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Top Bolivian Coup Plotters Were School of the Americas Grads

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JEB SPRAGUE, jebsprague at protonmail.com, @jebsprague

Research associate at the University of California,  Riverside, Sprague just wrote the piece “Top Bolivian coup plotters were School of the Americas grads, served as attachés in FBI police programs” for The Grayzone.

Sprague writes: “Just prior to Morales’ resignation, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces Williams Kaliman ‘suggested’ that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country’s police force had rebelled.

“Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attaché of Bolivia’s embassy in the U.S. capital.

“Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the U.S. through WHINSEC [Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation], the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas. Kaliman himself attended a course called ‘Comando y Estado Mayor’ [Command and General Staff] at the SOA in 2003.

“At least six of the key coup plotters were former alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington.”