U.S. Foreign Military Training: 
Global Reach, Global Power, and Oversight Issues 

LORA LUMPE / Foreign Policy In Focus May02

Lora Lumpe <llumpe@mindspring.com> is a researcher and writer based in Washington, DC. She is a senior associate with the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, working on the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, and she consults with and for several human rights and peace groups. She is on the advisory board for the Foreign Policy In Focus Project. Her recent books include Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed Books, 2000) and The Arms Trade Revealed: A Guide for Investigators and Activists (Washington: Federation of American Scientists, 1998).

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Executive Summary

Over the past decade one of the principal means by which the U.S. has interacted with almost all governments in the world is by training their military forces. In recent years U.S. forces have been training approximately 100,000 foreign soldiers annually. This training takes place in at least 150 institutions within the U.S. and in 180 countries around the world.1

The means and programs through which this training is provided have mushroomed. Since 1994, funding for the best-known of these programs, the International Military Education and Training program (IMET), has increased fourfold. During this period each of the military training programs has been justified, at least partially, as strengthening human rights and democratization. In truth, most of the programs have had no discernible focus on human rights and have been carried out in a highly, if not completely, unaccountable manner. The State Department’s 2002 Human Rights Report cited the security forces in 51 of the countries receiving IMET training (38% of the total) for their poor human rights records (see Map 1, and Appendix 2).

Map 1: U.S. Foreign Military Training and Human Rights Abuse

Since 1994, funding for IMET (International Military Education and Training), the best-known of the U.S. foreign military training programs, has increased fourfold. Based on the State Department's Human Rights Report, the armed forces in 50 of these countries that receive over $100,000 in IMET funds have poor human rights records. For a country-by-country accounting of IMET recipients and the State Department’s assessment of their human rights records, see Appendix 2, pages 41-45.

Methodology: This map includes all countries currently receiving IMET funds. The darkest color indicates those countries receiving over $100,000 in IMET training whose security forces are cited by the State Department for human rights violations Guatemala, Haiti, Nepal, and several other countries generally cited by human rights organizations for poor human rights records are not included because the State Department report did not reach the same conclusion.

Several different congressional committees bear oversight responsibility for military training. None has command of the big picture—the scope, magnitude, and potential impact of this domain of U.S. foreign policy. U.S. military training programs expanded during the 1990s with insufficient congressional oversight and scant public debate.

Training programs in the past decade were justified mainly on counternarcotics or “peacekeeping” grounds, but the September 2001 terrorist attacks have created a new rationale for expanding them. In December 2001, Congress established a new regional counterterrorism fellowship program to fund training of foreign officers at U.S. military institutions. This program is aimed primarily at Indonesian officers—currently banned by a separate act of Congress from receiving other forms of military training due to the Indonesian Army’s egregious human rights record.

Since September 11, the Bush administration has offered police or military training to a growing list of countries said to be at the front lines in the fight against global terrorism—including Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colombia. Many of these new allies have extensive records of ongoing human rights violations, including torture and assassination (see Appendix 2, pages 41-45). The administration’s March 2002 “emergency supplemental appropriations” request includes well over a billion dollars in new military aid and training. Among the items requested is $100,000,000 that the Defense Department would distribute for weapons and training to countries it would secretly choose; it would do so without congressional oversight; and it would assert the right to discard any human rights or other conditions that Congress has developed over the past decades to minimize unintended negative consequences of U.S. military aid.

Training conducted by covert intelligence units has been a perennial problem for oversight, and new problems have been created by the trend toward outsourcing training to private companies. Now the Bush administration is seeking to restrict the flow of information to Congress and the public even more. Most notably, the executive branch is trying to scale back the Foreign Military Training Report, which in recent years has provided the most comprehensive public accounting available, and is seeking authority to provide assistance with no transparency or accountability, as in the 2002 emergency supplemental request.

Greater scrutiny needs to be devoted in particular to the widespread training deployments of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF). These troops, which operate in small commando units and utilize unconventional warfare tactics, have gained acclaim for their role in the war in Afghanistan and enjoy greater public prominence with recent revelations that they are training Filipino, Yemeni, and Georgian troops. In reality, these forces have been training foreign military and paramilitary forces in these and other countries around the world throughout the past decade, but their routine training deployments have been shrouded in secrecy.

Questions persist about the skills that SOF units are conveying and the impact of this assistance. During the cold war and throughout the 1990s, these troops were revealed to be training foreign units with bloody records, including the Atlacatl Battalion in El Salvador in 1989 (this battalion killed six Jesuit priests whom they viewed as too sympathetic to guerrillas, their housekeeper, and her young daughter during that same year) and Kopassus units in Indonesia through mid-1998 (these units supported and armed militias in East Timor that brutally attacked and killed citizens and UN officials during the vote for independence in 1999).

