Nicaragua to stop sending troops to WHINSEC

Following a meeting with activists from the US, Canada, and the UK, including Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced that his country would no longer be sending troops to the School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). 

Previously, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Uruguay had stopped sending troops to Fort Benning, Georgia where the school is located.

"The SOA is an ethical and moral anathema," Ortega told the group, according to the news release. "All of the countries of Latin America have been victims of its graduates. The SOA is a symbol of death, a symbol of terror. We have been gradually reducing our numbers of troops at the SOA, sending only five last year and none this year. We have now entered a new phase and we will NOT continue to send troops to the SOA. This is the least that we can do. We have been its victims."

I guess I have mixed feelings here. I'm fine with Nicaragua pulling its participation from WHINSEC. However, in 2012, I would much rather it be based upon what the school has done for the last decade or so rather than what some of its graduates and attendees did during the Cold War. Maybe that's what Ortega is saying but it sure doesn't read that way.

The other issue is that this looks like part of a continuing worsening of relations between the US and Nicaragua following flawed 2008 elections, Ortega's controversial presidential victory in 2011, and the conflict over the property waiver, etc. Instead of condemning the school as a "symbol of death, a symbol of terror," he could have just announced that Nicaragua was no longer sending troops.