and eight of the murders resembled “death squad executions...

...The judge zero tolerance, or mano presiding over this case, dura (“iron fist”), policing...

...after receiving medical treatment, vanegas fell into a coma and died december 2. the officers are identified by the archbishop’s office as Edilberto alexander Cruz Chávez, Ángel antonio García, and willian Leonidas Beltran...

...We wouldn’t even know if an ILEA grad had been involved in something, or if the ILEA was teaching objectionable topics...

...While the others have mostly been uncontroversial, the ILEA San Salvador has sparked outrage in both the United States and El Salvador, earning comparisons to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC, formerly knownastheSchooloftheAmericas— the Fort Benning, Georgia, school for Latin American militaries that gained notoriety in the late 1990s for having trained some of the region’s worst hu man rights abusers...

...State Department...

...Four other police officers connected to arriaza were arrested august 27 in the department of san Miguel and were charged with belonging to a death squad...

...The “Needs Assessment” report establishes as one of the ILEA’s priorities—alongside drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and kidnapping— “intellectual property rights...

...Charles Glazer, the U.S...

...With about 16,000 officers, the PNC is El Salvador’s largest police force...

...Contrary to what critics claim, the ILEA is not another SOA,” Cuellar says...

...Yet it wasn’t until almost two months later, on September 20, that then U.S...

...After the SOA was criticized for promoting violence and torture, they started to include a human rights course in their curriculum, and to use human rights language to describe what they were doing...

...schools “throughout the world to combat international drug trafficking, criminality, and terrorism through strengthened international cooperation...

...The report also notes patterns of attempted “social cleansing,” as well as strong evidence of political motivations behind several of the murders...

...officials deny that the PNC has done anything wrong...

...update Another SOA...

...The ILEA continues holding classes, training hundreds of PNC officers as well as police from countries like the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and others throughout the hemisphere...

...Little more than a month after Rice’s announcement, 36 students from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador began a course titled “Organized Crime and Human Rights” at the Comalapa air force base on the outskirts of San Salvador...

...He promises to get me the course materials and syllabi from his ILEA program...

...Moments earlier, they had done the same to another Mara Salvatrucha member down the street...

...Hoping to avoid the problems encountered in Costa Rica, the U.S...

...Its establishment in 1992 after the end of the Salvadoran civil war was seen by many as a step in the right direction, since it incorporated elements from the country’s various political factions...

...Lisa Sullivan, an SOA Watch member who visited the ILEA as part of the March 2007 delegation, confronted U.S...

...So how are we supposed to monitor the school...

...officials work to build the school’s new headquarters in San Salvador and to expand the police academy’s presence throughout the Americas, Cuellar himself finally acknowledges the potential for abuse at the school...

...She says they showed “complete disdain” for the ombudswoman and said her reports were “illegitimate sources of information” and that there was no evidence to support her claims...

...one involved a nine-year-old boy shot to death...

...The result of so many years of formal and informal civil war has led to a striking loss of faith among Salvadorans in the political institutions of their country: In a 2007 Latinobarómetro poll, only 38% of Salvadorans said democracy is preferable to all other political systems...

...Thestoryofwhathappened in Costa Rica,” says Guadalupe Erazo of the Popular Social Bloc, a coalition of Salvadoran activists, “is instructive because it shows the undemocratic nature of the ILEA, and the [lack of] accountability to TheIlEaagreement and Salvadoran ministhe public...

...Considering this, it seems Washington is benefiting much more from its relationship with Cuellar than the other way around, and his presence at the school causes as many problems as it solves...

...An authoritarian gov dura law introduced in economic interests ernment supported by a El Salvador, in July 2003, allowed police to use tat- in the country...

...Everyone but Esaú García, 20, and Pablo Jiménez, 18, was then ordered back inside and told to stay there...

...His articles have appeared in The Nation and other magazines, and on CBSNews.com...

...not briefed about the made headlines across the employees...

...A November 2006 report by the Washington Office on Latin America points out that “in the year after [this] first mano dura law was enacted in El Salvador ...19,275peopleweredetainedbythe police on the charge of belonging to a gang...

...As a Human Rights Watch report explains: “The formation of a professional, apolitical police force was generally seen as the most transcendent potential contribution of the historic 1992 peace accords...

...These groups, including FESPAD, Las Dignas, and CENTA, could not be reached for country...

...While the school is temporarily housed at the National Academy for Public Security in San Salvador, a permanent $4 million headquarters is under construction...

...In 1999, the last year for which figures are available, Washington trained between 13,000 and 15,000 Latin American military and police personnel, according to the Center for International Policy...

