Nicaragua will no longer send military personnel to the US military's controversial Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), President Daniel Ortega said during a meeting with a delegation of human rights activists in Managua on Sept. 4. Nicaragua will be the first Central American country to withdraw from the school, which critics say has trained many of Latin America's most notorious human rights violators since its founding in 1946. Five South American nations have ended their relations with SOA/WHINSEC: Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, and, as of June 27, Ecuador.