The long-term legacies of foreign military training must not be excluded from current decisionmaking about the costs and benefits of this exercise of foreign policy. Throughout the cold war, the U.S. government facilitated and condoned many human rights abuses by providing training and assistance justified in the name of fighting “global communism.” Some of the unintended consequences of doing so are only now coming to light. Most notably, by arming and training local anticommunist forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. government helped establish the global network of militant anti-Western Muslim fundamentalists that it is now combating. If in this current effort U.S. forces intervene and provide training in support of regimes repressing legitimate political activism and/or using torture or coercion to maintain power, they are likely to foster, rather than diminish, political violence (terrorism) around the globe.

Given the pace at which military-to-military relations are now being established and ratcheted up in the name of fighting terrorism, serious scrutiny is needed more than ever to ensure that America’s fight against terrorism is pursued by means and in partnerships consistent with its democratic ideals and with national and international legal obligations.

This report outlines the range of known training programs, the budgets for those programs, some of the human rights issues raised, and areas needing congressional and public oversight.

Among the key recommendations of this report are:

• Increase transparency regarding SOF foreign training missions in order to help ensure public accountability, given the major SOF role in foreign military training abroad, their unconventional warfare tactics, and their recent training of abusive troops in Colombia, Indonesia, and elsewhere. 
• Ban unaccountable covert intelligence-run military and paramilitary training programs, given the record of terror such operations have inflicted on civilians. 
• Declassify all curricula and doctrine being taught to foreign military trainees and ensure that all training includes a strong emphasis on human rights and international humanitarian law obligations that pertain both in internal and in international armed conflicts. 
• Require increased disclosure about the activities of private military companies that the U.S. State Department has authorized or hired to train foreign militaries. 
• Cut off all forms of operational military assistance and training to any government when a pattern of abuse by its military is identified. 
• Establish greater dialogue and cooperation between the various congressional committees with oversight responsibilities for U.S. military training programs both to ensure that the committees do not work at cross-purposes and to increase oversight.

Appendix 2:
IMET Training* & Human Rights Abuse: The Official Record
* Figures in thousands

