George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists

[L. Coyote]

This Junta Day, 2007, news is a positive step towards justice.
Latin Americans are reacting to organized political murder of liberals and social activists.

==================
Plan Condor: Crimes Without Borders in Latin America
Marie Trigona - 12 Dec 2007 - http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1042/1/


Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, also known as Operation Condor. The United States and Latin American military governments developed Operation Condor as a a transnational, state-sponsored terrorist coalition among the militaries of South America. In Argentina alone some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

Coordinating Terror with U.S. support

Plan Condor began with the U.S. supported military coup against Chile's democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. Allende's government was targeted as a threat to U.S. strategic policy in Latin America early on. White House tapes reveal that on Sept. 14, 1970, then-President Richard Nixon ordered measures to force the Chilean economy into bankruptcy. "The U.S. will not accept a Marxist government just because of the irresponsibility of the Chilean people," declared Henry Kissinger, Nixon´s secretary of State.

Declassified U.S. Department of State documents have provided evidence to Plan Condor's broad scope. The Operation was an ambitious and successful plan to coordinate repression internationally. FBI special agent intelligence liason to the Southern Cone countries Robert Scherrer (now deceased) sent the letter to the U.S. embassy in Argentina on September 28, 1976: "'Operation Condor' is the code name for the collection, exchange and storage of intelligence data concerning so-called 'leftists,' communists and Marxists, which was recently established between cooperating intelligence services in South America in order to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in the area."

The memo also specified Argentina's enthusiasm over the plan. "Members of 'Operation Condor' showing the most enthusiasm to date have been Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The latter three countries have engaged in joint operations, primarily in Argentina, against the terrorist target." Operation Condor has been difficult to investigate, due to the selectivity of victims and lack of official declassified documents from the CIA and Department of State. Many of the documents that have been released have been heavily censored. However, following an extensive investigation by Argentine courts beginning in 1999 and the decade long work of human rights groups to collect forensic evidence, 17 military leaders will be put on trial for their participation in the illegal persecution of social activists.

............

[grasswire]

1. does Paraguay extradite to Argentina?

Just askin'

[robinlynne]

9. Paraguay is about 2 blocks long and does not extradite anything or anyone.

There is one big palace with a neon sign and a few mansions, one of which is the american embassy. They sell stoelen passports and falsified anything on the streets of Assuncion.
And I'm telling you the good things....

[L. Coyote]

21. Area: 406,750 sq km, slightly smaller than California.

In the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance (1865-70) - between Paraguay and Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay - Paraguay lost two-thirds of all adult males and much of its territory. It stagnated economically for the next half century. In the Chaco War of 1932-35, large, economically important areas were won from Bolivia. The 35-year military dictatorship of Alfredo STROESSNER was overthrown in 1989, and, despite a marked increase in political infighting in recent years, relatively free and regular presidential elections have been held since then.

Population: near 7 million wonderful Paraguayans speak Spanish and Guarani. Internet users = 260,000.

GDP $31.26 billion,
Electricity consumption 4.497 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity exports: 43.79 billion kWh (2005)
Exports: $4.838 billion

Illicit drugs: major illicit producer of cannabis, most or all of which is consumed in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile; transshipment country for Andean cocaine headed for Brazil, other Southern Cone markets, and Europe; corruption and some money-laundering activity, especially in the Tri-Border Area; weak anti-money-laundering laws and enforcement.

[L. Coyote]

22. Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and the Republic of Paraguay

Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and the Republic of Paraguay
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 8, No. 2, Supplement: Official Documents (Apr., 1914)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and PARAGUAY
Treaty on extradition. Signed at Asuncion on 24 May 1973

TREATY ON EXTRADITION1 BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA AND THE REPUBLIC OF PARAGUAY
The United States of America and the Republic of Paraguay, desiring to
make more effective the cooperation of the two countries in the repression of
crime, agree as follows:
Article 1. The Contracting Parties agree to extradite on a reciprocal basis
to the other.....
1. Murder or manslaughter.....
8. False imprisonment; abduction or child stealing; kidnapping.
............

[L. Coyote]

29. Absent reliable, sourced info to the contrary, no reason to think otherwise.

The urban myths about Paraguay lacking extradition are just that.

[robinlynne]

87. Well, I've actually been there. a cop can be bought for pennies. literally. and easily.

Stroessner was the longest running dictator in LAtin America. There are mansions, as I said, and the rest of the people have no shoes. And it is COLD! Corruption is part of getting in a cab, walking down the street. Even getting on a plane home. (I left as quickly as possible, which was also very difficult.)
I wont bother you with the whole story, but after 5 or 6 major challenges, my prepaid hotel turned out to have booked my room to someone else, when I went to the American embassy for help, they said all we can do is register you in case you disappear. Downtown Assuncion is literally only 2 blocks long. Paraguay is the poorest naiton in latin America, the most corrupt, and there are plenty of nazis living there who have not been extradited. There are also unextradited nazis living in Brasil; I have even met one personally. But nothing compares to Paraguay.

[arcos]

100. Paraguay is not the poorest nation in Latin America...

That would be Nicaragua, and probably Honduras is a close second.

[enid602]

143. poorest

I would go with Guyana, Surinam or French Guiana. Pretty primitive.

[Ghost in the Machine]

2. If you cut off the head of the BFEE, will the body die?

or will it just reanimate itself with der chimpenfurher or fat head Jeb?

[TomInTib]

3. Bush and Kissinger should hang for Condor.

No matter how much evidence sees the light of day, it was far worse than the public will ever know or could even handle.

But Condor wasn't the end of it.

Fucking GHWB and crew just moved it north into Central America. By then, we had a coalition of Arab States and gun/drug runners who were all too willing to do anything for a slice of the pie (Adnan Kashoggi).

And then there was Panama.

100,000 immolated in El Chorrillo, just to get to our own sock-puppet Noriega.

I could go on and on, but I have grown accustomed to life outside of the Walls.

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. I was intersted to read the other day that tax fraud is not even a crime in Panama.

Our kind of people, definitely. I think Thatcher would have willingly given up her career as a tax lawyer and returned to testing ice-cream blends. The amount she'd have saved in unavoidable income tax would surely have more than offset the income difference.

[Judi Lynn]

59. The last President of Panama, Mireya Moscoso, friend of the Bushes, pardoned

the Cuban "exiles" they had in prison there (for their bombing plot to blow up the auditorium Fidel Castro was slated to speak in, to a crowd of thousands, which would have been a complete bloodbath) the day before the end of her Presidency, called the Cuban "exile" community in Miami to tell them they were being pardoned, then moved, herself, to Miami.

[Joe Chi Minh]

68. The mills of God grind slow....

[drmeow]

79. Most of the Bush family

should hang for more reasons than there are to count.

[bdamomma]

164. that should have been done years ago.

[L. Coyote]

98. Family to sue Henry Kissinger for death.

Family to sue Henry Kissinger for death.
Sep 9, 2001 - http://www.frankolsonproject.org/News/Kissinger-Frame.html


A story on CBS “60 Minutes” tonight reported that the family of a murdered Chilean general plans to file a lawsuit seeking damages:
This is how CBS described the action:

The suit is against Henry Kissinger for his alleged role in the death of Gen. Rene Schneider, the commander of the Chilean Army who was killed by kidnappers in 1970. Citing recently declassified government documents, the civil suit is expected to claim that the CIA supported a kidnapping plot which led to the death of the Chilean general. The CIA’s support for the kidnapping was part of a larger effort by the Agency to instigate a coup in Chile – an objective ordered by President Nixon and overseen by Kissinger. Bob Simon reports, Sunday, September 7, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Rene Schneider Jr., son of the late general, tells Simon, “I always wanted to put all this behind me, but we have a duty to humanity to speak about this. It would be irresponsible to remain silent.”

Accounts of the former U.S. ambassador to Chile and the embassy’s former military attaché - both of whom appear in the report - and the documents tell the Cold War story of the Nixon administration’s desire to thwart leftist politician Salvadore Allende’s successful election to Chile’s presidency. The Nixon White House sought a military coup in Chile before Allende’s inauguration, but Schneider, a constitutional defender, stood in the way. Schneider was shot by the would-be kidnappers when he reached for his revolver.

Kissinger declined to speak to 60 Minutes, but when questioned about Chile in the past, he has responded that he personally cut off support for the coup conspirators during a meeting with the CIA on Oct. 15, 1970, a few days before Schneider’s murder. CIA officials, however, differed with Kissinger on this point in subsequent investigations. The Senate committee that investigated the matter could not determine who was telling the truth.



“60 Minutes” description of the suit and its historical basis is available online. http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,309983-412,00.shtml

[malaise]

144. Don't forget Jamaica and Grenada either n/t

[Initech]

4. I'm surprised Bush hasn't started WWIII by himself yet.

God that man is fucking evil. The devil.

[earth mom]

134. Yep. And when Chavez said that some people around here had a fit.

The comparison is just too obvious to deny.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

5. Any prosecution will be thwarted,...by any means possible.

You know that.

[FtWayneBlue]

7. Unlucky coincidence:

excerpt from
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/joe/torres1.html

On the same day as the collapse of the World Trade Center, a lawsuit was filed in Washington by the family of Chilean military commander Rene Schneider who was killed during a botched kidnapping attempt 31 years ago. The family is seeking more than $3 million in damages from Henry Kissinger, Richard M. Helms and other Nixon administration officials. (Washington Post, 9/11/2001). The family chose to sue after carefully reviewing documents that became public over the past two years.

[L. Coyote]

17. Sept. 11, a surprise attack by its military commandeered by Gen. Augusto Pinochet

On Sept. 11 ... Chile who was the recipient of a surprise attack by its military commandeered by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and backed by the CIA. While in the Presidential Palace, Mr. Allende addressed Chile via telephone link through the only radio station that had not been silenced by the military raids:

“This will surely be the last time I speak to you. Magallanes Radio will be silenced, and the reassuring tone of my voice will not reach you. It doesn’t matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be with you. At least, your memory of me will be that of a man who was loyal to the country …I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other people will be able to transcend this sad and bitter moment, when treason tries to force itself upon us…I’m sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain,…it will be a moral lesson that will punish the felony, cowardice, and treason .” (Allende 1998).

[Demeter]

75. And There's Always the Kenny Lay Defense

Drop dead and have the charges and penalties removed because you never completed the appeals process.

[L. Coyote]

123. Presidential Records Act and Executive Order No. 13,233 (the "Bush Order"),

FINDINGS REGARDING ADMINISTRATION OPENNESS/SECRECY AGENDA
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB84/findingsopen.htm

Presidential Records Act - When, on January 20, 2001, the Presidential Records Act ("PRA"), 44 U.S.C. § 2201 et seq., 12-year restriction period for records containing confidential communications among President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and their advisers expired, the Bush White House first directed the National Archivist to withhold the records while it "studied" the matter, and then, on November 1, 2001, President George W. Bush promulgated Executive Order No. 13,233 (the "Bush Order"), which purports to give binding directions to the Archivist about how to administer presidential and vice presidential records under the PRA. The Bush Order turned the PRA's public access requirement on its head by granting former Presidents, Vice Presidents, and their "representatives" veto power over any release of materials by the Archivist simply by claiming executive privilege, regardless of the merits of the claim. Only with the "authorization" of a former President or Vice President does the Bush Order permit the Archivist to disclose any presidential or vice presidential records.

[L. Coyote]

133. Reagan, V.P. Bush secrets protected ad infinitum?? by the Bush Order. "Upon the death" designee

Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001
Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures implementing section 2204 of title 44 of the United States Code with respect to constitutionally based privileges, including those that apply to Presidential records reflecting military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, Presidential communications, legal advice, legal work, or the deliberative processes of the President and the President's advisors, and to do so in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Nixon ..........................

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13233.htm

Federal Register (.pdf): http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20011128/eo13233.pdf

National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/appendix/13233.html

....

Sec. 10. Designation of Representative.

The former President may designate a representative (or series or group of alternative representatives, as the former President in his discretion may determine) to act on his behalf for purposes of the Presidential Records Act and this order. Upon the death or disability of a former President, the former President's designated representative shall act on his behalf for purposes of the Act and this order, including with respect to the assertion of constitutionally based privileges. In the absence of any designated representative after the former President's death or disability, the family of the former President may designate a representative (or series or group of alternative representa-tives, as they in their discretion may determine) to act on the former President's behalf for purposes of the Act and this order, including with respect to the assertion of constitutionally based privileges.

[seemslikeadream]

6. ONE DAY WE WILL DANCE ON THEIR GRAVES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_jDiDya5j4

ONE DAY WE WILL DANCE ON THEIR GRAVES

THEY DANCE ALONE



Why are there women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here
Their faces fixed like stone?
I can't see what it is that they dispise
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone



It's the only form of protest they're allowed
I've seen their silent faces scream so loud
If they were to speak these words they'd go missing too
Another woman on a torture table what else can they do
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone



One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance
One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance



Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos
Ellas danzan con los muertos
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angustia
Danzan con sus pardres
Danzan con sus hijos
Danzan con sus esposos
Ellas danzan solas
Danzan solas



Hey Mr. Pinochet
You've sown a bitter crop
It's foreign money that supports you
One day the money's going to stop
No wages for your torturers
No budget for your guns



Can you think of your own mother
Dancin' with her invisible son
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
They're anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone

STING

Bank with close ties to Bush administration engulfed in scandal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775366

NEW details of Thatcher coup plot: London Evening Standard
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=777970

SEC probes Marathon Oil payments in Equitorial Guinea (and HQ burns down)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=728495

Du Toit admits meeting Thatcher
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775274

Terrorist Stocks?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775943

'Petroleum lures dogs of war to Africa'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775315

BBC News: Thatcher charged
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775499

Margaret Thatcher's Son Released on Coup Plot Charges (Update2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=775803

Exiled leader in Spain denies any link to coup attempt
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=780228

Scorpions say have more info on Equatorial Guinea coup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=781763

Financiers conspired to overthrow oil-flush African government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=771532

Mark Thatcher: The money trail
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=780222

Thatcher case twist as list of alleged coup backers vanishes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=779708

Thatcher: Spain 'secretly backed coup by sending warships'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=780346

WaPo: Allbritton Loses Riggs Bank (front page, day 3)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=691609

E Guinea 'coup plot' verdict due + update/result
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1023049

I feel like a corpse in a river, says Mark Thatcher as he faces court...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1020857

Thatcher to face coup questions
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1018687

Phone links Thatcher to alleged plot

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1008002
There was no coup plot, says Du Toit
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=997545

Thatcher to ask Britain to help halt extradition
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1005084

Thatcher charged over coup plot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1001670

Thatcher to be tried in absentia
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=994305

Britain knew in advance of Equatorial Guinea coup plot: report
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=987556

Tories Demand Answers on 'Coup Plot'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=991361

Mandelson faces questioning over 'link' to coup plot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=975777

Legal Woes Cut Into Bottom Line at Riggs
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=974861

Mugabe flies to Equatorial Guinea (coup plot latest)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=964525

Despots, Deposits & Directors - Riggs Bank
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=924033

SABC asks to broadcast Thatcher court case
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=926588

Spain calls on EU to warn Equatorial Guinea - Riggs Bank
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=916444

Raids 'break up' £20m theft gang
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=906579

Thatcher coup plot: Mandelson, CIA & State Department named
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=900168

Archer 'link to coup plot'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=899574

Britain accused of failing to investigate Africa coup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=901850

Pentagon link to Guinea coup plot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=867591

[L. Coyote]

12. Thanks. In my jungle village in Peru, the disappeared were load on planes by US troops

and when the planes landed, they were disappeared. They threw them out over the jungle wilderness.

