Defense Department names watchdog group at Fort Benning school

FORT BENNING - A group of 13 lawmakers, scholars, diplomats and religious leaders has been named to a watchdog board that will monitor the successor to the Army&#39;s School of the Americas. <br> <br> The training school, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, had been blamed for alleged human rights abuses committed by some of its graduates in Latin America. <br> <br> The watchdog group, called the Board of Visitors, will hold its first meeting June third and fourth at Fort Benning to elect officers and set a meeting schedule. <br> <br> The list of members, released recently by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, excludes a member of the Bush administration whose name appeared on a list last month. <br> <br> Otto Reich, the assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has assigned one of his officers to fill the position. <br> <br> Following Reich&#39;s being recommended to the board by Secretary of State Colin Powell, SOA Watch -- a group that has held annual demonstrations against the school since 1990 -- began criticizing Reich on its Web site, saying he represented the excesses associated with the former school. <br> <br> Reich, a former ambassador to Venezuela, once headed the Office of Public Diplomacy, a now-defunct Reagan administration agency associated with the dissemination of political disinformation. He has been criticized by members of Congress for his association with Orlando Bosch, an anti-Castro extremist who was linked to the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. <br> <br> Reich turned over his spot on the board to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fisk.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/5/194398