CUP Undergraduate Research
Title
The School of the Americas; Foreign Policy in Latin America
Date of Award
4-1-2014
Document Type
Restricted Access Thesis
College
College of Theology, Arts, & Sciences
Department
Humanities
Degree Name
History, BA
First Advisor
Dr. Joel Davis
Abstract
The School of the Americas is a military program from Fort Benning, Georgia; it was designed to fight off communism during the Cold War in Latin America. Though the School of the Americas was designed to fight off communism it clearly became a foreign policy to ensure American interest in Latin America. The soldiers in Latin American countries like El Salvador were being taught torture methods and crimes against human rights. The mission for the School of the Americas was to keep American foreign policy alive with national security and economic gain through sweatshops. In 1991, the Cold War came to end, so the School of the Americas should have closed along with the end of the war. Again, foreign policy was to remain active in Latin America because the U.S. wanted to ensure they had control of the area through the school. Anyone who spoke against the school in Latin America either disappeared, or was assassinated.