Advisory board for institute at Fort Benning meets Thursday
The Board of Visitors, a federal advisory committee chartered to provide recommendations to the Secretary of Defense on the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, meets Thursday at Fort Benning.
During the 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. meeting, the 14-member board reviews the curriculum of the institute to determine whether it adheres to U.S. doctrine and complies with applicable laws and regulations. The board also looks to determine whether the curriculum is consistent with U.S. policy goals toward Latin America and the Caribbean.
After the meeting, the board reports its findings to Congress within 60 days. The Board of Visitors was mandated after the institute opened in January 2001 at Fort Benning with a new curriculum. It replaced the former School of the Americas which operated at Fort Benning from 1984 to December 2000.
The board includes members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, representatives from the Department of State, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Northern Command, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and six members designated by the Secretary of Defense.
Lee Rials, a public affairs spokesman for the institute, said none of the members of Congress nor their representatives are attending the meeting this year, but there will be commanders from the U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command.
Chaired by Johanna Mendelson Forman, the Board of Visitors meeting is open to the public and there is a public comment period for speakers. Rials said no one has signed up so far to address the board.
Hendrik Voss, national organizer for the Washington-based School of Americas Watch, said the group won’t send a representative to speak before the board this year. For the 26th year, the group held a small vigil on Fort Benning Road in November to call for the closing of the institute.
“Basically, it is a rubber stamp board,” Voss said of the Board of Visitors. “It doesn’t have any real power. We don’t think that is where any real decisions about WHINSEC are being made. We don’t send anybody to attend this meeting. We might do it again in the future but for this meeting we decided not to put any energy in observing it.”
Voss said the organization is still considering legal options after a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September that it has no right to know the names of graduates and military units of security personnel and instructors at the institute.
“What we are going to do is ask all judges of the court to review the decision,” Voss said. “This is moving forward as well. We are going to take the legal avenues we have to get those names released.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2016 at 8:04 PM with the headline "Advisory board for institute at Fort Benning meets Thursday."