		IMET 	IMET 	IMET	Quotes from State Department
		FY 	FY 	FY	Human Rights Report issued
Country 	2001 	2002 	Request	in March 2002 
AFRICA 
Algeria 	121	200 	500 	Despite continued improvements, particularly in addressing 
					problems of torture and arbitrary detention, the human rights 
					situation remained generally poor. 
Angola   		100 	100 	The Government's human rights record remained poor. 
					Members of the security forces committed extrajudicial killings, 
					were responsible for disappearances, and tortured, beat, raped, 
					and otherwise abused persons. 
Cameroon 	223	190 	200 	The Government's human rights record remained generally poor, and 
					it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Security forces 
					committed numerous extrajudicial killings and were responsible for 
					disappearances. They also tortured and otherwise abused detainees, 
					generally with impunity. 
Central  	116 	110 	110 	The Government's poor human rights record worsened in some areas… 
					Security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings, including 
					government-approved executions of suspected bandits. 
African Republic
Chad 		173	130 	130 	The Government's human rights record remained poor…. State security 
					forces committed extrajudicial killings and disappearances, and they 
					continued to torture, beat, and abuse persons. 
Congo, 		86 	110 	110 	The Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued 
Democratic				to commit numerous, serious abuses… Security forces were responsible 
Republic				for extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, beatings, rape, 
					and other abuses. 
Djibouti 	132	160 	185 	The Government's human rights record remained poor. Members of the 
					security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings. There were 
					credible reports that security forces beat, otherwise abused, and at 
					times tortured detainees. 
Eritrea 	155	375 	400 	The Government's poor human rights record worsened, and it committed 
					serious abuses…Many observers believe that the police occasionally 
					resorted to torture and physical beatings of prisoners, particularly 
					during interrogations. 
Ethiopia   		475 	500 	The Government's human rights record remained poor; although there were 
					some improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained. Security 
					forces committed a number of extrajudicial killings. 
Gabon		131	160 	160 	The Government's human rights record was generally poor in some areas, 
					and some longstanding human rights abuses continued…The security forces 
					beat and tortured prisoners and detainees; arbitrary arrest and detention 
					were problems. 
Guinea 		254	250 	250 	The Government's human rights record was poor… Extrajudicial killings; 
					disappearances; use of torture, beatings, and rape by police and military 
					personnel; and police abuse of prisoners and detainees. Soldiers, police, 
					and civilian militia groups killed, beat, and raped citizens. 
Kenya 		443	600 	600 	The Government's human rights record remained poor; it continued to commit 
					numerous, serious abuses…Security forces continued to commit extrajudicial 
					killings, torture detainees, use excessive force, rape. 
Mauritania 	83	100 	100 	The Government's human rights record remained generally poor. Police used 
					excessive force, beat, or otherwise abused detainees, and used arbitrary 
					arrest and illegal searches. 
Mozambique 	200	215 	215 	The Government's human rights record remained poor, and although there 
					were some improvements in a few areas, it continued to commit serious abuses. 
					Police continued to commit numerous abuses, including extrajudicial killings, 
					excessive use of force, torture, and other abuses. 
Niger 		102	110 	110 	The Government's human rights record remained generally poor; although 
					there were improvements in several areas, some serious problems remain… 
					Police and members of the security forces beat and otherwise abused persons. 
Nigeria 	663	750 	800 	The Government's human rights record was poor; although improvements continued 
					in several areas during the year, serious problems remain. The national 
					police, army, and security forces committed extrajudicial killings and often 
					used excessive force. 
Rwanda 			100 	150 	The Government's poor human rights record worsened, and the Government 
					continued to commit numerous, serious abuses; however, there were some 
					improvements in a few areas… The security forces committed extrajudicial 
					killings within the country. 
Sierra Leone 	130	200 	250 	The Government's human rights record was poor in several areas; while there 
					continued to be significant improvements in some areas, serious problems remained… 
					There were numerous deaths in custody. 
Swaziland 	98	100 	100 	The Government's human rights record was generally poor… The Government 
					generally failed to prosecute or otherwise discipline officers who committed 
					abuses. 
Tanzania 	214 	200 	230 	The Government's human rights record was poor; while there were improvements 
					in a few areas, there continued to be serious problems…Police killed several 
					persons, and regularly threatened or mistreated suspected criminals. 
Uganda 			100 	170 	The Government's human rights record was poor … Security forces used excessive 
					force, at times resulting in death, and committed or failed to prevent some 
					extrajudicial killings of suspected rebels and civilians. 
Zambia 		181	190 	225 	The Government's human rights record remained generally poor; however, there 
					were some improvements in a few areas… Police officers reportedly committed 
					several extrajudicial killings and frequently beat and otherwise abused criminal 
					suspects and detainees. 
  
EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC 
Fiji     			100 	The Government's human rights record remained poor… Ethnically based 
					discrimination remains a serious problem.
Indonesia   		400 	400 	The Government's human rights record remained poor. Security forces 
					were responsible for numerous instances of, at times indiscriminate, shooting 
					of civilians, torture, rape, beatings and other abuse, and arbitrary detention 
					in Aceh, West Timor, Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya), and elsewhere in 
					the country. 
Laos   			50 	100 	The Government's human rights record remained poor throughout the year. Prisoners 
					are abused and tortured, and prison conditions generally are extremely harsh 
					and life threatening. 
Malaysia 	757	700 	800 	The Government generally respected its citizens' rights in some areas; however, 
					its record was poor in a number of other areas, and significant problems remain. 
					Police committed a number of extrajudicial killings. 
Philippines 	1,436 	2,000 	2,400 	The Government generally respected the human rights of citizens; however, there 
					were serious problems in some areas. Members of the security services were 
					responsible for extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary 
					arrest and detention; there were allegations by human rights groups that these 
					problems worsened as the Government sought to intensify its campaign against the 
					terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). 
Tonga 		100 	115 	125 	The Government's human rights record was generally poor in several areas, 
					and the principal human rights abuse remained severe restrictions on the right 
					of citizens to change their government. 

