School of Assassins (1994)

Using some archive footage of atrocities committed in Latin America in the 1980s and early 90s, this short documentary questions the work of the US Army’s “School of the Americas” in Georgia. Ostensibly, it offers a training facility to soldiers from the likes of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua to enable them to return home replete with not just the skills of a modern day soldier, but with a sense of the values of their host nation. What’s fairly clear from the commentary, though, is that many of these people are guilty of committing acts of assassination and murder ranging from an archbishop to some 3-month old babies. With Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II leading congressional efforts to close the school, it focuses on driving the audience to implore, or even instruct, their representatives to stop funding this operation. I can’t think the US is the only nation in the world to offer training to “allies” who end up being anything but, but the statistical evidence here that associates killings with the identities of known trainees would seem to suggest this place must be on borrowed time. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t make any attempt to balance any perceived benefits from the institution nor does it offer any comments from it’s proponents, which does render it a little like a public information film, but it is still quite a potent critique about empowering people to become lethal without any realistic hope of controlling their subsequent actions, or loyalties.