LA PAZ (Reuters) – Bolivian President Evo Morales opened a military school yesterday which he said would teach an “anti-imperialist” doctrine to counter US policies “based on fear.”
“The United States created the School of the Americas to indoctrinate the armed forces on pro-imperialism,” said Morales, a reference to the Cold War-era US academy that trained Latin American dictators and their military in counter-insurgency and torture techniques.
“If the empire teaches domination of the world from its military schools, we will learn from this school to free ourselves from imperial oppression,” he said.
Ex-coca grower Morales has been a long-time critic of US foreign policy, one of the last leaders left standing from South America’s once-dominant populist leftist bloc.
Earlier this week he travelled to Cuba to meet Fidel Castro during the revolutionary leader’s 90th birthday celebrations.
The military school will be located in eastern Bolivia, on the site of a former United Nations peacekeeping training centre.
Up to 200 cadets will learn about history, geopolitics and military strategy, the government said. The school will be open to those from other countries in Latin America’s leftist ‘ALBA’ bloc, which includes Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