In Argentina, they flew out over the ocean.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

13. OMG!

:cry:

[Ghost in the Machine]

16. Back in high school, our auto mechanics teacher told us how they took Vietnamese POWs

up in helicopters and interrogated them. When one wouldn't answer, they threw him out and turned to the next one. He said after tossing one or two of them, the others would start talking...

[defendandprotect]

65. That's Operation Phoenix --- at least 60,000 VN civilians dead ---

Edward Landsdale --- a prime suspect in the JFK assassination as Col X -- did a lot of that work, personally --- See: Fletcher Prouty on this ---
It's been a while since I read it ---

[Judi Lynn]

71. Glad to see your comments. I have heard this happened then, also.

Probably the ugliest thing I have heard of all the vicious things "human beings" have done to others.

[lonestarnot]

91. Did you ask him if they waterboarded them first?

[bdamomma]

165. I guess there weren't aware of the Geneva Conventions.

:mad:

[seemslikeadream]

18. I forgot to add the Sting video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_jDiDya5j4

[IsItJustMe]

48. And the sad thing is that most Americans don't have a clue of what happened there during the 80's.

Our media never covered the events that we were involded in, except for the Iran/Contra portion of it. And you won't find it in our history books either.

Someone once said, "Ignorance is bliss". How sad?

[L. Coyote]

51. This information is just now coming out. The Paraguayan Archives are like the KGB Files

except that they point the finger at Bush, Reagan, Ford, and the military juntas of South America, and their secret fascist death squads.

This particular CIA TapeGate event is related to the disclosures in South America, the fear of Chavez (a graduate of the School of the Americas and an insider with direct knowledge of US atrocities), and the history of US use of surragate death squads, torturers, and state terrorism. One of the results of this scandal will be the disclosure of this history. We need to have a moment of truth, just like East Germany and the old USSR, with declassification of the history, revelations of the truth, and eventually some form of reconciliation.

It is time to shatter the myth before the myth destroys democracy in the USA.

Those of us whose friends have bullet holes in their heads are not the only ones demanding truth any more.

[IsItJustMe]

53. For me, this myth was shattered in a college politial science course, about 16 years ago. There was

a one paragraph mention of how our govt was involded in taking out a South American leader. I thought it was liberal propaganda at the time (yeah, I admit, I was a flag waver at one point in my life), but truth has always been very important to me.

I did the research, and sure enough. I couldn't believe it. The blinders came off and I saw things quit differently from that point on.

[abq e streeter]

78. With truth being very important to you, and the blinders having come off,

then you are the REAL flag waver, and the REAL patriot. BTW , since I have been known to post sarcastic stuff without the sarcasm emoticon, just want to make sure that you don't for a second think I'm being anything but sincere and appreciative of your awakening, and wishing there were more people like you who used their own innate intelligence to see through the BS we all have shoved down our throats.

[defendandprotect]

66. Bush can't be too concerned; didn't he just buy a large estate in Paraguay???

[L. Coyote]

74. There should be further inquiry into any relationship to the Archives.

This is my point of suspicion, that there may be an attempt to influence politics in Paraguay, to prevent
disclosure of the TRUTH about the dictatorship and US involvement in the death squads, torture, and murders.

[defendandprotect]

107. Aha . . . yes, I see . . . thank you!

[Judi Lynn]

72. It will be great when the whole story is rendered on Kissinger's large part in this. n/t

[L. Coyote]

94. And all the other players too, like CIA tape destroyer Jose Rodriguez

I just read in the NY Times that his lawyer is Bennett! If that is an indicator of the seriousness.....

[bagrman]

69. Most everyone was watching the OJ shit.

[1monster]

82. O.J.'s trial was in the mid nineties....

from the murder in June, 1994 till the aquital in October 1995.

There was some other reason people didn't know about it in the eighties.

[bagrman]

92. My mistake Forget which distraction they threw out.

[Judi Lynn]

60. They also threw them out of airplanes and helicopters in Chile.

I read somewhere that this happened some in VietNam, where Cuban "exiles" worked. Some of the Cuban "exiles" worked in South America in Operation Condor, as well as all over the globe, in hit teams, bent on killing political enemies.

The first time I ever heard of this happening was a life-altering moment. This seems beyond the reach of redemption forever. Any government and all the people involved who would ever dream of condoning this are NOT human any longer.

[L. Coyote]

63. When I was in Chile, people were beginning to talk, though Pinochet was in power still

and I got an earful. The most dramatic story was from a potato farmer early one morning. I was walking down the highway as was he. He told the story of what he witnessed there, in the place we were walking.

One early foggy morning, as first light was only dawning, he was walking to his fields and took notice of activity on the bridge.
Troops had lined up some people on the edge of the bridge. They machine gunned the people over the edge into the river, so the would float out to the ocean nearby. The farmer was able to slip away in the fog and darkness unnoticed. All the years since, he has had to cross this bridge to walk to his fields. I suspect that I was the first opportunity he had, a stranger from afar, to unburden that memory a bit.

I got out of Chile alive. Many did not.

[republicansarewhores]

161. You dance.

I'll piss.

RAW

[scarletwoman]

8. I hope people understand that all these atrocities against "leftists" were committed for the sake of

predatory capitalism.

The single overriding principle of U.S. foreign policy has ALWAYS been to ensure that an independent course of development could never succeed in any country that might hope for economic sovereignty and national control of their own resources.

sw

[robinlynne]

11. yes.

[L. Coyote]

14. I hope they understand the continuum to the present rhetoric and policies.

There has always been a war on "terror" and only the identity of political enemies has shifted.
The people around the world who are the victims of American imperial atrocities have fought back recently, and this has been exploited to gain support for kidnapping and murder everywhere and anywhere in the world.

We need to understand that the US War on Terror will be the subject of this sort of news article in the next decade.

How many have disappeared in the last 7 years?

Are the Sandinista terrorists on the Texas border yet? Rhetoric to haunt Freeepers.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x503712#504746

[L. Coyote]

132. What Is A Terrorist? by Jeff Cohen = murdered nuns "were also political activists”

May 1, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
What Is A Terrorist? by Jeff Cohen
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0501-02.htm

ter·ror·ist (ter'er-ist) n. 1. One who engages in acts or an act of terrorism.

2. One who leads an armed group that kills civilians as a means of political intimidation -- unless he terrorizes Haitians while on the CIA-payroll, as did 1990s death squad leader Emmanuel Constant, in which case the U.S. refuses to extradite him to Haiti, even after Sept. 11, 2001.

3. One who targets civilian airliners and ships -- unless he blows up a Cuban civilian airliner, killing 73 people, and fires at a Polish freighter, like Orlando Bosch, in which case he is coddled and paroled by the Bush Justice Department in 1990, and his extradition is blocked.

4. One who leads a group that engages in kidnapping and murder -- unless the victims are Hondurans attacked by CIA-backed death squad Battalion 316, in which case Battalion architect Gustavo Alvarez becomes a Pentagon consultant, while the then-ambassador to Honduras who downplayed the terror, John Negroponte, is appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations days after Sept. 11.

5. One who uses rape and murder for political purposes -- unless the victims are four U.S. church women sexually assaulted and killed in 1980 by members of El Salvador’s U.S.-backed military, in which case excuses and distortions pour forth from then-U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick (“these nuns were not just nuns; they were also political activists”) and Secretary of State Al Haig (the nuns “may have tried to run a roadblock”).

6. One who designates civilians as “soft targets” to be attacked in the cause of political transformation -- unless the targets are Nicaraguans killed by Contra guerrillas armed and directed by the U.S who, according to Human Rights Watch, “systematically engage in violent abuses…so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war.”

7. One who facilitates a massacre of civilians -- unless the victims are 900 Palestinians shot and hacked to death in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Lebanese Christian militia as Israeli soldiers stood guard, in which case Israel’s then-Defense Minster (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon remains a U.S. “War on Terrorism” ally after being censured as indirectly responsible for the massacre by an Israeli commission of inquiry.

[Beam Me Up]

61. A one-sentence summation of the whole of US foreign policy.

The single overriding principle of U.S. foreign policy has ALWAYS been to ensure that an independent course of development could never succeed in any country that might hope for economic sovereignty and national control of their own resources.

:headbang: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[L. Coyote]

76. After US Marines began the 21 year occupation of Nicaragua, Pres. Taft said,

"The day is not far distant when three Stars & Stripes
at three equidistant points will mark our territory:
one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal and
the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will
be ours in fact as, by virtue of our superiority of race,
it already is ours morally."

The Bush junta has seemingly expanded this vision to the entire globe.

[defendandprotect]

67. Pres Kennedy, however, spoke of every nation setting their own economic policies -- no Pax Americana

etc ---

And JFK ran on a Democratic Platform which called for nationalizing Oil --

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. A news source which doesn't know the name of a fomer President is dubious at best

[L. Coyote]

23. The father is George Herbert Walker Bush and the son is George Walker Bush

That's close enough to Sr. and Junior for me. But, excuse me!!!

[Freddie Stubbs]

153. The author would be more credible if he used proper terminology

[Cha]

64. Leave it to you to

defend pappy bush..kinda of habit of clintonistas.

[Freddie Stubbs]

154. I'm not defending anyone. What's wrong with seeking some competency in journalists?

:shrug:

[ileus]

15. they'll get over it, I'd give the NO American....even a Bush.

[scarletwoman]

19. Get over it?!? Mass murderers should be delivered to justice. Nationality means nothing. (nt)

[L. Coyote]

20. No statute of limitations on murder. Just a matter of an extradition request.

All persons are equal under the law, plain and simple.

Do the crime, do the time.

[Reterr]

36. What does that even mean?

"I'd give the NO American"

??? New Orleans American?

[L. Coyote]

37. Opposition to extraditing any American, I believe the typo is "them"

The idea that no American should be extradited if indicted in another country is, of course, untenable.
We have extradition treaties and they are upheld as law, because treaties are law.

It would be controversial to have an extradition request for a past CIA Director, or a Vice-President or President.
One of the thing the Junior has done is seal the records of Senior because the records may have evidence of criminality.
I would expect politization of justice to kick in if Senior was sought for trial while Junior is still in charge of the Junta.

[L. Coyote]

24. Human Rights and the Court

Human Rights and the Court
July 3, 2004 - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00EED71E38F930A35754C0A9629C8B63


The Supreme Court has upheld an important law that offers victims of torture, genocide, slavery and war crimes worldwide a day in court, and a shot at justice. The law, the arcane Alien Tort Claims Act, was originally written to fight piracy in 1789, but it has been used by foreigners to sue in American courts for overseas human rights violations.

Holocaust survivors used the act to pry damages from the Swiss banks that held the assets of Nazi victims. In Myanmar, people who say they are victims of slave labor are using it to sue an American company involved in a gas pipeline project. Victims of the Abu Ghraib prison abuses are now suing the prison's private contractors under the act.

Human rights advocates rely on the law to adjudicate a wide range of crimes that might otherwise never get to court. International businesses hate the law and consider it a license for American courts to stray from their jurisdiction and hold them accountable for the sins of unsavory foreign governments. The Bush administration agrees.

But in its first ruling on the act, the Supreme Court properly sided with the cause of human rights. Justice David Souter's opinion, in a 6-to-3 decision on the fate of the act, tries to strike a balance by upholding it but limiting its applicability to those crimes of universal jurisdiction that nations have agreed are particularly heinous. The actual case before the court -- a lawsuit by a Mexican doctor illegally detained for a few hours during an investigation into the death of an federal Drug Enforcement Administration officer -- didn't come close to meeting that threshold, and was thrown out.

The Supreme Court also said that lower courts should be sensitive to how cases could affect American foreign policy. Judges should treat such claims warily. The Bush administration is too quick to argue that the application of the act will impede the war on terror and poison relations with friendly governments.

[Disturbed]

25. Bush Sr. is an evil man in charge of a Crime Family.

He has the appearance of being a nice guy yet he is as evil as any Mafia Crime Boss.

[L. Coyote]

26. Extradition?? Why Bother. Argentina can KIDNAP BUSH. High Court's Right-to-Kidnap Ruling

U.S. Tries to Quiet Storm Abroad Over U.S. Tries to Quiet Storm Abroad Over High Court's Right-to-Kidnap Ruling
By NEIL A. LEWIS - June 17, 1992 - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DE1131F934A25755C0A964958260


The Bush Administration moved today to assure Mexico and other countries that it would respect their sovereignty in spite of a Supreme Court ruling Monday upholding the United States's right to kidnap a criminal suspect without following procedures set out in extradition treaties.

......

In its 6-to-3 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court reinstated a Federal case ... Mexico has continuously criticized the abduction, and it denounced the Supreme Court decision as "invalid and unacceptable." This afternoon Mexican officials were meeting with the United States Ambassador, John D. Negroponte ....

The Bush Administration ... had sought the court's ruling .....

The Foreign Minister of Argentina, Guido Di Tella, said in a reaction that echoed others from Latin America that if any kidnapping was carried out on Argentine soil, "it will be a shocking and extremely serious step."....... Several scholars said the case would have a troubling impact, particularly on relations with Latin America, and could even open the door for other countries to claim the right to kidnap criminal suspects on American soil.

...................

[wildbilln864]

27. K7R! Justice be done! n/t

[goforit]

28. Hey, Poppy...What yah have to say to this one sweetheart?????

Enjoy your creation.

[Octafish]

30. Make. My. Day.

I don't like my country hijacked by murderers.

[druidity33]

145. excellent composite photo

almost as easy to place as a fake than the original fake. I'm reading The Assassination Chain right now and finding myself outraged at how little folk seem to know about the machinations of gov't on the murders of JFK, RFK, MLK, and potential George Wallace.

I read something (unsourced) recently that claimed GHWB was set to have dinner with John Hinckley Sr, the day Reagan was shot. Ever heard of that?

This is an interesting thread.

Thanks LCoyote!

K&R

[L. Coyote]

31. BUSH Buddies: Gen. Rafael Videla = Argentina's Dapper State-Terrorist

Argentina's Dapper State-Terrorist
Aug 19, 1998 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/1990s/consor17.html

"What is your favorite book," a journalist asked Gen. Rafael Videla, after he ascended to power in Argentina in 1976.
"Book?" Videla replied.
The journalist was perspiring. He didn't think it was a hard question to ask someone leading the nation. But suddenly the journalist felt that the question could jeopardize not only his career but his life.
It was embarrassing that the new president could not come up with at least one title of one book. So the journalist tried to help out with suggestions: "The Bible perhaps? Martin Fierro (the most important book in Argentina's literature)?"
Videla said something about his first-grade reading book, but ... he could not remember its title. (Diario Perfil, an article by Omar Bravo, July 10, 1998)

By Marta Gurvich

Former Argentine president Jorge Rafael Videla, the 73-year-old dapper dictator who launched the so-called Dirty War in 1976, was arrested on June 9 for a particularly bizarre crime of state, one that rips at the heart of human relations. Videla, known for his English-tailored suits and his ruthless counterinsurgency theories, stands accused of permitting -- and concealing -- a scheme to harvest infants from pregnant women who were kept alive in military prisons only long enough to give birth. According to the charges, the babies were taken from the new mothers, sometimes by late-night Caesarean sections, and then distributed to military families or shipped to orphanages. After the babies were pulled away, the mothers were removed to another site for their executions.

