Hidden In Plain Sight & Plan Colombia: Cashing In On the Drug War Failure

SCREENING FROM NOV 7-20 "Winner of the 2003 Award of Merit in Film at the Latin American Studies Association Film Festival in Dallas, "Hidden in Plain Sight" focuses on the curriculum of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, located at Fort Benning in Georgia. This school (which changed its name two years ago to the "Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation") has trained tens of thousands of Latin American army officers and police officers in what is officially described as "counterinsurgency tactics." Among the school's more infamous alumni are Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and El Salvador's dictator Roberto D'Aubuisson. Each year, massive demonstrations are held outside of Fort Benning demanding that it cease operations. Yet despite a brutal record of massive human rights abuses engineered and executed by its students, the school remains operational and fully-financed. Narrated by Martin Sheen, the documentary features interviews with political thinkers (Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Eduardo Galeano), Congresspersons (Barbara Lee, Mac Collins), Army officers (Maj. Gen. John LeMoyne),victims and social activists (Sister Dianna Ortiz) who tackle the issues of U.S. economic and military policies in Latin America, the war on drugs, and terrorism. Director John H. Smihula and producer Vivi Lestou are available for interviews. With the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) now branded a terrorist organization by the US, and Colombian President Pastrana unilaterally withdrawing from the peace process in February 2002, this is a very timely analysis of the Plan Colombia: Cashing In On the Drug War Failure will a lso be featured. 20-year war on drugs in Colombia and the realities of what is known as "Plan Colombia." A counterpoint structure and a wide range of interviews with, among others, Noam Chomsky, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, Green presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (later kidnapped by FARC), US State Department officials, US Congress members, and Colombian farmers, rebels, social activists and military, help build an insightful analysis of the purposes behind the drug war that, in the last decade, has resulted in a twofold increase in cocaine imports to the US."