...While FMLN senators denounced the school in the assembly and made a last-ditch effort to prevent the agreement from being ratified, their bile-filled rants, rather than critical arguments, did little to convince anyone...

...Beyond the fact of letting the child die,” Cuellar says with bewilderment, “they lost the principal witness [the boy] because of incompetence, and they let the women, who saw the shooters, leave without giving testimony and without getting their names or telephone numbers...

...Rice’s recent announcement about plans for the creation of an international law enforcement academy in El Salvador should raise serious concerns for anyone who cares about human rights,” he said...

...In 2006, a little more than a year after the ILEA graduated its first class, three unknown men carrying large guns burst into the home of Carlos and Wilfredo Sánchez in the department of Sonsonate...

...During this crucial time, Cuellar did not share key information with his supposed allies,” says Erazo...

...Course titles like “A Police Executive’s Role in Combating Terrorism” further worry critics about what is being taught at the school...

...Since the war’s end, the country has become intensely polarized, with political assassinations continuing at a frightening pace...

...In a striking illustration of what happens when police are allowed to carry out detentions based on such arbitrary criteria, 91% of those detained were released without charge due to lack of evidence...

...ambassador H. Douglas Barclay Arias later said...

...IDHUCA was asked to participate in the ILEA by giving a course on human rights, based on similar courses they had given to police in the past...

...On april 13, 2005, abimeleth Ramírez ayala, a 22-year old member of the Mara 18 gang, was picked up by suspected PNC members and thrown down a well...

...it was signed “E.L.,” which according to a German report is believed to stand for escuadron de limpieza, or “cleanup squad...

...Abuses attributed to the PNC have continued since then...

...Ultimately, the FMLN failed to mobilize the country’s social movements, and much of the public remained in the dark on the details of what was at stake...

...Classes at the school began July 25, 2005, and as of July 2007 the academy had graduated 791 students, mostly police officers, as well as prosecutors and judges...

...officials were already planning for classes to begin...

...We cannot support them coming in to deform the minds of our police, prosecutors and judges,” FMLN deputy Salvador comment or to confirm this claim...

...Before settling on El Salvador, the United States had hoped to establish an ILEA South in Costa Rica, butfailed...

...Linda Panetta El Salvador’s national Civilian Police (PnC) on a joint patrol with military officers in June 2006, San Salvador ter of classroom seats are reserved for Salvadorans, while the remaining students are drawn from other countries throughout Latin America...

...And as recently as June, a member oftheCommitteeinSolidarityWiththe People of El Salvador (CISPES) wrote, “TheILEAinElSalvadorisfunctioning like another SOA, under a new name and in a new location...

...Embassy officials with the evidence of PNC abuse detailed in the Salvadoran government’s human rights report...

...This was five years ago, and his mother is a wreck...

...police training facility, is temporarily housed Semi-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...

...Cuellar and this secrecy, considering how some his colleagues would have no power to School of the Americas atrocities came change the curriculum or to participate to light: with Washington Post reporter in organizational deci-Dana Priest’s discovery, in sions, though they would be able to review everything taught at the school, IlEa’s top official says, “This isn’t September 1996, of SOA torture training manuals, and later with Roy attend any class, and speak the Soa...

...The State Department also notes that one of the ILEA’s goals is to “enhance the functioning of free markets through improved legislation and law enforcement...

...On November 30, 2005, the National Assembly ratified the ILEA agreement, with 48 out of 88 members voting in favor...

...It’s a shame because his presence at the something I didn’t Watch and CISPES, as well as the Popular Social school gives some people feel good about...

...You have to protect human rights with concrete plans, not screams,” he says...

...military and police training is something that started with the SOA...

...Unlike the SOA, the ILEA is run jointly by the Salvadoran Ministry of Government and the U.S...

...The school is here, and that’s a fact—are we supposed to cry over spilled milk...

...Healsospeculatesthatpressurefrom the United States to enforce CAFTA’s regulations could have prompted the raids in the first place...

...and Salvadoran officials should nothavebeensurprisedwiththeopposition to the ILEA and the comparisons to the SOA...

...W hile salvadoran activists struggled to obtain more information about the ILEA in the months leading up to the Legislative Assembly vote, there was someone—outside of powerful police and political circles—who knew all about what the school was up to: Cuellar...

...How can I look her in the face and deny her this opportunity to better train the police...

...When I ask to see course materials, Henson equivocates, at first saying he doesn’t have them in the office, then that it is school policy not to give them out...

...agencies, among them the FBI, Customs Agency, and DEA, as well as training programs run by private U.S...