............

After democracy was restored in Argentina, Videla was among the generals convicted of human rights crimes, including "disappearances," tortures, murders and kidnappings. In 1985, Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment at the military prison of Magdalena. But, on Dec. 29, 1990, amid rumblings of another possible military coup, President Carlos Menem pardoned Videla and other convicted generals. Many politicians considered the pardons a pragmatic decision of national reconciliation that sought to shut the door on the dark history of the so-called Dirty War when the military slaughtered from 10,000 to 30,000 Argentineans. Relatives of the victims, however, continued to uncover evidence that children taken from their mothers' wombs sometimes were being raised as the adopted children of their mothers' murderers.

..............

Latin American militaries collaborated on projects such as the cross-border assassinations of political dissidents. Under one project, called Operation Condor, political leaders -- centrist and leftist alike -- were shot or bombed in Buenos Aires, Rome, Madrid, Santiago and Washington, D.C. Operation Condor often employed CIA-trained Cuban exiles as assassins.

In 1980, four years after the coup, the Argentine military exported its terror tactics into neighboring Bolivia. There, Argentine intelligence operatives helped Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and major drug lords mount a brutal putsch, known as the Cocaine Coup. The bloody operation turned Bolivia into the first modern drug state and expanded cocaine smuggling into the United States.

Videla's anything-goes anti-communism struck a responsive chord with the Reagan administration which came to power in 1981. President Reagan quickly reversed President Carter's condemnation of the Argentine junta's record on human rights. Reagan's U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick even hosted the urbane Argentine generals at an elegant state dinner.

More substantively, Reagan authorized CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence service .....

[L. Coyote]

32. Dictator of the Month: July, 2007 = Jorge Rafael Videla

http://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/Videla/Jul2007VidelaEN.htm

Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo (born August 21, 1925 in Mercedes, Buenos Aires) was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón. After the return to democracy, he was prosecuted for large-scale human rights abuses, including widespread torture and extrajudicial murder of suspected and actual leftists under his rule. He is now under house arrest.

The coup

Brigade General Jorge Videla was named Commander-in-Chief by President Isabel Perón in 1974. Perón, former Vice-President to her husband Juan Perón, had come to the presidency following his death. Her authoritarian administration was unpopular and ineffectual. Videla headed a military coup which deposed her on 24 March 1976. A military junta was formed, made up of himself, representing the Army, Admiral Emilio Massera representing the Navy, and Brigadier General Orlando Ramón Agosti representing the Air Force. Two days after the coup, Videla formally assumed the post of President of Argentina.

Human rights violations

The military junta took power during a period of extreme instability, with terrorist attacks from the Marxist groups ERP and the Montoneros, who had turned underground after Juan Perón's death in July 1974, from one side and violent right-wing kidnappings, tortures, and assassinations from the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, led by José López Rega, Perón's Minister of Social Welfare, and other death squads on the other side. The members of the junta took advantage of this to justify the coup, by naming the administration "National Reorganization Process". The Argentine military government arrested, detained, tortured, and killed suspected terrorists and political opponents. As a result, human rights violations became commonplace. According to estimates, at least 8,960 and up to about 30,000 Argentinians were subject to forced disappearance (desaparecidos) and most probably killed; many were illegally detained and tortured, and others went into exile. Politically, all legislative power was concentrated in the hands of Videla's nine-man junta, and every single important position in the national government was filled with loyal military officers. The junta banned labor unions and strikes, abolished the judiciary, and effectively suspended most civil liberties. Despite the abuses, Videla's regime received support from the Argentine Roman Catholic Church and local media, though the extent to which such support was given willingly remains the subject of much debate.

In addition to direct abuses by the military, far-right paramilitary groups, particularly the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA), carried out widespread atrocities, given free reign by the new military government.

.......

.... U.S.-Argentine relations remained lukewarm at best until Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. His administration sought the assistance of the Argentinean intelligence services in training the Contras for guerrilla warfare against the new Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Because of this, Videla maintained a relatively friendly relationship with the U.S. under the Reagan administration .....

[L. Coyote]

33. Coming Soon to the United States? Plan Condor, the Sequel

Coming Soon to the United States? Plan Condor, the Sequel
by Toni Solo - Dissident Voice - Sep 27, 2003
http://dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Solo_Condor-US.htm


..... Bulgheroni and Peres had plenty to reminisce about. Israel and Argentina served as US proxies training terrorists in Central America through the 1970s and 1980s.

Argentinean death squad trainers based in Guatemala were reported to have masqueraded as Bridas employees. During that time Peres served as Israel's Defence Minister, Prime Minister, deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister - well aware of Israeli military commitments in the Americas. Reviewing the background to US sponsored Argentinean and Israeli terrorism reveals how the fictional "war on terror" is just another pretext for the pillage of Latin America by the US government and its favoured multinational corporations.

Three years after destroying democracy by instigating the military coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, Henry Kissinger was in Santiago for a meeting of the Organization of American States. There he met the Argentinean military junta's foreign minister. According to Robert Hill, then U.S. Ambassador in Argentina, "Kissinger asked how long it would take ... to clean up the (terrorist) problem....Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light ... The Secretary wanted Argentina to finish its terrorist plan before year end." <2> Hill should know. It was he who served as intermediary between organizers of the Guatemalan death squads and leading figures in the Argentinean government. <3>

Between 1976 and 1983, under the military dictatorship, the Argentinean armed forces killed over 30,000 civilian members of the country's political opposition. Around 500 babies of women who gave birth in detention were distributed among their parents' murderers. In over 300 camps and detention centres, victims were tortured to death and then dumped in mass graves or flown out to be dropped into the Atlantic from military transport planes. Their property and goods were divided up among their torturers and murderers - over US$70m worth.

By 1980, the priorities for President Reagan's Latin American team were to defeat the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, stop the revolutionary movements in Guatemala and El Salvador and to wipe out the popular movement in Honduras. By the end of 1981 many now familiar people were in place. Elliot Abrams (now Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs on the National Security Council) was Assistant Secretary of State for, incredibly, human rights and humanitarian affairs. John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras and John Maisto ambassador to Nicaragua. John Poindexter, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, Otto Reich, Roger Noriega, all worked on Latin America under Reagan. All were brought back into the White House by George W. Bush after the Republican packed Supreme Court effectively validated the Florida voting fraud in the 2000 US presidential elections. <6>

Early in 1980, Argentinean army and naval officers arrived in Guatemala to provide counterinsurgency training for the Lucas Garcia regime. Together with advisers from Chile and Israel they assisted the Guatemalan death squads, originally created by the CIA in the 1960s. An estimated 200,000 people were killed by the Guatemalan military..........

[BreweryYardRat]

34. I'd like to see the '08 Democratic President have the balls to let GHWB be extradited.

Kucinich and (maybe( Edwards are the only ones who would, though.

[defendandprotect]

70. Considering their crimes, what extent might they go to in order to prevent that?

[BreweryYardRat]

93. They (BushCo) can't go to any extent if it's handled right.

Simply make them think they won't be prosecuted. And once they're out of office, pounce.

[defendandprotect]

110. I suspect that they might have suspicions about such a ploy . . .

It's a big chessboard they're playing on --

they have a lot of the pieces under their control ---

[defendandprotect]

111. Notice today, moving from Iran as a threat to Bush citing North Korea !!!

They don't stop for a moment --- by plan.

[L. Coyote]

35. Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System.

Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System.
by J. Patrice McSherry - http://larc.sdsu.edu/humanrights/rr/PLAarticles/mcsherry.html

McSherry, J. Patrice. "Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System." Social Justice, Winter 1999 v26 i4 p144.
*Article used with author's permission. Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Crime and Social Justice Associates

IN THE 10 YEARS SINCE THE COLD WAR'S END, THE WORLD HAS SEEN A GRADUAL
opening up of formerly Secret state archives on both sides of the East-West divide,
as well as truly astonishing developments in human rights and international law.
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon's request for the arrest and extradition of
General Augusto Pinochet in October 1998 was perhaps one of the most
astounding of these developments, not least because this case involved a
former ally of the U.S. government in the Cold War. Clearly, the collapse of
the Communist bloc and the end of the bipolar system were major structural
changes on the international level, allowing concerns with human rights and
justice to emerge with new strength and begin to challenge the limits set by
Cold War geopolitics. In effect, the struggle against impunity is becoming
"globalized," a positive aspect of the larger phenomena of globalization. Yet
profound questions remain. If a new threat to global U.S. interests were to
emerge or a powerful challenge to the hegemony over the Western political and
economic model were to arise, w ould concerns with human rights again be swept
aside in the name of national security? Would the ends again justify the
means?

The arrest of Pinochet refocused world attention on the dirty wars of the Cold
War era in Latin America. A key focus of Garzon's investigation is Operation
Condor, a shadowy Latin American military network whose key members were
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. Condor represented a
striking new level of coordinated repression among the anticommunist
militaries in the region, and its existence was suspected, but undocumented,
until fairly recently. Condor enabled the Latin American military states to
share intelligence and to hunt down, seize, and execute political opponents in
combined operations across borders. Refugees fleeing military coups and
repression in their own countries who sought safe havens in neighboring
countries were "disappeared" in combined transnational operations. The
militaries defied international law and traditions of political sanctuary to
carry out their shared anticommunist crusade. This article shows that Condor
was a parastatal system that used criminal me thods to eliminate "subversion,"
while avoiding constitutional institutions, ignoring due process, and
violating all manner of human rights. Condor made use of parallel prisons,
secret transport operations, routine assassination and torture, extensive
psychological warfare (PSYWAR, or use of black propaganda, deception, and
disinformation to conquer the "hearts and minds" of the population, often by
making crimes seem as though they were committed by the other side), and
sophisticated technology (such as computerized lists of suspects).

Condor must be understood within the context of the global anticommunist
alliance led by the United States. .........

[L. Coyote]

39. High-Level Assassinations

The assassination in
Washington, D.C., of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt occurred in 1976. DNA
agents contracted fascist terrorists ia Italy -- including several involved in
the Gladio network -- and Cuban exiles in the right-wing Cuban Nationalist
Movement to assist in carrying Out the respective crimes. A U.S. expatriate
and DNA assassin, Michael Townley, links all three cases. In Chile, Townley
claimed that he was a CIA operative, as did his defense attorney during the
Letelier assassination trial in the United States, but the CIA said he was
not. He was a U.S. Embassy informa nt and a militant in Patria y Libertad, the
right-wing terrorist group funded by the CIA. <57>

Townley eventually revealed the details of the Letelier and Moffitt
assassinations in a U.S. court. He and a Chilean officer named Armando
Fernandez Larios obtained false passports in Paraguay, telling diplomats there
they had CIA approval for a secret mission in the United States. Townley and
Ferndndez originally communicated with Colonel Benito Guanes, <58> the
Paragunyan army intelligence chief who since has been linked to Condor. U.S.
Ambassador George Landau became suspicious, however, and informed the CIA;
which told him there was no such mission. <59> Two other DNA agents eventually
traveled on false Chilean passports to Washington, and they sent word to
General Vernon Walters at the CIA when they arrived. Thus, Dinges and Landau
posit that the CIA-under Director George Bush at the time -- knew DNA was
planning a covert operation in Washington, D.C., yet did not notify law
enforcement or Letelier himself. In September 1976, Townley arrived in
Washington and recruited individuals from the Cuban Nationa list Movement, all
but one of whom had been involved in the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs operation
(Landau, 1978: 12; Branch and Propper, 1982: 349-352). They monitored
Letelier, bought explosives, built a bomb, and placed it under his car.

The CIA neglected to inform federal investigators about what it knew for
months after the crime while prosecutors tried to identify the assassins.
Indeed, the CIA promoted the hypothesis that the crime had been committed by
the Left, and insisted that DNA was not involved (Landau, 1978: 33-35; Dinges
and Landau, 1980: 382-398; Corn, 1994: 329). Meanwhile, the Chilean junta
denied responsibility and Contreras blamed the CIA (Valenzuela and Constable,
1991: 105-106). Given the CIA's knowledge of DNA operations, and its close
links to DNA and to Cuban exile groups, its behavior raises suspicions. The
CIA's reaction resembled the classic black propaganda tactic of blaming the
other side in order to deceive and confuse.

[L. Coyote]

88. Condor Assassinations "Kissinger strenuously objected to criticism of the pro-U.S. military regimes"

The Undead Ghost of Operation Condor
by J. Patrice McSherry
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.2/mcsherry.htm

Condor Assassinations -

The most secret level of Condor operations was known as “Phase III”: its worldwide program of assassinations of democratic and progressive leaders. Phase III proved that Condor’s targets were not only “subversives” or guerrillas, but also progressive leaders contesting military rule and the anticommunist crusade. The Condor prototype murdered Carlos Prats and his wife in 1974 by blowing up their car, and in 1975 attempted the assassination of Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Ana Fresno, in Rome, Italy. The couple was severely wounded, but survived. Condor units kidnapped and assassinated exiled Uruguayan legislators Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz in Buenos Aires in May 1976, Bolivian ex-president Torres in Buenos Aires in June, and Letelier and Moffitt in September. The assassinations of such prominent democratic figures caused shock waves in the region and the world.

Michelini had been one of the founders of the center-left Frente Amplio in Uruguay, formed in 1970 to seek progressive change through the electoral system. Michelini became a senator representing the Frente. In the Senate, he was a fierce critic of the slow-motion coup in that country and the use of torture by security forces. After dissolving Congress in 1973, the military declared him a seditious subversive. Gutiérrez Ruiz had been a member of the National (or Blanco) Party who had been president of the House of Representatives. Both left Uruguay under death threat in 1973 and moved to Argentina.

Heavily armed men in plain clothes seized both men on the same day in May 1976. Their apartments were ransacked and their families terrorized. The squadrons behaved with military precision, communicated via radios to their superiors, and showed no concern about acting in broad daylight. The Argentine military junta did not respond to repeated requests for help from the legislators’ families. The bullet-ridden, tortured bodies of the two men were discovered in a car several days later. Police documents recovered in Argentina and declassified by President Néstor Kirchner in 2004 provided evidence that the Uruguayans had been under surveillance coordinated between the regimes of Argentina and Uruguay.

In June 1976, when Kissinger learned that in May the U.S. Embassy in Argentina had delivered a formal protest to the Argentine junta regarding the human rights situation, he was infuriated. Kissinger strenuously objected to criticism of the pro-U.S. military regimes in the region. “In what way is it compatible with my policy?” he fumed to Harry Schlaudeman, Assistant Secretary for Latin America. “How did it happen?…What do you guys think my policy is?…You better be careful. I want to know who did this and consider having him transferred.”1

U.S. officials had information through several channels about Condor’s targeting of Letelier in Washington D.C. Two Condor assassins, one Chilean and one U.S. expatriate, had approached the U.S. ambassador in Asunción, Paraguay, to obtain U.S. visas to enter the United States. They already had Paraguayan passports falsely depicting them as Paraguayans, provided by the Stroessner dictatorship. It was a routine method of camouflaging the perpetrators of Condor operations. ...............

[L. Coyote]

41. General Walters, under director Bush, was fully informed of the "international activities" of Condor

According to Washington's ambassador to Paraguay, the heads of these agencies kept "in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which covers all of Latin America." This allowed them to "co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries." Just this month, Pinochet's security chief General Manuel Contreras, who is serving a 240-year prison term in Chile for a wide-range of human rights violations, gave a TV interview in which he confirmed that the CIA's then-Deputy Director, General Vernon Walters (who served under director George H.W. Bush), was fully informed of the "international activities" of Condor.

