Argentina's Macri signed secret pact for training of forces at "successor to School of the Americas"

Documents leaked to the Buenos Aires online daily 'El Destape' revealed that Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich signed a memorandum at the request of the U.S. State Department, by which Argentine security personnel would enroll at the International Academy for Law Enforcement in El Salvador (ILEA).

The agreement was co-signed by William Brownfield, then Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.

A "school of indoctrination" for Latin American armed forces, ILEA has been denounced by human rights organizations such as School of Americas Watch as the "successor to the School of the Americas (SOA)."

The SOA (renamed WHINSEC in 2001) gained notoriety in the 1980s after activists such as Father Roy Bourgeois revealed that many of the atrocities being committed in the region - particularly El Salvador - were directed by its graduates. Over 10,000 Latin American military personnel were reportedly trained to commit abuses there, and in fact did so under the region's many dictatorships of the 1970s and since.

The document, signed on April 29, 2016, but never published, states that the country "will facilitate the participation of Argentine agents with law enforcement jurisdiction in study tours in the United States of America in order to enhance collaboration on drug demand reduction through training assistance."

The agreement, the Buenos Aires-based Center for Military Officers for Democracy noted, is illegal.

Former President Raúl Alfonsín - elected in 1983 after a seven-year military dictatorship left the economy in ruins and 30,000 dissidents "disappeared" - signed a 1988 Defense Law which bars the armed forces from assuming security prerogatives, or vice versa, save with congressional approval (both of which caveats the secret agreement violated).

Former President Néstor Kirchner in 2006 moreover had specifically banned Argentine security forces from signing training agreements at ILEA or WHINSEC.

Both laws remain on the books.

The revelation comes three months after the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration had formally requested approval from the U.S. Government for the purchase of around $2.5 billion in military equipment - the largest single Argentine military order since shortly before the ill-fated Falklands/Malvinas War waged by the last dictatorship in 1982.

That request was reportedly made on June 16, 2016, through the offices of Argentine Ambassador Martín Lousteau with the stated purpose of "combating terrorism." Lousteau resigned on April 3 - one week after the disclosure.

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