...The Costa Rican government ultimately adopted the public’s demands in its negotiations...

...In fact, at the time of Rice’s June 2005 announcement at the OAS—the first time the school had been menmain opposition party in El Salvador, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN...

...After the shooters left, the police arrived, and while they secured the house and restaurant, the boy, who had survived the shooting, bled to death...

...and Roswell, New Mexico...

...When U.S...

...Five men with guns came in a pickup truck...

...PDDH investiga caso en Chalchuapa,” Juan Carlos Barahona, La Prensa Gráfica, September 1, 2007...

...You can’t track the graduates of the ILEA in Salvador or their own country [in the case of non-Salvadoran students],” says Erazo...

...It details this and other PNC abuses, including the case of Abimilet Ramírez, who after being picked up by PNC officers was thrown down a well and later murdered...

...But once the news media reported that the two countries had signed an official agreement in September, activists in El Salvador demanded to see the text of the document...

...He was found dead several days later...

...But despite Cuellar’s work, many are questioning his legitimacy as a human rights defender because of his most recent endeavor: working as an instructor and human rights monitor for a new U.S.-run police-training school called the International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, located in San Salvador...

...The agreement allowed for military topics to be taught and military personnel to participate in the school, and also gave immunity to U.S...

...He also believes it is better to be on the inside monitoring the school, because you have to be “inside to have any influence...

...As U.S...

...Juan José Dalton, “Death Squads Force Curfew on Salvadoran Town,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, September 6, 2007...

...of ficials chose Costa Rica to personneland In the months prior host the academy in 2002...

...Many of El Salvador’s teaching torture or a previously classified list of SOA graduates, many most prominent activists water boarding or of whom were recognized came out strongly against Cuellar’s participation...

...Bangkok, Thailand...

...C uellar likes to tell a story toillustratewhyheisinvolved withtheILEA.TheCasquerilla brothers, aged 29 and 12, were eating breakfast one morning when several men entered their San Salvador home, which is also a small restaurant...

...an authoritarian Ana Lucila Fuentes de Paz, Mano dura policies have swept Central America in the21stcentury,frequently government supported by a was installed as the head of a new court created by the September 2006 anticombining military troops corrupt police force terrorism legislation—not with police units to patrol crime-plagued areas...

...0 case as PNC officers...

...This, however, contradicts the official U.S...

...But it could become one...

...Embassy with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI...

...Gaborone, Botswana...

...economic interests is certainly part of the school...

...security companies like Dyn-Corp International...

...We’re not teaching torture or water boarding or anything like that...

...The police then told the women who had witnessed the shooting to leave...

...Another report by the Archbishop’s Legal Aid and Human Rights Defense Office (Tutela Legal) provides evidence for 10 murders allegedly committed by PNC officersduring2006.Oneofthevictims was,accordingtothereport,torturedto death...

...Henson acknowledges this much when he says, “A by-product of the school is to protect free trade and foreign investment...

...A quarWes Enzinna is a graduate student in Latin American studies at the University of California–Berkeley...

...Cuellar says he suggested to U.S...

...Beatrice de Carrillo, “Violaciones a los derechos humanos por responsabilidad de la Policía Nacional Civil de El Salvador: Violaciones a los derechos a la vida, a la libertad personal y a la integridad personal durante el trienio 2004–2006 y sus antecedents,” office of the Procuradora para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Ombudswoman), San Salvador, 2007...

...The contradictions of Cuellar’s position are best illustrated by the way in which he is often compelled to defend the ILEA during our interview, frequently referring to the professionalism that the academy can offer El Salvador’s police and skirting the issue of PNC abuse...

...corrupt police force in El Salvador can help safe toos on a suspect’s body as evidence of gang membership...

...The harrowing tale ends, luckily, with Cuellar’s escape...

...I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry...

...But the ILEA may have another goal besides training police to crack down onallegedgangmembers.ThePNChas played an active role in a larger crackdownagainstcivillibertiesspearheaded byPresidentSacaandhisARENAparty, aimed at curbing both crime and social protest...

...school in Panama , U.S...

...The president of this think tank is John Timoney, who has spearheaded mano dura law enforcement models in the United States...

...the 13 people arrested in Suchitoto The Salvadoran government has will begin trial this February, and could responded to the gang violence with face up to 65 years in prison...

...While it may not be the school’s primary function, promoting free trade and protecting U.S...

...Police Academy in El Salvador Worries Critics The national academy for Public Security in San Salvador, where the IlEa, a U.S...

...La mano más dura de la PNC tiene ya 316 denuncias en 2007,” Alexis Henríquez, Elfaro.net, April 23, 2007...

