Good leadership skills won't be enough for Bolivian officers seeking promotion to the rank of captain in any branch of the South American nation's military. Now, it will aim to counter U.S. political and military influence, a mission that opposition leaders called an illegitimate political tainting of the armed forces by Bolivia's first indigenous president. The school will not, at least initially, train officers from allied leftist nations as the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, initially proposed. Some Latin American officers trained at the U.S.-based School of the Americas went on to commit atrocities under 20th century military dictatorships. The Santa Cruz academy was initially inaugurated in 2011 as the "ALBA School" after the now-weakened regional alliance that includes Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba.

Source: ABC News August 17, 2016 21:09 UTC