Torture: Torture is the animating spirit of this triad, the unholiest of this unholy trinity. In Chile, Pinochet's henchmen killed or disappeared thousands -- but they tortured tens of thousands. In Uruguay and Brazil, the state only disappeared a few hundred, but fear of torture and rape became a way of life, particularly for the politically engaged. Torture, even more than the disappearances, was meant not so much to get one person to talk as to get everybody else to shut up.

At this point, Washington can no longer deny that its agents in Latin America facilitated, condoned, and practiced torture. Defectors from death squads have described the instruction given by their U.S. tutors, and survivors have testified to the presence of Americans in their torture sessions. One Pentagon "torture manual" distributed in at least five Latin American countries described at length "coercive" procedures designed to "destroy capacity to resist."

As Naomi Klein and Alfred McCoy have documented in their recent books, these field manuals were compiled using information gathered from CIA-commissioned mind control and electric-shock experiments ......

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174873/greg_grandin_on_the_torturable_and_the_untorturable

[L. Coyote]

151. General Vernon Walters (1917-2002) was one of the main collaborators of U.S. Presidents

General Vernon Walters (1917-2002) was one of the main collaborators of U.S. Presidents ...
http://www.terrorfileonline.org/en/index.php/Vernon_Walters


In a terrifying piece of testimony, given to the Chilean journalist Lilan Olivares and published on September 20, 2000 (sic) in the newspaper La Segunda, General Manuel Contreras, head of DINA (National Intelligence Directorate of Chile), related:

In August 1975, the President (Pinochet) sent me to the U.S. again because we were about to be thrown out of the UN. For two days, together with the military attaché and mission chief, we met with Senator (Frank) Church, the man who had destroyed the CIA and who wanted to throw Chile out of the United Nations. We finally convinced him that the information that he had received from the Vicaria de la Solidaridad (Chilean human rights organization) and the Chilean Marxist parties was false. We delivered to him our own information and he promised not to keep on insisting that Chile be expelled from the UN. (The intermediary was) Vernon Walters, second head of the CIA. Vernon Walters proposed that we take on a U.S. senatorial lobby so that international harassment of Chile would cease. He literally told me: Uruguay finished with her international problem in two years. (…) Five senators were paid two million dollars a year and they acted in favour of Chile.

Later (Walters) asked me again, openly, that DINA become a branch of the CIA, because the CIA had been destroyed. (…) Walters asked me to go and see Venezuela at the DISIP (Venezuelan Department of Intelligence and Prevention Services). I went there. (…) It was to see how DISIP worked with them, with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA. I went over there and I realized that the seven DISIP heads were Cuban CIA agents. They themselves told me this. And now something very important, and I’d like it to be very clear: DINA maintained a service relationship with 37 intelligence services in the world; one of these was the CIA. (…) Vernon Walters secretly saw to it that in ¨75 the first two thousand LAW missiles were delivered to Chile and this meant that there was a payment, what I mean, is that Walters was paying Chile.”

[L. Coyote]

43. SPIN OFF: TERRORISM as a Tool of the State = Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2460822

[L. Coyote]

44. John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents
http://www.johndinges.com/condor/


"Kissinger explained his opinion that the Government of Argentina had done an outstanding job in wiping out terrorist forces." --State Department cable, 1978.

This is the underground history of the international Dirty Wars by U.S. allies in South America. It is the first "War on Terrorism" and the parallels to the current wars are a cautionary tale. For much of a decade, six allied military governments engaged in secret warfare intended to wipe out their enemies, kidnapping and murdering up to 30,000 people. At the initiative of Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet, and with initial encouragement from the CIA, they set up a multinational terrorist organization, Operation Condor, to pursue those who escaped to other Latin American countries, Europe and the United States. Award-winning journalist John Dinges, using newly available U.S. documents and the dictatorships' own files, tells this gripping story from the point of view of those who have tried to keep it secret. He dispassionately lays bare the true extent of U.S. complicity in the crimes of the dictators who called the United States "the leader." Revolutionaries, intelligence operatives, U.S. officials--many speaking for the first time--recount the brutal struggle between Condor and its enemies. Revelations in the book include the never before told story of U.S. intelligence lapses that detected, but failed to prevent an assassination by our anticommunist allies in Washington, DC.

Now, after decades of relentless pursuit, investigators and judges are using the international trail of Condor’s crimes to reverse the impunity the generals have enjoyed for so long, starting with Pinochet’s own arrest in London. The still-ongoing Condor prosecutions are changing international human rights law forever. ............

[malaise]

45. And now his moronic son and their allies talk

about 'Islamofascists'. Same scam, different name. These men are international criminals.

[L. Coyote]

50. Old school propaganda. Hide your fascism by calling someone else a fascist.

"Up is down and down is up" propaganda immunizes your own population from understanding the true motivations and techniques of the true fascists.

One way to both justify and obfuscate evil is to create a DEVIL, a projection of the evil of immense size.
If the projection is immense enough, the evil one does becomes the GOoD.

[L. Coyote]

85. Pulling Back the Veil on Operation Condor by JOHN DINGES

Pulling Back the Veil on Condor by JOHN DINGES
July 24, 2000 - http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20000724&s=dinges


For three years, from 1975 through 1977, the countries in what is known as the Southern Cone of South America underwent a human rights crime wave unprecedented before or since in the region. Military regimes in place for more than a decade in Brazil and Paraguay were joined by like-minded military rulers who had overthrown civilian regimes in Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Perhaps the most closely guarded secret was a system of international cooperation known as Operation Condor, an intelligence organization in which multinational teams tracked down and assassinated dissidents outside their home countries. At least 13,000 people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned in concentration camps in the six countries participating in Condor.

Now, the discovery of secret-police documents in Paraguay and other recently declassified documents in the United States is pulling back the veil from Operation Condor. The new information paints a picture of up-to-the-minute knowledge of Condor operations by US officials, including detailed intelligence just before Chile sent a team to Washington, DC, where they killed a prominent opposition leader with a car bomb on Embassy Row. Other documents provide a feasible scenario for the origins of Operation Condor and point to the intriguing early involvement of an FBI agent. This is my reconstruction of what happened:

In May 1975, Paraguayan police arrested two men, Jorge Fuentes Alarcón and Amilcar Santucho, who represented what they considered a major new guerrilla threat, a united underground organization of armed groups from several countries, called the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta, or JCR.

The arrests were seen as an intelligence bonanza, according to Paraguayan and US documents. Last year the Justice Department declassified a letter, dated June 6, 1975, from an FBI agent, Robert Scherrer, to a Chilean police official. Scherrer, who had taken great interest in the arrest of the two revolutionaries, describes the results of "interrogations" of the two men.

" admitted that he is a member of the Coordinating Junta and was acting as a courier for said group," Scherrer wrote. Santucho, his traveling companion, was the brother of Argentina's most famous guerrilla leader, Roberto Santucho. Scherrer, whose job included intelligence liaison with the Southern Cone countries, told his Chilean counterpart that the FBI would follow up by investigating two people living in the United States, in New York and Dallas, whose names were discovered in Fuentes's address book (one of them was identified by Scherrer as Fuentes's sister). There can be little doubt that Scherrer was aware that the "interrogation" in Paraguay meant brutal torture--in fact, he discussed the Paraguayans' use of torture in a 1979 interview with me in which he also described Fuentes's arrest.

When the Paraguayans were finished interrogating Fuentes, they turned him over to Chile's secret police, the DINA. Two days later, DINA chief Manuel Contreras wrote an ebullient thank-you note, dated September 25, 1975, to his Paraguayan counterpart, conveying "the most sincere thanks for the cooperation given us to help in the mission my agents had to carry out in the sister republic of Paraguay, and I am sure that this mutual cooperation will continue and increase in the accomplishment of the common objectives of both services." Another long letter followed: Contreras invited three Paraguayan intelligence officials to attend a "strictly secret" meeting in Santiago along with intelligence chiefs from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay. .....................

[L. Coyote]

103. NEW DECLASSIFIED DETAILS ON REPRESSION AND U.S. SUPPORT FOR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

ON 30th ANNIVERSARY OF ARGENTINE COUP
NEW DECLASSIFIED DETAILS ON REPRESSION AND U.S. SUPPORT FOR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

Kissinger sought immediate support for the new military regime in spite of staff warnings on bloodshed
22,000 people murdered or disappeared by military between 1975 and 1978 according to secret Chilean intelligence report
Secret Argentine documents record Operation Condor kidnappings and disappearances carried out by military intelligence Battalion 601.

Posted - March 23, 2006 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/index.htm

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2006 - On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive posted a series of declassified U.S. documents and, for the first time, secret documents from Southern Cone intelligence agencies recording detailed evidence of massive atrocities committed by the military junta in Argentina. The documents include a formerly secret transcript (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/index.htm#19760326) of Henry Kissinger's staff meeting during which he ordered immediate U.S. support for the new military regime, and Defense and State Department reports on the ensuing repression. The Archive has also obtained internal memoranda and cables from the infamous Argentina intelligence unit, Battalion 601, as well as the Chilean secret police agency, known as DINA, which was secretly collaborating with the military in Buenos Aires.

The documents record Washington's initial reaction to the military takeover. "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States," Secretary of State Kissinger ordered his staff after his assistants warned him that the junta would initiate a bloodbath following the coup. According to the transcript, Kissinger's top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long."

State Department cables, including some obtained previously by the Argentine newspaper, Clarin, show that U.S. officials had prior knowledge of coup plotting. More than a week before the coup, Ambassador Robert Hill sent Assistant Secretary Rogers a secret cable reporting that the commander of the Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera, had requested that the U.S. embassy "indicate to him one or two reputable public relations firms in the U.S. which might handle the problem for a future military government." Massera, according to the cable, promised that the Argentine military would "not follow the lines of the Pinochet takeover in Chile," and would "try to proceed within the law and with full respect for human rights."

But although the military repression in Argentina drew less international attention than the Pinochet regime's in Chile, it far exceeded it in terms of human rights violations. ..................

READ THE DOCUMENTS ..........

[L. Coyote]

155. Condor legacy haunts South America = "Operation Condor is among the most sinister"

I believe there is more to the story than this BBC article trys to inform.
Wasn't the joint communications center at US Southern Command in Panama, not at DINA in Chile?

====================
Condor legacy haunts South America
By Robert Plummer - BBC News - 8 June 2005 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3720724.stm


Of all the unresolved issues from the dark days of military rule in Latin America, Operation Condor is among the most sinister. As many as six South American regimes took part in the joint campaign to hunt down and kill their left-wing opponents. ... the consequences continue to cast a shadow over the present-day governments ...

A Chilean court has now ruled that former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet is not mentally fit to be prosecuted ...
Operation Condor was founded in secret .... at a military intelligence meeting in Chile on 25 November 1975 - Gen Pinochet's 60th birthday ... there: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

.....

A joint information centre was established at the headquarters of the Chilean secret police, the Dina, in Santiago. .....

[Oilwellian]

38. The CIA guy that trashed the tapes....

Then again, for background, Gorman (WSJ)offers this on Rodriguez: He is, she writes, "a product of what one former agency colleague called ‘the rough-and-tumble' Latin American division" of the CIA from the 1980s. "Rough and tumble"? You won't find out what that means from her column, but just keep reading this post. In our period, men like Rodriguez, under the leadership of George W. Bush, have essentially globalized those "rough and tumble" methods of the CIA's Latin American division. As Greg Grandin -- whose superb book, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, nails those "rough-and-tumble" years -- points out, they have turned the "unholy trinity" that the U.S. developed in Latin America into a global operation.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174873/greg_grandin_on_the_torturable_and_the_untorturable

(Much more at the link...find it fascinating the WSJ is writing of Rodriguez and his connection to death squads in the 80's.)

[L. Coyote]

40. Amazing article. This really ties in. Like a jigsaw puzzle nearing completion

an image is developing of a continuum of murder, torture, and terror, uninterrupted since the McCarthyesque/Nixonian politics of the 1950s to the paranoid political delusions today.

..... in Central America, by the end of the 1960s, the bodies were piling so high that even State Department embassy officials, often kept out of the loop on what their counterparts in the CIA and the Pentagon were up to, had to admit to the obvious links between US-backed intelligence services and the death squads.

Washington, of course, publicly denied its support for paramilitarism, but the practice of political disappearances took a great leap forward in Guatemala in 1966 with the birth of a death squad created, and directly supervised, by U.S. security advisors. Throughout the first two months of 1966, a combined black-ops unit made up of police and military officers working under the name "Operation Clean-Up" -- a term US counterinsurgents would recycle elsewhere in Latin America -- carried out a number of extrajudicial executions.

Between March 3rd and 5th of that year, the unit netted its largest catch. More than 30 Leftists were captured, interrogated, tortured, and executed. Their bodies were then placed in sacks and dropped into the Pacific Ocean from U.S.-supplied helicopters. ....

[L. Coyote]

42. Treatment for a leftist: nearly drowned her, clipped electric wires to her breasts .. a CIA visitor

A survivor tells her story
Treatment for a leftist: Kicks, freezing water and electric shocks. In between, a visitor from the CIA.
By Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson | Sun Staff | June 15, 1995 | http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-negroponte3a,0,3966794.story?page=1

DAY AFTER DAY, for 78 days, Ines Consuelo Murillo was tortured by a secret Honduran military intelligence unit called Battalion 316.

Her captors tied the 24-year-old woman's hands and feet, hung her naked from the ceiling and beat her with their fists. They fondled her. They nearly drowned her. They clipped wires to her breasts and sent electricity surging through her body.

"It was so frightening the way my body would shake when they shocked me. They put rags in my throat so I would not scream," she said. "But I screamed so loud, sometimes it sounded like an animal. I would even scare myself."

Murillo is one of hundreds abducted and tortured during the 1980s by Battalion 316, a unit trained and equipped by the CIA to gather intelligence about subversives, at a time when Honduras was crucial to the Reagan administration's war against communism in Central America.

Many of those kidnapped were later murdered, their bodies discovered in fields and along riverbanks......

The CIA's visits to the jail are significant because U.S. officials in Honduras repeatedly claimed at the time that they had no evidence that the Honduran military was engaging in systematic human rights abuses.

.....

Stolz also confirmed that two battalion members, Florencio Caballero and Marco Tulio Regalado, were trained by the CIA. Murillo accuses those battalion members of being among her torturers. The two men graduated from a CIA interrogation course .....

[sarcasmo]

46. I thought of J.F.K when I first saw this headline. My wife calls him the stonecoldkiller.

Kick and Nom.

[postulater]

47. They may charge him but he will never face them.

[blm]

49. All of BushInc should have been in jail after BCCI report. Instead they grew stronger in

the 90s without the scrutiny they had been getting from a few brave souls in congress and senate.

[tom_paine]

52. Just think: a boyish HW Bush in kneepants, playing with his toys on the carpet

while his Daddy Prescott conspired with Nazis to deliver America to them and their Bushie lackeys.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651

This family, quite clearly are the greatest Arch-riminals in American History, bar none.