...The United States, however, refused to meet these conditions, and as Kathryn Tarker of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs put it, “Washington decided to ‘pick up the marbles and go home’ rather than offer concessions to transparency and antimilitary safeguards...

...In the end, the United States achieved what it couldn’t in Panama or Costa Rica: The ILEA was official, and the ratified agreement making it so allowed for no mechanism of transparency or civilian oversight, included no agreement excluding military personnel or topics, and left the door open for a later clause that would give U.S...

...Beatrice de Carrillo suggests that an earnest attempt to reform the PNC would take place at the Salvadoran National Police Academy, which is accountable to the Legislative Assembly, not the U.S...

...The academy is part of a network of ILEAs created in 1995 under President Bill Clinton, who envisioned a series of U.S...

...as the head of the Philadelphia and Miami police, respectively, he gained national notoriety for his jackbooted treatment of anti-free-trade protesters in the two cities, resulting in hundreds of injuries and several lawsuits...

...As the Sánchez family looked on, the intruders beat the gang members, dragged them into the street, and shot them to death...

...economic interests in the country...

...And if Cuellar’s presence at the school might reassure some observers, trusting one man or organization is hardly a sound strategy to protect human rights...

...Moreover, the environment for civil liberties is one of the worst in the hemisphere...

...The next day, I am speaking with Francisco Gómez, a midlevel officer in the National Civilian Police (PNC), who attended the “Law Enforcement Management Development Program” in early 2007...

...When this became public, a broad coalition of Costa Rican citizen, labor, and human rights groups demanded these clauses be removed from the agreement...

...It seems to me that this is what they are doing [at the ILEA] by bringing on board someone like Cuellar...

...We don’t know what the future holds,” he adds, “but for now, from our perspective, the school appears to simply offer technical training—it offers some of the resources we need...

...The first anti-gang mano help safeguard U.S...

...There are ILEAs in Budapest, Hungary...

...ILEA officials say their exclusive goalistoteachpolice,prosecutors,and judges in improved law enforcement techniques focusing primarily on drug and gang crime...

...State Department—though virtually all its instructors come from the United States, and most of the school’s expenses are covered by U.S...

...Linda Panetta update U.S...

...Congress were deal official, and the plan immunityforU.S...

...officials categorically deny that the PNC is or has ever been involved in any abuses, it seems a contradiction to believe that they will reform them, or any other police force...

...However, the PNC did not make good on its initial promise...

...Raúl Gutiérrez, “Death Squads Still Operating in El Salvador,” Inter Press Service, September 5, 2007...

...Research assistance: Adam Evans...

...It wasOctober4,1995,”hebegins,“andthesunhad just gone down...

...Members of was signed, making the the U.S...

...officials that they invite other Salvadoran human rights organizations to participate in the ILEA...

...AJune2006reportpublishedbythe Salvadoran government’s human rights ombudswoman, Beatrice de Carrillo, identifies the gunmen in the Sánchez Police Abuse in El Salvador: A Sample of Reported Cases, 2005–present * in september 2007, salvadoran media reported that in the town of Chalchuapa, 50 miles from san salvador, flyers were showing up, one of them declaring: “For your own good, we advise you not to be on the streets after 10 p.m., because we are carrying out a cleansing campaign...

...I wouldn’t as leaders of death squads and notorious counterinsurgency groups...

...After researching the other ILEAs worldwide, Cuellar signed on...

...Various government policies, especially free trade agreements like CAFTA, have been highly contentious, and Saca’s administration has gone to significant lengths to ensure that they succeed—including passing an antiterrorlawinSeptember2006,modeled on the USA Patriot Act, that has been used to arrest everyone from anti-water-privatization activists in Suchitoto to San Salvador’s CD and DVD vendors whoviolatedCAFTA’sintellectualproperty rights stipulations...

...the state Human Rights Ombudswoman’s Office (PddH) is investigating whether National Civilian Police (PNC) officers are behind the intimidation...

...government...

...I lea critics point out not only the school’s lack of transparency, but also the record of abuse already established by the PNC, which most of the school’s Salvadoran students are drawn from...

...The school joins a slew of other police-and military-training facilities throughout Latin America run by U.S...

...Cuellar dismisses his critics as unrealistic...

...On July 28, 2007, PNC sergeant Nelson arriaza and Officer Roberto Carlos Chévez were arrested and accused of murdering campesino amado García in the town of Nueva Esparta...

...Cuellar insists he has seen all the course materials and can verify this...

