Washington Post, July 2021

A number of the Colombian security personnel implicated in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse had previously received U.S. military training. The admission by the Pentagon comes just weeks after new revelations detailed the military training members of the Saudi hit squad responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi received from a private U.S. military contractor. 

That the U.S. provided military training to individuals linked to two of the most high profile assassination of the past decade has cast a harsh spotlight on the U.S. foreign military training enterprise broadly, and has raised questions about the safeguards in place to prevent instruction from being provided to criminals, coup leaders, or human rights abusers. 

In FY2018, the U.S. provided training to over sixty-seven thousand international military students, a figure that does not include instruction purchased commercially by foreign clients, as was the case with the Saudi hit squad. The scale of the enterprise itself poses a challenge, including the ability of various stakeholders, whether executive branch managers or legislative overseers, to track and monitor those that receive U.S. training. 

In many cases, safeguards meant to prevent the provision of training to those implicated in human rights violations or other abuses are easily and routinely circumvented. Whether that is the lack of Leahy Law vetting for arms sales, the use of waivers to bypass regulations, or the fact that commercially licensed sales are not fully reported on, the lack of stronger frameworks in U.S. foreign military training increases the risk that the U.S. is implicated in the unsavory behavior of its trainees. 

To read the full article, click here, and to read our recent factsheet on U.S. training of Saudi nationals, click here.