None of this is surpising, and what happen to those victims is what will happen to our great-granchildren if we do not remove this cancer from our nation, to paraphrase Watergate investigators, in which the Bushies were no doubt HIGHLY involved, but shielded from exposure and prosecution the same way FDR foolishly let Nazi Prescott off the hook in 1934, thus allowing this murderous, torturing, treasonous cancer of a family to remian and eventually grow to grind the American Experiment into dust, replacing with the Bushie Dream of The New World Order, which is nothing but a kinder and gentler version of Hitler's New World Order.

These murderers should be ontrail in the Hague.

Howeer, I caution America and American. I believe it is a ironclad fact that before the Imperial Family would allow any of their Ruling members to be jailed for their many crimes, they would happily if not gleefully pile up millions of America corpses to prevent that from happening, probably by having their al-Qaeda pals dentonated a nuke in NYC or some other town that would kill primarily Liberals.

I do not believe this is hyperbole in the least, not after all of their fasmily criminalty going all the way back to the Nazi Alliance to Destroy America in 1933 has been exposed and verified.

[Joe Chi Minh]

54. What's most amazing is that there are putative Democratic congressmen and

congresswomen (some obvious Republican Trojan horses), who are, at best, so morally-disoriented as to still condone the School of the Americas (...with its ever-changing name).

[Ganja Ninja]

55. Wouldn't it be nice to see father and son on trial on opposite

sides of the world at the same time. It would go a long way to restoring this country in the eyes of the rest of the world if we packed them both up and shipped them off.

[Javaman]

57. Key word "may". don't hold your breath. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

58. I will be dancing in the streets if this ever actually happens...

[phoebe]

62. as they should be tried for Gulf "war" 1 and 2 - after all Bremer was

Kissinger's guy....

[AntiFascist]

73. The true nature of the BFEE is coming to light. n/t

[L. Coyote]

97. “The American Rome: On the Theory of the Virtuous Empire,” by Lewis H. Lapham.

Harper's Magazine publishes “The American Rome: On the Theory of the Virtuous Empire,” by Lewis H. Lapham.
(August 2001)

A trenchent article by Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham analyzes the American tendency to believe that as a society blessed by God the United States can do no harm in the world. A radical shift in perspective required to confront the possibility that this might not be true — that this country like any other can be wrong.

Lapham writes:

Never intrinsic to the American landscape or the American character, evil is a deadly and unlicensed import, an outlandish disease smuggled through customs in a shipment of German philosophy or Asian rice. Innocent by definition, America invariably finds itself betrayed (at Pearl Harbor, the Little Big Horn, Havana Bay), and because we have been betrayed we always can justify the use of brutal or un-Christian means to defend the Ark of Safety against the world’s treachery.

Which is why America never needs to appoint truth commissions similar to those established by South Africa, Chile, Burundi, and any other country seeking to come to terms with its inevitably tragic past. The American past isn’t tragic...

[happygoluckytoyou]

77. BUSH..... A FAMILY OF WALKING DEAD

[L. Coyote]

80. RADIO Marie Trigona reports: Former military dictator to go on trial in Argentina

Former military dictator to go on trial in Argentina
Fri, 11/30/2007 - http://www.fsrn.org/content/former-military-dictator-go-trial-argentina

* Length: 4:04 minutes (3.73 MB)
* Format: Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile , Paraguay, Brazil , and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, which was also called operation condor. Marie Trigona reports from Argentina where some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

[L. Coyote]

81. Argentine Ex Oppressors to Stand Trial

Argentine Ex Oppressors to Stand Trial
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BDC53CA0C-8F93-41D6-9750-5CC5AEBB9F08%7D&language=EN

Buenos Aires, Nov 28 (Prensa Latina) Argentine Federal Judge Sergio Torres decided to bring ex dictator Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1981) and 16 other ex repressors linked to Plan Condor to trial.

......

The list includes ex Interior Minister Ret. Gen. Eduardo Albano Harguindeuy, Army Chief Ret. Gen. Cristino Nicolaides, and ex Generals Luciano Benjamin Menendez, Antonio Domingo Bussi, Santiago Omar Riveros and Eduardo Daniel De Lio.

There are a total 34 defendants, including 27 already tried and ten in preventive custody.

A long legal battle by human rights organizations led the Supreme Court to declare a pardon unconstitutional in July and this is considered to apply to the others that ex President Menem approved.

[L. Coyote]

83. LETELIER-MOFFITT ASSASSINATION 30 YEARS LATER

LETELIER-MOFFITT ASSASSINATION 30 YEARS LATER
Washington, DC, September 20, 2006 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB199/index.htm

National Security Archive calls for Release of Withheld Documents Relating to Pinochet's Role in Infamous Act of Terrorism in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976

Archive releases new document on CIA approach to Manuel Contreras on Operation Condor
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 199


On the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, the National Security Archive today called on the U.S. government to release all documents relating to the role of General Augusto Pinochet in the car bombing that brought terrorism to the capital city of the United States on September 21, 1976.

Hundreds of documents implicating Pinochet in authorizing and covering up the crime were due to be declassified under the Clinton administration but were withheld in the spring of 2000 as evidence for a Justice Department investigation into the retired dictator's role. After more than six years, according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive's Chile Documentation Project, it is time to release them. "If there is not going to be a legal indictment," Kornbluh said, "the documents can and will provide an indictment of history."

The Archive today released a declassified memo to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reporting on a CIA approach in early October 1976 to the head of the Chilean secret police, Manuel Contreras, regarding U.S. concerns about Operation Condor assassination plots. The secret memo, written by Kissinger's deputy for Latin America, Harry Schlaudeman, noted that Contreras had denied that "Operation Condor has any other purpose than the exchange of intelligence." While the car bombing in downtown Washington, D.C. that killed Letelier and Moffitt took place on September 21, 1976, the memo contains no reference to any discussion with Contreras about the assassinations--even though DINA was widely considered to be the most likely perpetrator of the crime. In 1978, Contreras was indicted by a U.S. Grand Jury for directing the terrorist attack.

The document was obtained by Kornbluh under the Freedom of Information Act.

The memorandum to Kissinger adds to a series of documents that have been obtained by the National Security Archive that shed light on what the U.S. government knew about Operation Condor .............

[L. Coyote]

84. Francisco Letelier = An Exiled Son of Santiago by TOM HAYDEN

An Exiled Son of Santiago by TOM HAYDEN
April 4, 2005 - http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050418&s=hayden

"Everywhere, begin the remembering."
(from a mural by Francisco Letelier, Venice, California)

At a backyard party in the counterculture community of Venice, California, a few years ago I met a young artist named Francisco Letelier. He had the long black hair of a warrior or musician, a classic Roman face and the muscular physique of a bodybuilder. His name, however, is what inevitably defines him, and what drew me to the event. Francisco--whose friends called him Pancho--is the son of Orlando Letelier, the Chilean diplomat murdered along with his colleague, Ronni Karpen, in Washington, DC, in 1976 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. The lives of then-11-year-old Francisco, his mother Isabel and his three teenage brothers were ruptured permanently when anti-Castro Cubans, dispatched by the Chilean secret police, detonated a bomb attached to Letelier's family car.

Though at the time I was immersed in California politics, the bombing jolted me viscerally, as it did thousands of opponents of Pinochet worldwide. The killings had taken place on Embassy Row, not a faraway Third World capital. Letelier, his colleague, and her husband, Michael Moffitt, who alone survived the blast, worked at the DC-based Institute for Policy Studies, a respected center that served thousands of civil rights and peace activists. The terrorist killings by agents of DINA (the Chilean directorate of national intelligence) sent the message that no one in progressive movements was safe.

..................

[L. Coyote]

86. "Operation Condor", an International Organization for Kidnapping Political Opponents

Latin America in the 1970s: "Operation Condor", an International Organization for Kidnapping Opponents
Translated Monday 1 January 2007, by Liliane Bolland
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article478.html


Under the aegis of the CIA, and with the complicity of several Western countries, the dictatorships of Latin America in the 1970s united their "services" against activists and progressive opponents to military regimes.

......

In June 1976, Nixon’s senior advisor, Henry Kissinger and secretary of inter-American affairs, William Rogers, gave the green light to the dictatorship in Buenos Aires to "eliminate subversion within ten months".

The foundations of "Condor" were actually laid before the Pinochet coup d’état in 1973. Under the umbrella of the CIA ..... The first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, fascist movements such as the Triple AAA - the Argentinean Anti-communist Alliance, set up by Lopez Rega, advisor to President Isabelle Peron .... Condor’s first phase was limited to Latin America, but this was followed by a second, in Europe, principally in France, Spain and Portugal, as well as inside the USA itself.

In 1974, the military chief of staff of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity Government, General Prats, died with his wife in an attack in Buenos Aires. The Argentinean capital would become the scene of the assassinations of the Uruguayan ex-parliamentarians, Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez and the ex-president of Bolivia, Juan José Torres.

In Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Asunción, activists of the Chilean Communist Party and militants MIR were assassinated. The list was long: the Peronista Montoneros, members of the MTO (the "All for the Country Movement"), two Argentinean groups that supported the armed struggle; the Uruguyan Tupamaros were kidnapped and transferred – many later figured among the "disappeared".

.........

Uruguay just arrested ex-president Bordaberry, his minister of foreign affairs and six military officers, responsible for the disappearance in Argentina in l976 of Uruguayan opponents to the regime.

..... It is sad to say that two of the pillars of the Condor Operation, Alfredo Stroessner and Augusto Pinochet, never paid for their crimes and died without ever answering charges about the "disappeared" - who continue to haunt the memory of people who had been crushed by fascist brutality.

[Judi Lynn]

101. Great post. They have tried every way in the world to duck being connected.

You may recall that Operation Condors hit on Orlando Letelier on the streets of Washington when they bombed his car, killing him and his American associate, Ronnie Moffit, injuring her husband, that two Cubans were assigned to planting the bomb.

_{George W. Bush} pardoned these guys almost immediately after taking office, and they were outta there, headed to Miami, after having served only a paltry few years, throwing off flippant remarks to the reporters trying to get some comments from them.

Yep, among _Bush's first acts as he pretended to be the American President. He pardoned Operation Condor guys, from the group his own father knew very, VERY well. (Was't the dad the C.I.A. director at the time they assassinated Letelier? I believe he was.)

Superior information. Thanks for helping those who would learn.

[L. Coyote]

89. Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, director of the National Directorate of Intelligence (DINA)

"The United States Attorney failed to win extradition of Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda & Pedro Espinoza Bravo from Chile."

Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, director of the National Directorate of Intelligence
http://www.tkb.org/CaseHome.jsp?caseid=320

(The MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Basesm (TKBsm) is the one-stop resource for comprehensive research and analysis on global terrorist incidents, terrorism-related court cases, and terrorist groups and leaders. TKB covers the history, affiliations, locations, and tactics of terrorist groups operating across the world, with over 35 years of terrorism incident data and hundreds of group and leader profiles and trials. http://www.tkb.org/AboutTKB.jsp)


USA v. Guillermo Novo Sampol et al: 78-CR-367-AER

Synopsis: In September 1976, a group calling itself the Cuban Nationalist Movement (CNM) assassinated Orlando Letelier, the former Ambassador to the U.S. from the Republic of Chile.

Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, director of the National Directorate of Intelligence (DINA-the intelligence and secret police agency of the Chilean Government) helped organize the assassination. Other defendants with official duties in DINA included:

* Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Director of Operations,
* Armando Fernandez Larios, and
* Michael Townley, who exchanged information for amnesty.

Others implicated were:

* Guillermo Novo Sampol,
* Alvin Ross Diaz,
* Virgilio Paz Romero,
* Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel,
* Ignacio Novo Sampol.

Manuel Contreras ordered Pedro Espinoza to assassinate Letelier, and it was Espinoza who passed the order on to Armando Fernandez and Michael Townley. These men used DINA resources arrange international travel, create false travel documentation, make monetary disbursements, and create intelligence contacts.

Armando Fernandez conducted surveillance of Letelier in the United States, and passed that information on to Townley. Cuban exiles, Ignacio Novo, Suarez, Ross and Paz provided explosives, detonating devices, and manpower to assist the assassination. Townley, Paz, and Suarez constructed a bomb, drove to Letelier's home in Maryland, and the bomb on his car.

On September 21, 1976 the bomb was detonated killing Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. The case went to trial in the United States, ............

..........

[L. Coyote]

90. Amnesty International Lists 20 Chilean Officers to be Brought to Justice

Amnesty International Lists 20 Chilean Officers to be Brought to Justice
DEC 15, 2006 - LONDON - http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/1215-05.htm


Amnesty International (AI) today published the names of 20 high-ranking Chilean officers whose trials have languished in the court system for several years. The organization called on Chilean authorities to ensure that the recent death of Augusto Pinochet is not used as an excuse to de-emphasize the importance of legal proceedings against others suspected of thousands of cases of torture, "disappearances" and killings committed under his rule.

"Pinochet may have been the mastermind, but there is always a chain of command that is involved when so many thousands of horrifying abuses occur," said Larry Cox, executive director for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "Chilean authorities must not drag their feet simply because the ringleader is gone. Many implicated in this human rights nightmare are still on the loose, and it is time for justice to be served."

Amnesty International demands that all obstacles to justice -- particularly the Amnesty Law of 1978 (Decree No. 2.191), which was enacted during the government of Augusto Pinochet -- be declared null and void.

"These crimes cannot go unpunished nor be protected by the application of the Amnesty law, which has been used by the courts too widely and too often," said Virginia Shoppee, AI's Chile researcher.

Among the officers currently in cases before the courts are:

* General (retired) Sergio Arellano Stark -- charged with 29 counts of homicide and 43 counts of “disappearance” ....

* General (retired) César Raúl Benavides Escobar, General (retired) Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Brigadier (retired) Miguel Krasnoff Martchenko, Teniente Coronel (retired) Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Coronel (retired) Carlos José López Tapia, Coronel (retired) Gregorio Mardones Díaz and Mayor (retired) Luis Felipe Polanco Gallardo -- charged with homicide, kidnapping, cover up and/or complicity .....

* General (retired) Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Coronel (retired) Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo and Brigadier (retired) Christoph Georg Paul Willeke Floel -- charged with kidnapping in the context of the "Condor Operation" ....

* General (retired) Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Coronel (retired) Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, General (retired) Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, Brigadier (retired) Miguel Krasnoff Martchenko, Teniente Coronel (retired) Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Coronel (retired) Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, Coronel (retired) Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Suboficial Mayor (retired) Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes and Brigadier General (retired) César Manriquez Bravo -- accused of the kidnapping and "disappearance" of 119 opposition members .....

[L. Coyote]

95. The CIA in Latin America by Tom Blanton “Torture was taught by CIA.”

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 27
The CIA in Latin America by Tom Blanton
March 14, 2000 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/


Today’s Washington Post features an op-ed on page A17 titled “Hardly a Distinguished Career,” written by National Security Archive director Tom Blanton and commenting on the CIA’s decision to award the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal to the highest-ranking CIA official fired in a 1995 scandal for failing to inform Congress about the CIA’s ties to human rights abuses in Guatemala.

Document 1: The Biographic Register, U.S. Department of State, July 1973, p. 402 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/05-01.htm

According to State Department biographical registers and journalistic accounts, the official, Terry R. Ward, started his career at the CIA in the early 1960s, initially in Laos as a paramilitary officer. He then served under diplomatic cover in a series of CIA stations in Latin America: Argentina in 1965 to 1968, the Dominican Republic from 1968 to 1970, Bolivia from 1970 to 1972, Venezuela from 1973 to 1975, and Peru from 1975 to 1977. By the middle 1980s, he had risen to the position of deputy chief of the Latin American division of the CIA’s directorate of operations. In 1987 and 1988, he was station chief in Honduras, supervising the CIA’s Nicaraguan contra operation. In early 1989, he returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, as chief of the Latin American division. In 1993 he became station chief in Switzerland, where he was when CIA director John Deutch fired him in 1995. For reasons of privacy, we have deleted the name of Ward's wife.