...Framed on the wall behind him are some of the awards the IDHUCA has won since Cuellar became director of the organization in 1992: the French Medal for Human Rights, the Ignacio Ellacuria Human Rights Award, and the WashingtonOfficeonLatinAmerica’s2007Award for Human Rights...

...This is something he should not have to do as human rights monitor of the organization, and something it is hard to imagine him doing at any time before in his career: defending the police and the U.S...

...In May 2005, Cuellar and the IDHUCA were invited to discuss the ILEA at the U.S...

...Bloc and Sinti Techan, the impression that it is promoting and safeguarding human rights...

...When the men pulled out guns, the younger brother fled, and as he ran, the men shot him in the back...

...As much of Latin America turns away from extreme free-market policies, El Salvador remains one of Washington’s key allies against the “pink tide” sweeping the region...

...and Salvadoran governments worked quietly to establish the ILEA in San Salvador...

...training of securityforcesattheSchooloftheAmericas andthroughoutLatinAmericaisoneof bloodshed, of torture, of the targeting of civilian populations, of desaparecidos,” wrote SOA Watch founder Roy Bourgeois after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced plans for the ILEA San Salvador at a June 2005 Organization of American States meeting in Miami...

...Cuellar is being fooled,” anything like that...

...at 4 a.m...

...I also ask if I can speak with an ILEA graduate, and Henson says at first that the ILEA does not release the names of its graduates because some end up working as undercover agents...

...The violence and lack of economic opportunity continue to drive many into exile, and today remittances,primarilyfromtheUnited States, account for an astounding 16% of the country’s GDP...

...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...

...Presented with these concerns, the ILEA’s top official, Hobart Henson, who spent 24 years with the Indiana State Police before coming to El Salvador, assures me, “This isn’t the SOA...

...Despite the evidence of abuse, U.S...

...they had been shot and attacked with machetes...

...to September, public An agreement with the topics,andleaves debate about the ILEA Costa Rican government thedooropento was scant...

...She continues, “This human rights talk is more aimed at an outside, domestic audience—at the school’s potential critics—than it is indicative of any effort by the U.S...

...But when I repeat my request to speak with a graduate later in the interview, Henson asks Program Manager Juan Carlos Ibbott to make some phone calls...

...the men knocked on the door and said they were police officers...

...We are sitting in his office at the Institute for Human Rights (IDHUCA) on the campus of the University of Central America, and he is telling me about the time he was almost kidnapped and murdered...

...Although the formal conflict ended, violence continues to rage...

...It is designed to stave off criticism...

...A Freedom of Information Act request for ILEA course materials, filed in October, has also gone unanswered...

...on July 21, 2006, in the municipality of san Marcos, 15 men wearing black masks surrounded a farmhouse where a group of day laborers were sleeping...

...That ILEA officials and the Saca administration share similar economic interests is confirmed by a report I obtained titled the “Law Enforcement Training Needs Assessment for the Latin American Region...

...says labor leader Wilfredo be involved in organizations like SOA Berrios...

...Nine months and many e-mails later, I haven’t received anything...

...But for all its pragmatism, Cuellar’s belief that the school will reform the PNC seems misguided...

...Another contradiction is the ambiguity of Cuellar’s jurisdiction at the school—for instance, ILEA director Henson does not refer to Cuellar as a human rights monitor, but rather as an “instructor of human rights courses...

...Youth,facedwithfewopportunitiesfor political representation or economic advancement, have turned in startling numberstogangs—onepoliceestimate puts the number at 25,000 gang members nationwide—that mirror the most reactionary elements of the Salvadoran state in their level of ultra-violence...

...But no one besides Cuellar can be sure what the school is up to because its curriculum is private (ex have demanded that the school make public its course materials and the names of its graduates...

...This never happened...

...Protesting their exclusion, a coalition of Salvadoran activists, including the Sinti Techan Citizens Network, demanded that President Antonio Saca make the agreement public and develop an open debate, consulting “all social sectors of the country before submitting it to the Legislative Assembly...

...in the morning, they found Gar-cía and Jiménez dead...

...After all, in spite of the sacrifices he has made and the criticism he has received, it doesn’t appear as if Cuellar has challenged the secrecy that reigns supreme at the ILEA...

...I wouldn’t be involved in something I didn’t feel good about...

...academy, nor was the tioned publicly—U.S...

...personnel immunity from prosecution...

...The most disturbing indication of setbacks in the establishment of this new force, the National Civilian Police,” the report continues, “came with the news . . . of the involvement of a PNC agent in the 1993 assassination of FMLN leader Francisco Velis...

...The country is still struggling to overcome the legacies of a civil war that ended 16 years ago, one in which 75,000 people were killed...