A number of training techniques inconsistent with US policy were utilized at the School of the Americas which included practices of torture, extortion, and execution among other violent counterinsurgency tactics. The training manuals that detailed these techniques were placed under review by the Department of Defense from 1991-1992 and subsequently discontinued. According to the National Security Archive, these manuals were in use by Mobile Training Teams in Latin America from 1987 to 1989 and in use at the SOA from 1989 to 1991. However, the manuals in use during this time period were influenced by earlier manuals containing similar information.
The Department of Defense found about twenty-four passages in six of the manuals containing information that they found to be inconsistent with U.S. policy. A number of these passages are provided by the National Security Archive, and include excerpts that promote the use of violence and other tactics to gain information and power (1). Listed below are three excerpts from the manuals provided by the National Security Archive that demonstrate the promotion of violence and fear tactics:
“The CI agent could cause the arrest of the employee’s parents, imprison the employee or give him a beating as part of the placement plan of said employee in the guerilla organization" (2).
“I am going to mention some of the mechanical methods to test, which could be used under certain extenuating circumstances. Sodiopentathol compound, which is an anesthetic drug, it could be used intravenously injected and would have the result of a ‘truth serum’...Another method that can be used is hypnotism" (3).
“The employee’s value could be increased by means of arrests, executions, or pacification[,] taking care not to expose the employee as the information source" (4).