Document 2: CIA Training Manual, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation," July 1963 (excerpt). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/01-01.htm

Document 3: CIA Training Manual, "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual," 1983 (excerpt). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-01.htm

The CIA used two secret manuals during Terry Ward’s career to train Latin American militaries and security services in interrogating suspects, one titled “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation - July 1963,” and a updated version titled “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual -1983.” These two documents were declassified in January 1997 in response to a 1994 Freedom of Information Act request by the Baltimore Sun, and the Sun’s threat of a lawsuit under FOIA. The Sun headlined its report on the documents (27 January 1997, by Gary Cohn, Ginger Thompson, and Mark Matthews) as “Torture was taught by CIA.” The Sun’s story noted the admonition on page 46 of the 1963 manual that when planning an interrogation room, “the electric current should be known in advance, so that transformers or other modifying devices will be on hand if needed.” The Sun reported that “...this referred to the application of electric shocks to interrogation suspects.”

................

[Judi Lynn]

99. Dan Mitrione was a US torturer in Brazil and Uruguay in the 1960's, and was given a hero's funeral

by Richard Nixon. DU'ers will find substantial reference to this monster on the internetS. Here's one article:

Uruguay 1964-1970
Torture - as American as apple pie
excerpted from the book
Killing Hope
by William Blum

"The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.''

The words of an instructor in the art of torture. The words of Dan Mitrione, the head of the Office of Public Safety (OPS) mission in Montevideo.

Officially, OPS was a division of the Agency for International Development, but the director of OPS in Washington, Byron Engle, was an old CIA hand. His organization maintained a close working relationship with the CIA, and Agency officers often operated abroad under OPS cover, although Mitrione was not one of them.

OPS had been operating formally in Uruguay since 1965, supplying the police with the equipment, the arms, and the training it was created to do. Four years later, when Mitrione arrived, the Uruguayans had a special need for OPS services. The country was in the midst of a long-running economic decline, its once-heralded prosperity and democracy sinking fast toward the level of its South American neighbors. Labor strikes, student demonstrations, and militant street violence had become normal events during the past year, and, most worrisome to the Uruguayan authorities, there were the revolutionaries who called themselves Tupamaros. Perhaps the cleverest, most resourceful and most sophisticated urban guerrillas the world has ever seen, the Tupamaros had a deft touch for capturing the public's imagination with outrageous actions, and winning sympathizers with their Robin Hood philosophy. Their members and secret partisans held key positions in the government, banks, universities, and the professions, as well as in the military and police.

"Unlike other Latin-American guerrilla groups," the New York Times stated in 1970 "the Tupamaros normally avoid bloodshed when possible. They try instead to create embarrassment for the Government and general disorder." A favorite tactic was to raid the files of a private corporation to expose corruption and deceit in high places, or kidnap a prominent figure and try him before a "People's Court". It was heady stuff to choose a public villain whose acts went uncensored by the legislature, the courts and the press, subject him to an informed and uncompromising interrogation, and then publicize the results of the intriguing dialogue. Once they ransacked an exclusive high-class nightclub and scrawled the walls perhaps their most memorable slogan: "O Bailan Todos O No Baila Nadie -- Either everyone dances or no one dances."

Dan Mitrione did not introduce the practice of torturing political prisoners to Uruguay It had been perpetrated by the police at times from at least the early 1960s. However, in surprising interview given to a leading Brazilian newspaper in 1970, the former Uruguayan Chief of Police Intelligence, Alejandro Otero, declared that US advisers, and in particular Mitrione, had instituted torture as a more routine measure; to the means of inflicting pain they had added scientific refinement; and to that a psychology to create despair, such as playing a tape in the next room of women and children screaming and telling the prisoners that it was his family being tortured.
(snip)

Things got so bad in Mitrione's time that the Uruguayan Senate was compelled undertake an investigation. After a five-month study, the commission concluded unanimously that torture in Uruguay had become a "normal, frequent and habitual occurrence inflicted upon Tupamaros as well as others. Among the types of torture the commission's report made reference to were electric shocks to the genitals, electric needles under the fingernails, burning with cigarettes, the slow compression of the testicles, daily use of psychological torture ... "pregnant women were subjected to various brutalities and inhuman treatment" ... "certain women were imprisoned with their very young infants and subjected to the same treatment."
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Uruguay_KH.html



Former Indiana police chief, torturer Dan Mitrione.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1979 A19

Torture’s Teachers
By A.J. Langguth

~snip~
This has been on my mind since I returned from Cuba recently. In Havana, I had tried to hunt down a former double agent, a Cuban named Manuel, who was said to have information about United States involvement with torture in Latin America. Manuel had revealed his true sympathies by leaving his job with the C.I.A. in Montevideo and returning to his homeland. But from his editor I learned that Manuel, whose full name turned out to be Manuel Hevia Conculluela, would be out of the country the entire time I was in Cuba. I could, however, get a copy of the book he had published six months earlier, "Pasaporte 11333, Eight Years With the C.I.A."

Mr. Hevia had served the C.I.A. in Uruguay’s police program. In 1970, his duties brought him in contact with Dan Mitrione, the United States policy adviser who was kidnapped by the Tupamaro revolutionaries later that year and shot to death when the Uruguayan Government refused to save him by yielding up politician prisoners.

Mr. Mitrione has become notorious throughout Latin America. But few men ever had the chance to sit with him and discuss his rationale for torture. Mr. Hevia had once.

Now, reading Mr. Hevia’s version, which I believe to be accurate, I see that I too had resisted acknowledging how drastically a man’s career can deform him. I was aware that Mr. Mitrione knew of the tortures and condoned them. That was bad enough. I could not believe even worse of a family man. A Midwesterner. An American.

Thanks to Mr. Hevia, I was finally hearing Mr. Mitrione’s true voice:

"When you receive a subject, the first thing to do is to determine his physical state, his degree of resistance, through a medical examination. A premature death means a failure by the technician.

"Another important thing to know is exactly how far you can go given the political situation and the personality of the prisoner. It is very important to know beforehand whether we have the luxury of letting the subject die…

"Before all else, you must be efficient. You must cause only the damage that is strictly necessary, not a bit more. We must control our tempers in any case. You have to act with the efficiency and cleanliness of a surgeon and with the perfection of an artist…

More:
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/langguthleaf.html

[L. Coyote]

96. “A STUDY OF ASSASSINATION” CIA Assassination Manual

http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Documents/Assassination%20Manual.html

The CIA Assassination Manual came to light during the Iran-Contra era.
The "manual" had been provided to the Contra mercenary army.
One victim of Contra assassination was Ben Linder, of Portland, Oregon,
on April 28, 1987, during the Iran-Contra hearings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Linder

The 1983 manual as declassified included numerous revisions made by CIA apparently in July 1984 in the wake of public revelations about a CIA "assassination" manual used by the Nicaraguan contras. The revisions added a full page following the table of contents labeled "Prohibition against use of force," and overwrote in hand-printed letters most of the manual’s references to "coercive techniques." For example, the 1983 sentence on the second page of the introduction read "While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them and the proper way to use them." The 1984 revisions overwrote "do not stress" with the word "deplore" and replaced the phrase "the proper way to use them" with the phrase "so that you may avoid them." http://www.libertysecurity.org/article299.html

DEFINITION

Assassination is a term thought to be derived from “Hashish,” a drug similar to marijuana, said to have been used by Hasan-Dan-Sabah to induce motivation in his followers, who were assigned to carry out political and other murders, usually at the cost of their lives.

It is here used to describe the planned killing of a person who is not under the legal jurisdiction of the killer, who is not physically in the hands of the killer, who has been selected by a resistance organization for death, and whose death provides positive advantages to that organization.

EMPLOYMENT
Assassination is an extreme measure not normally used in clandestine operations. It should be assumed that it will never be ordered or authorized by any U.S. Headquarters, though the latter may in rare instances agree to its execution by members of an associated foreign service. This reticence is partly due to the necessity of committing communications to paper. No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded. Consequently, the decision to employ this technique must nearly always be reached in the field, at the area where the act will take place. Decision and instructions should be confined to an absolute minimum of persons. Ideally, only one person will be involved. No report may be made, but usually the act will be properly covered by normal news services, whose output is available to all concerned.

JUSTIFICATION
Murder is not morally justifiable. Self-defense may be argued if the victim has knowledge which may destroy the resistance organization if divulged. Assassination of persons responsible for atrocities or reprisals may be regarded as just punishment. Killing a political leader whose burgeoning career is a clear and present danger to the cause of freedom may be held necessary.

But assassination can seldom be employed with a clear conscience. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it.

CLASSIFICATIONS
The techniques employed will vary according to whether the subject is unaware of his danger, aware but unguarded, or guarded. They will also be affected by whether or not the assassin is to be killed with the subject. Hereafter, assassinations in which the subject is unaware will be termed “simple”; those where the subject is aware but unguarded will be termed “chase”; those where the victim is guarded will be termed “guarded.”

If the assassin is to die with the subject, the act will be called “lost.” If the assassin is to escape, the adjective will be “safe.” It should be noted that no compromises should exist here. The assassin must not fall into enemy hands.
A further type division is caused by the need to conceal the fact that the subject was actually the victim of assassination, rather than an accident or natural causes. If such concealment is desirable the operation will be called “secret”; if concealment is immaterial, the act will be called open”; while if the assassination requires publicity to be effective it will be termed “terroristic.”

Following these definitions, the assassination of Julius Caesar was safe, simple, and terroristic, while that of Huey Long was lost, guarded and open. Obviously, successful secret assassinations are not recorded as assassination at all. of Thailand and Augustus Caesar may have been the victims of safe, guarded and secret assassination. Chase assassinations usually involve clandestine agents or members of criminal organizations.

THE ASSASSIN
In safe assassinations, the assassin needs the usual qualities of a clandestine agent. He should be determined, courageous, intelligent, resourceful, and physically active. If special equipment is to be used, such as firearms or drugs, it is clear that he must have outstanding skill with such equipment.

Except in terroristic assassinations, it is desirable that the assassin be transient in the area. He should have an absolute minimum of contact with the rest of the organization and his instructions should be given orally by one person only. His safe evacuation after the act is absolutely essential, but here again contact should be as limited as possible. It is preferable that the person issuing instructions also conduct any withdrawal or covering action which may be necessary.

In lost assassination, the assassin must be a fanatic of some sort. Politics, religion, and revenge are about the only feasible motives. Since a fanatic is unstable psychologically, he must be handled with extreme care. He must not know the identities of the other members of the organization, for although it is intended that he die in the act, something may go wrong. Will the Assassin of Trotsky has never revealed any significant information, it was unsound to depend on this when the act was planned.

PLANNING
When the decision to assassinate has been reached, the tactics of the operation must be planned, based upon an estimate of the situation similar to that used in military operations. The preliminary estimate will reveal gaps in information and possible indicate a need for special equipment which must be procured or constructed. When all necessary data has been collected, an effective tactical plan can be prepared. All planning must be mental; no papers should ever contain evidence of the operation.
In resistance situations, assassination may be used as a counter-reprisal. Since this requires advertising to be effective, the resistance organization must be in a position to warn high officials publicly that their lives will be the price of reprisal action against innocent people. Such a threat is of no value unless it can be carried out, so it may be necessary to plan the assassination of various responsible officers of the oppressive regime and hold such plans in readiness to be used only if provoked by excessive brutality. Such plans must be modified frequently to meet changes in the tactical situation.

TECHNIQUES
The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject. A human being may be killed in many ways but sureness is often overlooked by those who may be emotionally unstrung by the seriousness of this act they intend to commit. The specific technique employed will depend upon a large number of variables, but should be constant in one point: Death must be absolutely certain. The attempt on Hitler’s life failed because the conspiracy did not give this matter proper attention.

Techniques may be considered as follows:

1. Manual
It is possible to kill a man with bare hands, but very few are skillful enough to do it well. Even a highly trained Judo expert will hesitate to risk killing by hand unless he has absolutely no alternative. However, the simplest local tools are often much the most efficient means of assassination. A hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand, or anything hard, heavy and handy will suffice. A length of rope or wire or a belt will do if the assassin is strong and agile. All such improvised weapons have the important advantage of availability and apparent innocence. The obviously lethal machine gun failed to kill Trotsky where an item of sporting goods succeeded.

In all safe cases where the assassin may be subject to search, either before or after the act, specialized weapons should not be used. Even in the lost case, the assassin may accidentally be searched before the act and should not carry an incriminating device if any sort of lethal weapon can be improvised at or near the site. If the assassin normally carries weapons because of the nature of his job, it may still be desirable to improvise and implement at the scene to avoid disclosure of his identity.

2. Accidents
For secret assassination, either simple or chase, the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated.

The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stair wells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve. Bridge falls into water are not reliable. In simple cases a private meeting with the subject may be arranged at a properly-cased location. The act may be executed by sudden, vigorous of the ankles, tipping the subject over the edge. If the assassin immediately sets up an outcry, playing the “horrified witness”, no alibi or surreptitious withdrawal is necessary. In chase cases it will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him. Care is required to insure that no wound or condition not attributable to the fall is discernible after death.

Falls into the sea or swiftly flowing rivers may suffice if the subject cannot swim. It will be more reliable if the assassin can arrange to attempt rescue, as he can thus be sure of the subject’s death and at the same time establish a workable alibi.

If the subject’s personal habits make it feasible, alcohol may be used <2 words excised> to prepare him for a contrived accident of any kind.

Falls before trains or subway cars are usually effective, but require exact timing and can seldom be free from unexpected observation.
Automobile accidents are a less satisfactory means of assassination. If the subject is deliberately run down, very exact timing is necessary and investigation is likely to be thorough. If the subject’s car is tampered with, reliability is very low. The subject may be stunned or drugged and then place in the car, but this is only reliable when the car can be run off a high cliff or into deep water without observation.

Arson can cause accidental death if the subject is drugged and left in a burning building. Reliability is not satisfactory unless the building is isolated and highly combustible.

3. Drugs
In all types of assassination except terroristic, drugs can be very effective. If the assassin is trained as a doctor or nurse and the subject is under medical care, this is an easy and rare method. An overdose of morphine administered as a sedative will cause death without disturbance and is difficult to detect. The size of the dose will depend upon whether the subject has been using narcotics regularly. If no, two grains will suffice.

If the subject drinks heavily, morphine or a similar narcotic can be injected at the passing out stage, and the cause of death will often be held to be acute alcoholism.

Specific poisons, such as arsenic or strychnine, are effective but their possession or procurement is incriminating, and accurate dosage is problematical. Poison was used unsuccessfully in the assassination or Rasputin and Kolohan, though the latter case is more accurately described as a murder.

4. Edge weapons
Any locally obtained edge device may be successfully employed. A certain minimum of anatomical knowledge is needed for reliability.
Puncture wounds of the body cavity may not be reliable unless the heart is reached. The heart is protected by the rib cage and is not always easy to locate.

Abdominal wounds were once nearly always mortal, but modern medical treatment has made this no longer true.