EUROPE AND EURASIA 
Albania 	1,200 	800 	900 	The Government's human rights record was poor in many areas; however, 
					there were some improvements …Police beat and otherwise abused suspects, 
					detainees, and prisoners…. Prison conditions remained poor.
Armenia   		400 	750 	The Government's human rights record remained poor; however, there were 
					improvements in a few areas. …There were deaths in police custody and deaths 
					in the military as a result of mistreatment. 
Azerbaijan   		400 	750 	The Government's human rights record remained poor… Some prison inmates and 
					detainees died in part due to mistreatment by the authorities. Police tortured 
					and beat persons in custody and used excessive force to extract confessions. 
					Arbitrary arrest and detention was a problem. 
Bosnia 		1,109 	800 	900 	The Government's human rights record remained poor; although there were some 
  -Herzegovina				improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained…. Police continued to 
					abuse and physically mistreat detainees and other citizens. 
Georgia 	481 	850 	1,200 	The Government's human rights record remained poor and worsened in several areas. 
					Security forces continued to torture, beat, and otherwise abuse detainees. 
Kazakhstan 	583 	800 	1,000 	The Government's human rights record was poor; although there were significant 
					improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained… Members of the security 
					forces committed a small number of extrajudicial killings during mistreatment 
					of detainees and abuse of military conscripts. 
Kyrgyzstan 	380 	600 	1,100 	The Government's human rights record remained poor; members of the security 
					forces at times tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated persons. 
Macedonia 	741 	550 	650 	The Government's human rights record significantly worsened during the year in 
					the context of the ethnic-Albanian insurgency led by the NLA… Police committed 
					extrajudicial killings and killed civilians during combat operations. 
Tajikistan   		250 	350 	The Government's human rights record remained poor. Some members of the security 
					forces committed extrajudicial killings. There were a number of disappearances 
					and kidnappings. Security forces at times tortured, beat, and abused detainees. 
Turkey 		1,689 	2,700 	2,800 	The Government generally respected its citizens' human rights in a number of 
					areas; however, its record was poor in some areas, and several serious problems 
					remained. Extrajudicial killings continued, including deaths due to excessive 
					use of force and torture. 
Turkmenistan 	258 	450 	450 	The Government's human rights record remained extremely poor… The Government 
					continued to commit serious human rights abuses, and the authorities severely 
					restricted political and civil liberties.…Security forces continued to beat 
					and otherwise mistreat suspects and prisoners. 
Ukraine 	1,443 	1,700 	1,700 	The Government's human rights record was poor; however, there were improvements 
					in a few areas. Police and prison officials tortured and beat detainees and 
					prisoners, at times killing them. 
Uzbekistan 	494 	1,000 	1,200 	The Government's human rights record remained very poor, and it continued to 
					commit numerous serious abuses… Security force mistreatment resulted in the 
					deaths of several citizens in custody… Prison conditions were poor, and 
					pretrial detention can be prolonged. 

NEAR EAST ASIA 
Lebanon 	546 	600 	700 	The Government's overall human rights record was poor … Members of the security 
					forces used excessive force and tortured and abused some detainees…. Government 
					abuses also included the arbitrary arrest and detention of persons who were 
					critical of government policies.
Saudi Arabia+		25 	25 	The Government's human rights record remained poor… Security forces continued 
					to abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons. 
Yemen 		198 	450 	650 	The Government generally respected human rights in some areas; however, its 
					record was poor in several other areas, and serious problems remain…. Members of 
					the security forces killed a number of persons during the year. 

+  Saudi Arabia receives a relatively small amount of IMET assistance, but like the other countries on this list has a 
   poor human rights record according to the State Department. Although receiving little direct U.S. military aid or 
   training assistance, Saudi Arabia has received U.S. arms exports totaling $35 billion in the past decade. 
  
SOUTH ASIA 
Bangladesh 	507 	600 	750 	The Government's human rights record remained poor. Police committed a number of 
					extrajudicial killings, and some persons died in police custody under suspicious 
					circumstances. Police routinely used torture, beatings, and other forms of abuse 
					while interrogating suspects. Police frequently beat demonstrators.
Pakistan   		1,000 	1,000 	The Government's human rights record remained poor…Police committed numerous 
					extrajudicial killings. 
Sri Lanka 	252 	275 	350 	Serious problems in some areas, and the ongoing war with the LTTE continued to 
					lead to serious human rights abuses by both sides. Security forces committed 
					numerous extrajudicial killings during the year. Disappearances also remain a 
					problem. The military and police reportedly tortured detainees. 
  
WESTERN HEMISPHERE 
Colombia 	1,040 	1,180 	1,180 	Government's human rights record remained poor…Government security forces 
					continued to commit serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings.
Dominican 	513 	500 	500 	The Government's human rights record was poor. Police committed extrajudicial 
  Republic 				killings. The police, and to a lesser degree the military, tortured, beat, and 
					otherwise abused detainees and prisoners. 
Ecuador 	550 	625 	650 	The Government's human rights record was poor in a number of areas and serious 
					problems remain. There were credible reports that police committed extrajudicial 
					killings. Security forces killed several protesters during demonstrations. 
Venezuela 	485 	500 	700 	There were improvements in some human rights areas during the year; however, the 
					Government's human rights record remained poor or worsened in other areas… The 
					police and military committed extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects at an 
					increased rate… Excessive use of deadly force by police and security forces 
					continued to be a serious problem.