Absolute reliability is obtained by severing the spinal cord in the cervical region. This can be done with the point of a knife or a light blow of an axe or hatchet.

Another reliable method is the severing of both jugular and carotid blood vessels on both sides of the windpipe.

If the subject has been rendered unconscious by other wounds or drugs, either of the above methods can be used to insure death.

5. Blunt weapons
As with edge weapons, blunt weapons require some anatomical knowledge for effective use. Their main advantage is their universal availability. A hammer may be picked up almost anywhere in the world. Baseball and bats are very widely distributed. Even a rock or a heavy stick will do, and nothing resembling a weapon need be procured, carried or subsequently disposed of.

Blows should be directed to the temple, the area just below and behind the ear, and the lower, rear portion of the skull. Of course, if the blow is very heavy, any portion of the upper skull will do. The lower frontal portion of the head, from the eyes to the throat, can withstand enormous blows without fatal consequences.

6. Firearms
Firearms are often used in assassination, often very ineffectively. The assassin usually has insufficient technical knowledge of the limitations of weapons, and expects more range, accuracy and killing power than can be provided with reliability. Since certainty of death is the major requirement, firearms should be used which can provide destructive power at least 100% in excess of that thought to be necessary, and ranges should be half that considered practical for the weapon.

Firearms have other drawbacks. Their possession is often incriminating. They may be difficult to obtain. They require a degree of experience from the user. They is consistently over-rated.

However, there are many cases in which firearms are probably more efficient than any other means. These cases usually involve distance betweeen the assassin and the subject, or comparative physical weakness of the assassin, as with a woman.


(a) The precision rifle.
In guarded assassination, a good hunting or target rifle should always be considered as a possibility. Absolute reliability can nearly always be achieved at a distance of one hundred yards. In ideal circumastances, the range may be extended to 250 yards. The rifle shold be a wll made bolt or falling block action type, handling a powerful long-range cartirdge. The .300 F.A.B. Magnum is probably the best cartridge readily available. other excellent calibers are .375 M.. Magnum, .270 Winchester, .30 - 106 p.s., 8 x 60 MM Magnum, 9.3 X 62 KK and others of this type. These are preferable to ordinary military calibers, since ammunition available for them is usually of the expanding bullet type, whereas most ammunition for military refles is full jacketed and hence not sufficiently lethal. Military ammunition should not be altered by filing or drilling bullets, as this will adversely affect accuracy.

The rifle may be of the "bull gun" variety, with extra heavy barrel and set triggers, but in any case should be able to group in one inch at one hundred yards, but 2 1/2" groups are adequate. The sight shold be telescopic, not only for accuracy, but because such a sight is much better in dim light or near darkness. As long as the bare outline of the target is discernable, a telescope sight will work, even if the rifle and shooter are in total darkness.

An expanding, hunting bullet of such calibers as described above will produce extravagant laceration and shock at short or mid-range. if a man is struck just once in the body cavity, his death is almost entirely certain.

Public figures or guarded officials may be killed withgreat reliability and some safety if a firing point can be established prior to an official occasion. The propaganda value of this system may be very high.

(b) The machine gun.
Machine guns may be used in most cases where the precision rifle is applicable. Usually this will require the subversion of a unit of an official guard at a ceremony, though a skillful and determined team might conceivably dispose of a loyal gun crow without commotion and take over the gun at the critical time.

The area fire capacity of the machine gun should not be used to search out a concealed subject. This was tried with predictable lack of success on Trotsky. The automatic feature of the machine gun should rather be used to increase reliability by placing a 5 second burst on the subject. Even with full jacket ammunition, this will be absolute lethal is the burst pattern is no larger than a man. This can be accomplished at about 150 yards. In ideal circumstances, a properly padded and targeted machine gun can do it at 850 yards. The major difficulty is placing the first burst exactly on the target, as most machine gunners are trained to spot their fire on target by observation of strike. This will not do in assassination as the subject will not wait.

(c) The Submachine Gun.
This weapon, known as the "machine-pistol" by the Russians and Germans and "machine-carbide" by the British, is occasionally useful in assassination. Unlike the rifle and machine gun, this is a short range weapon and since it fires pistol ammunition, much less powerful. To be reliable, it should deliver at least 5 rounds into the subject's chest, though the .45 caliber U.S. weaponshave a much larger margin of killing efficiency than the 9 mm European arms.

The assassination range of the sub-machine gun is point blank. While accurate single rounds can be delivered by sub-machine gunners at 50 yards or more, this is not certain enough for assassination. Under ordinary circumstances, the 5MG shold be used as a fully automatic weapon. In the hands of a capable gunner, a high cyclic rate is a distinct advantage, as speed of execution is most desirable, particularly in the case of multiple subjects.

The sub-machine gun is especially adapted to indoor work when more than one subject is to be assassinated. An effective technique has been devised for the use of a pair of sub-machine gunners, by which a room contailning as many as a dozen subjectgs can be "purifico" in about twenty seconds with little or no risk to the gunners. It is illustratrated below.

While the U.S. sub-machine guns fire the most lethal cartridges, the higher cyclic rate of some foreigh weapons enable the gunner to cover a target quicker with acceptable pattern density. The Bergmann Model 1934 is particularly good in this way. The Danish Madman? SMG has a moderately good cyclic rate and is admirably compact and concealable. The Russian SHG's have a good cyclic rate, but are handicapped by a small, light protective which requires more kits for equivalent killing effect.

(d) The Shotgun. ..... …continues… .....

========================
New York Times article reporting declassification of CIA assassination manual.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/28/magazine/970528OLSON.html

[L. Coyote]

102. Violations in Guatemala "extrajudicial killing of certain categories of persons is almost routine"

Document 6: CIA Cable,
From: Chief, Latin America Branch, To: Immediate Director,
"Station Investigation of Human Rights Violations in Guatemala," October 15, 1991.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/

On October 15, 1991, the CIA station in Guatemala sent an “eyes only” cable to Mr. Ward (identified as “Chief/LA”) titled “Station investigation of human rights violations in Guatemala.” Summarizing the murder of U.S. citizen Michael Devine, the cable states that “the entire command structure of the military zone where the killing took place was controlled by men known to be capable of murder under the most casual pretext.” At least one of those commanders was a paid CIA asset. After discussing several other cases, the cable concludes by reporting that “the extrajudicial killing of certain categories of persons is almost routine.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/03-01.htm

I was one of the "certain categories of persons" when I traveled through the wars in Central America. In Guatemala I was repeatedly told I would be killed. Turns out they were right, albeit my life was saved by the rapid response of those who stopped my bleeding. I was only stabbed nine times "by men known to be capable of murder under the most casual pretext."

Also in Guatemala, from my journal of Jan. 26, 1986:

Ah, death. In this morning's paper there is a story of three dead men found by the garbage dump gleaners. The three bodies had tied hands and legs, were gagged, had been tortured and had gunshot wounds. They had been killed by strangulation, wrapped in large plastic bags and dumped. People sifting and searching the landfill for food or useful items opened the bags. Last night on the sidewalk I had a conversation with an individual who I must not name to protect this person from the guilty. I was warned to be careful about what I say. This person said that if one is noticed opposing the government or speaking out nothing happens immediately but they determine where you sleep and at night two carloads of judicial police enter your residence, take you away and you are never seen again. I was also told that the people live in fear, that it is unwise to venture more than a few blocks from your home because you do not know when a policeman might ask for your identification, and that the officials claim that guerrillas do these things, adding that the people know that it is the police and soldiers who are responsible.

I was surprised at such a warning and outpouring and, if it is true, at the risk of making the statement. When the same new Jeep passed a second time we quickly disappeared into the night.

[L. Coyote]

146. Reagan & Guatemala’s Death Files

Reagan & Guatemala’s Death Files
http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699a2.html


After his election, Reagan pushed aggressively to overturn an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by President Carter because of the military's wretched human rights record.......

.... the Reagan administration knew that the Guatemalan military indeed was engaged in a scorched-earth campaign against the Mayans.

According to these “secret” cables, the CIA was confirming Guatemalan government massacres in 1981-82 even as Reagan was moving to loosen the military aid ban.

In April 1981, a secret CIA cable described a massacre at Cocob, near Nebaj in the Ixil Indian territory. On April 17, 1981, government troops attacked the area believed to support leftist guerrillas, the cable said.

According to a CIA source, "the social population appeared to fully support the guerrillas" and "the soldiers were forced to fire at anything that moved." The CIA cable added that "the Guatemalan authorities admitted that 'many civilians' were killed in Cocob, many of whom undoubtedly were non-combatants."

Despite the CIA account and other similar reports, Reagan permitted Guatemala's army to buy $3.2 million in military trucks and jeeps in June 1981. To permit the sale, Reagan removed the vehicles from a list of military equipment that was covered by the human rights embargo.

Apparently confident of Reagan’s sympathies, the Guatemalan government continued its political repression without apology. ..................

[L. Coyote]

104. The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On = Role of Reagan, Gates, Negroponte, Top Aides

The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On
Documents Spotlight Role of Reagan, Top Aides

Pentagon Nominee Robert Gates Among Many Prominent Figures Involved in the Scandal
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 210
Posted - Nov 24, 2006 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm

Washington D.C., November 24, 2006 - On November 25, 1986, the biggest political and constitutional scandal since Watergate exploded in Washington when President Ronald Reagan told a packed White House news conference that funds derived from covert arms deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran had been diverted to buy weapons for the U.S.-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

In the weeks leading up to this shocking admission, news reports had exposed the U.S. role in both the Iran deals and the secret support for the Contras, but Reagan's announcement, in which he named two subordinates -- National Security Advisor John M. Poindexter and NSC staffer Oliver L. North -- as the responsible parties, was the first to link the two operations.

The scandal was almost the undoing of the Teflon President. Of all the revelations that emerged, the most galling for the American public was the president's abandonment of the long-standing policy against dealing with terrorists, which Reagan repeatedly denied doing in spite of overwhelming evidence that made it appear he was simply lying to cover up the story.

Despite the damage to his image, the president arguably got off easy, escaping the ultimate political sanction of impeachment. From what is now known from documents and testimony -- but perhaps not widely appreciated -- while Reagan may not have known about the diversion or certain other details of the operations being carried out in his name, he directed that both support for the Contras (whom he ordered to be kept together "body and soul") and the arms-for-hostages deals go forward, and was at least privy to other actions that were no less significant.

In this connection, it is worth noting that Poindexter, although he refused to implicate Reagan by testifying that he had told him about the diversion, declared that if he had informed the president he was sure Reagan would have approved. Reagan's success in avoiding a harsher political penalty was due to a great extent to Poindexter's testimony (which left many observers deeply skeptical about its plausibility). But it was also due in large part to a tactic developed mainly by Attorney General Edwin Meese, which was to keep congressional and public attention tightly focused on the diversion. By spotlighting that single episode, which they felt sure Reagan could credibly deny, his aides managed to minimize public scrutiny of the president's other questionable actions, some of which even he understood might be illegal.

.............

In that connection, what follows is a partial list of some of the more prominent individuals who were either directly a part of the Iran-Contra events or figured in some other way during the affair or its aftermath:

* Elliott Abrams
* David Addington
* John Bolton
* Richard Cheney - now the vice president, he played a prominent part as a member of the joint congressional Iran-Contra inquiry
* Robert M. Gates
* Manuchehr Ghorbanifar - the quintessential middleman, who helped broker the arms deals involving the United States, Israel and Iran
* Michael Ledeen - a neo-conservative who is vocal on the subject of regime change in Iran
* Edwin Meese - currently a member of the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group
* John Negroponte - ... ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and director of national intelligence in 2005. (See previous Electronic Briefing Book)
* Oliver L. North - found guilty on three counts at a criminal trial but had those verdicts overturned
* John Poindexter - post-9/11 .. head of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program
* Otto Reich

Documents ...........

[L. Coyote]

105. "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete." = independent counsel

Document 19: George H. W. Bush Diary, November 4-5, 1986
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/19-Bush%20Diary%2011-4-86.pdf.pdf

Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush became entangled in controversy over his knowledge of Iran-Contra. Although he asserted publicly that he was "out of the loop -- no operational role," he was well informed of events, particularly the Iran deals, as evidenced in part by this diary excerpt just after the Iran operation was exposed: "I'm one of the few people that know fully the details ..." The problem for Bush was greatly magnified because he was preparing to run for president just as the scandal burst. He managed to escape significant blame -- ultimately winning the 1988 election -- but he came under fire later for repeatedly failing to disclose the existence of his diary to investigators and then for pardoning several Iran-Contra figures, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger just days before his trial was set to begin. As a result of the pardons, the independent counsel's final report pointedly noted: "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete."

[L. Coyote]

106. NEGROPONTE'S CHRON FILE FROM TENURE IN HONDURAS POSTED

THE NEGROPONTE FILE - NEGROPONTE'S CHRON FILE FROM TENURE IN HONDURAS POSTED

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 151 - Part 1
Edited by Peter Kornbluh - April 12, 2005 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB151/index.htm

Close Relations with Honduran Military,
Contra "Special Project" Against Nicaraguan Sandinistas
Dominated Cable Traffic

Reporting on Human Rights Violations Nonexistent between 1982 and 1984

President George W. Bush nominated John Negroponte as the first Director of National Intelligence on February 17, 2005. (Source: White House)

Washington D.C., April 12, 2005 - As the Senate Intelligence Committee convenes to consider the nomination of John Negroponte to be Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Archive today posted hundreds of his cables written from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa between late 1981 and 1984. The majority of his "chron file"- cables and memos written during his tenure as Ambassador- was obtained by the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were actually declassified at Negroponte's request in June 1998, after he had temporarily retired from the Foreign Service.

The 392 cables and memos record Negroponte's daily, and even hourly, activities as the powerful Ambassador to Honduras during the contra war in the early 1980s. They include dozens of cables in which the Ambassador sought to undermine regional peace efforts such as the Contadora initiative that ultimately won Costa Rican president Oscar Arias a Nobel Prize, as well as multiple reports of meetings and conversations with Honduran military officers who were instrumental in providing logistical support and infrastructure for CIA covert operations in support of the contras against Nicaragua -"our special project" as Negroponte refers to the contra war in the cable traffic. Among the records are special back channel communications with then CIA director William Casey, including a recommendation to increase the number of arms being supplied to the leading contra force, the FDN in mid 1983, and advice on how to rewrite a Presidential finding on covert operations to overthrow the Sandinistas to make it more politically palatable to an increasingly uneasy U.S. Congress.

Conspicuously absent from the cable traffic, however, is reporting on human rights atrocities that were committed by the Honduran military and its secret police unit known as Battalion 316, between 1982 and 1984, under the military leadership of General Gustavo Alvarez, Negroponte's main liaison with the Honduran government. The Honduran human rights ombudsman later found that more than 50 people disappeared at the hands of the military during those years. But Negroponte's cables reflect no protest, or even discussion of these issues during his many meetings with General Alvarez, his deputies and Honduran President Robert Suazo. Nor do the released cables contain any reporting to Washington on the human rights abuses that were taking place.

Today's posting by the National Security Archive includes the complete series of cables released under the Freedom of Information Act. The State Department released another several dozen cables from the series yesterday, and these are available in Part 2 of this posting.


Documents ......

[defendandprotect]

108. Gates also supposedly played a prominent role in the "October Surprise" . ..

[defendandprotect]

109. Criminals together, marching forward together still --- !!!

[L. Coyote]

113. "four dead, three of them journalists" Remember La Penca and Ronald Reagan?

Costa Rica and Nicaragua; Remember La Penca and Ronald Reagan
NotiCen, 17 June 2004 - http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/47/460.html

Former US President Ronald Reagan died just days after the 20th anniversary of the bombing at La Penca, a place inside Nicaragua on the Costa Rica border. The bombing, an act of terrorism almost entirely forgotten in the US, is well-remembered in a region that was once the focus of Reagan's foreign policy.

The May 30, 1984, explosion at a press conference called by Eden Pastora, the famed Sandinista Comandante Cero of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution, left four dead, three of them journalists. Since then, books have been written and lawsuits launched, but no one has ever been tried for a multiple murder that Costa Rica still treats as an active case that is seriously stalled.

Attorney General Francisco Dall'Anese has blamed US obstruction in the form of blocked access to classified documents. In a Feb. 27, 2004, letter to Costa Rica's Defensor de los Habitantes Jose Manuel Echandi, he enumerated the reasons for the deadlock:

* Exhaustive investigations in Costa Rica have not yielded sufficient results to bring a case to trial.
* Documents in the possession of the Senate of the United States of America have been declared secret by the US government and are therefore inaccessible.
* It has not been possible to identify the material author of the crime, not even through Interpol, and efforts to extradite US citizen John Hull and Miami-based Cuban-American Felipe Vidal have been fruitless.

Of the three reasons, Dall'Anese said in the letter, The second point is the major obstacle to terminating the investigations because the identity of the author of the deeds could be established and linked to Hull, and, without evidence, it is impossible to found an accusation.

Costa Rican authorities have attempted to extradite two alleged CIA collaborators, Hull and Vidal, from the US, but to no avail. Hull operated a ranch on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border identified by resupply pilots as a transshipment point for military supplies and drugs.

[L. Coyote]

147. The Assassination of Ben Linder

The Assassination of Ben Linder

When Ben Linder was murdered by US government trained and funded Contra terrorists in 1987 in northern Nicaragua, he was installing electricity for impoverished rural communities. At his funeral in Matagalpa, that northern Nicaraguan city overflowed with mourners for the young man from Portland, Oregon who came to work for them and finished by dying for them. Writing about what was needed in order to resist the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, Linder wrote once "everything you can do should be done". So, apart from fixing up electrical generating plant, he also helped with vaccination programs, dressing up as a clown to amuse parents and children waiting in line, riding his unicycle, juggling.

How exceptional was Ben Linder? Perhaps it was his murder that made him an icon for those people determined to show solidarity with Central American victims of US government aggression. Tens of thousands of US citizens worked for longer or shorter periods in Central American countries before and after Ben Linder. The great majority stayed for brief lengths of time with poor rural and urban communities in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution. But many others worked long term on human rights and grass roots community development throughout the region.

............. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Solo_Martyrs-Negroponte.htm

[defendandprotect]

112. These would be interesting questions for the debates!!!

[L. Coyote]

114. KISSINGER to Junta: "IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE, YOU SHOULD DO THEM QUICKLY"

KISSINGER TO THE ARGENTINE GENERALS IN 1976:

"IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE, YOU SHOULD DO THEM QUICKLY"

Newly declassified document shows Secretary of State
gave strong support early on to the military junta

While military dictatorship committed massive human rights abuses in 1976,
Secretary Kissinger advised: "you should get back quickly to normal procedures."

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 133

Carlos Osorio and Kathleen Costar
August 27, 2004 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133/index.htm

Washington, August 27, 2004 - A newly declassified document obtained by the National Security Archive shows that amidst vast human rights violations by Argentina's security forces in June 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti:

"If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you should get back quickly to normal procedures."

Kissinger's comment is part of a 13-page Memorandum of Conversation reporting on a June 10 meeting between Secretary Kissinger and Argentine Admiral Guzzetti in Santiago, Chile.

After a series of pleasantries, Guzzetti went into the substance of the meeting by stating: "Our main problem in Argentina is terrorism. It is the first priority of the current government that took office on March 24. There are two aspects to the solution. The first is to ensure the internal security of the country; the second is to solve the most urgent economic problems over the coming 6 to 12 months. Argentina needs United States understanding and support…."

Replying to Guzzetti's report on the situation, Secretary Kissinger said: "We have followed events in Argentina closely. We wish the new government well. We wish it will succeed. We will do what we can to help it succeed."

At a time when the international community, the U.S. media, universities, and scientific institutions, the U.S. Congress, and even the U.S. Embassy in Argentina were clamoring about the indiscriminate human rights violations against scientists, labor leaders, students, and politicians by the Argentine military, Secretary Kissinger told Guzzetti: "We are aware you are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear separation. We understand you must establish authority."

Only two weeks earlier, on May 28, Ambassador Robert Hill had presented a U.S. demarche on human rights to Admiral Guzzetti. The Embassy was deeply concerned about the kidnapping and torture of three American women, among them the Fulbright coordinator for Argentina, Elida Messina .........

on July 9, 1976, Secretary Kissinger was explicitly briefed on the rampant repression taking place in Argentina: "Their theory is that they can use the Chilean method," Kissinger's top aide on Latin America Harry Shlaudeman informed him, "that is, to terrorize the opposition - even killing priests and nuns and others."

Documents published earlier by the National Security Archive show that in September 1976 Ambassador Hill complained again to Guzzetti about the astounding human rights violations occurring in Argentina. Guzzetti rebuffed him saying that, "When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA "get it over quickly."

Kissinger reiterated this message during another meeting with Guzzetti in New York on October 7 telling him "the quicker you succeed the better."

.............

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133/19760610%20Memorandum%20of%20Conversation%20clean.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133/19760709.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB104/index.htm

What follows are excerpts from the Memorandum of Conversation and a chronology of events surrounding the June 10 meeting, based on previously declassified documents.

Chronology of events surrounding the June 10, 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting
Includes links to source documents .........

[L. Coyote]

122. 3200 Kissinger telcons "no records of conversations with ... Bush. " may be under review at the CIA

The Kissinger State Department Telcons

" While the release includes several telcons with Director of Central Intelligence William Colby, there are no records of conversations with his successor, George H.W. Bush. They may be under review at the CIA. The State Department has also withheld Kissinger's discussions with the CIA chiefs during that time period, including those with George Herbert Walker Bush, who served as director of Central Intelligence during the last year of the Ford administration."

TELCONS SHOW KISSINGER OPPOSED HUMAN RIGHTS DIPLOMACY; SECRETARY OF STATE TAPPED OWN PHONE CALLS
NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE OBTAINS RELEASE OF 3,000 TRANSCRIPTS, INCLUDING CALLS ON VIETNAM, CHINA, PINOCHET, AND SINATRA
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 135
Edited by Tom Blanton, William Burr and Peter Kornbluh
Posted October 1, 2004 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB135/index.htm

Washington, D.C., 1 October 2004 - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger berated top aides for State Department efforts in 1976 to restrain human rights abuses by military dictators in Chile and Argentina, according to newly declassified transcripts of Mr. Kissinger's telephone calls ("telcons") posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB135/index.htm#docs

"This is not an institution that is going to humiliate the Chileans," Kissinger told his Assistant Secretary on Latin America, William D. Rogers, on the phone, after a U.S. diplomat had publicly supported an OAS human rights report on the Pinochet regime's abuses in June 1976. "It is a bloody outrage." After learning later that month that other State Department officials had issued a demarche to the new military junta in Argentina out of concern for the growing number of political assassinations and disappearances, Kissinger called another aide and demanded to know "in what way is it compatible with my policy." The June 30, 1976, telcon records Kissinger as stating: "I want to know who did this and consider having him transferred."

The Archive obtained 3200 Kissinger telcons last week through a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department. Some 1900 additional telcons are still under review by agencies other than State. During Mr. Kissinger's tenure first as national security adviser to Presidents Nixon and Ford starting in 1969 and then as Secretary of State from 1973 through 1976, his secretaries listened in on his phone calls - unbeknownst to most of the other callers - and typed these almost verbatim transcripts. Mr. Kissinger took the telcons with him when he left office in January 1977, and the State Department only recovered copies in August 2001 after the National Security Archive initiated legal action ......

...............

Among the 1900 telcons that the State Department has withheld pending review of other agencies are Kissinger's phone conversations with President Gerald Ford. Presumably also under review are telcons with Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Secretary of Defense during 1975-1977. While the release includes several telcons with Director of Central Intelligence William Colby, there are no records of conversations with his successor, George H.W. Bush. They may be under review at the CIA. The State Department has also withheld Kissinger's discussions with the CIA chiefs during that time period, including those with George Herbert Walker Bush, who served as director of Central Intelligence during the last year of the Ford administration.

..........

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB135/index.htm#chile
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB135/index.htm#arg
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010809/index.html
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20020211/index.html

Glenn Frankel, "U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In '73; British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne to Mideast," Washington Post, 1 January 2004.

[L. Coyote]

115. Operation Condor and what actions U.S. officials took in response to CIA intelligence

LIFTING OF PINOCHET'S IMMUNITY RENEWS FOCUS ON OPERATION CONDOR
OPERATION CONDOR DOCUMENTS INDICATE 1976 TERRORIST ATTACK IN WASHINGTON MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED

DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FILL IN CENSORED DEBATE IN LEADING JOURNAL FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CONTROVERSY AT COUNCIL on FOREIGN RELATIONS LEADS TO RESIGNATION
Washington D.C. June 10, 2004 : http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/index.htm


Despite denials by the office of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the argument advanced by Council on Foreign Relations Latin American specialist Kenneth Maxwell that the September 1976 car-bombing in Washington D.C. might have been prevented is bolstered by declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The declassified State Department records chart U.S. foreknowledge of Operation Condor, a network of Southern Cone secret police agencies that coordinated terrorist attacks against political opponents of their regimes around the world in the mid and late 1970s.

Operation Condor has received renewed international attention over the last several weeks. On May 28 a Chilean court stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution for Condor-related crimes.

The documents are among the evidence that Maxwell, the director of the Council's Latin American program and senior reviewer for its journal, Foreign Affairs, used in a rebuttal to a letter from Henry Kissinger's former assistant secretary of State, William D. Rogers, which appeared in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. As reported in the New York Times on June 5 ("Kissinger Assailed In Debate on Chile"), and in The Nation magazine ("The Maxwell Affair") the prestigious journal has refused to publish Maxwell's response and he has resigned in protest.

The censored debate in Foreign Affairs centers on Operation Condor and what actions U.S. officials took in response to CIA intelligence that the Pinochet regime, along with other military governments in the region, had "plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians, and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad," .......

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040301faletter83269/william-d-rogers/crisis-prevention.html
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040621&s=sherman
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/condor06.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/condor09.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/index.htm#letter

[L. Coyote]

125. US Documents: Argentine Junta Security Forces Killed, Disappeared Activists, Mothers and Nuns

US Declassified Documents: Argentine Junta Security Forces Killed, Disappeared Activists, Mothers and Nuns
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB77/

On the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of leaders of the internationally renowned civil disobedience group the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, recently declassified US documents show that the Embassy in Buenos Aires had evidence of the Argentine Military Junta's responsibility in the crime. The US dedicated substantial resources to establish the whereabouts of the victims and protect their lives, but once it learned they had been killed, it dropped the demand to the Junta to find and punish the perpetrators and discipline officers condoning it.

Between December 8 and 10, 1977, Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti, along with 11 members and friends of the Mothers were kidnapped by Argentine government forces and never seen again. De Vicenti had helped found the group of mothers of victims precisely because of this new type of atrocity: those kidnapped and then disappeared by security forces. (Sequence of events as described by a Political Officer at the Embassy)

A review by the National Security Archive of the Department of State's recently declassified documents on Argentina reveals that as early as 10 days after the disappearances the U.S. Embassy intelligence sources started reporting on the involvement of the Argentine Navy, the Army First Corps, and later the Presidential State Intelligence Service and a military detention facility in the crime and cover up.

................

Ambassador Castro did present a demarche but then the US followed the path of the French and the Catholic Church, as well as Ambassador Castro's suggestions of not pressing for accountability of the disappeared. .... Ambassador Raul Castro foresaw what would happen after the Argentine government issued a final list of detainees that did not account for thousands of disappeared:

"The one-issue groups, such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, will clamor for the government to make an accounting for the missing. The issue will be increasingly and dramatically reported internationally… We should avoid… demanding accountability for the disappeared, since that does nothing directly to eliminate further abuses."

The following 16 documents were selected from the 4,700 declassified last August by the US Department of State on human rights violations in Argentina.
...........

[L. Coyote]

128. VP Cheney's experience with PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney Informed of "Objectionable" Interrogation Guides in 1992

PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm

U.S. Interrogation Manuals Counseled "Coercive Techniques" "Inconsistent with U.S. Government Policy"
National Security Archive Posts CIA Training Manuals from 60s, 80s, and investigative memos on earlier controversy on human rights abuses

Washington D.C. May 12, 2004: CIA interrogation manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The Archive also posted a secret 1992 report written for then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army intelligence manuals that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA for training Latin American military officers in interrogation and counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant embarrassment."

The two CIA manuals, "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983" and "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation-July 1963," were originally obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Baltimore Sun in 1997. The KUBARK manual includes a detailed section on "The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources," with concrete assessments on employing "Threats and Fear," "Pain," and "Debility." The language of the 1983 "Exploitation" manual drew heavily on the language of the earlier manual, as well as on Army Intelligence field manuals from the mid 1960s generated by "Project X"-a military effort to create training guides drawn from counterinsurgency experience in Vietnam. Recommendations on prisoner interrogation included the threat of violence and deprivation and noted that no threat should be made unless the questioner "has approval to carry out the threat." The interrogator "is able to manipulate the subject's environment," the 1983 manual states, "to create unpleasant or intolerable situations, to disrupt patterns of time, space, and sensory perception."

After Congress began investigating reports of Central American atrocities in the mid 1980s, particularly in Honduras, the CIA's "Human Resource Exploitation" manual was hand edited to alter passages that appeared to advocate coercion and stress techniques to be used on prisoners. CIA officials attached a new prologue page on the manual stating: "The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to interrogation is prohibited by law, both international and domestic; it is neither authorized nor condoned"-making it clear that authorities were well aware these abusive practices were illegal and immoral, even as they continued then and now.

Indeed, similar material had already been incorporated into seven Spanish-language training guides. More than a thousand copies of these manuals were distributed for use in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru, and at the School of the Americas between 1987 and 1991. An inquiry was triggered in mid 1991 when the Southern Command evaluated the manuals for use in expanding military support programs in Colombia.

In March 1992 Cheney received an investigative report on "Improper Material in Spanish-Language Intelligence Training Manuals." Classified SECRET, the report noted that five of the seven manuals "contained language and statements in violation of legal, regulatory or policy prohibitions" and recommended they be recalled. The memo is stamped: "SECDEF HAS SEEN."

The Archive also posted a declassified memorandum of conversation with a Southern Command officer, Major Victor Tise, who was responsible for assembling the Latin American manuals at School of the Americas for counterintelligence training in 1982. Tise stated that the manuals had been forwarded to DOD headquarters for clearance "and came back approved but UNCHANGED." (Emphasis in original)

.............

Read the Documents = in PDF format. .....

CIA, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, July 1963
Part 1 (pp. 1-60) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Kubark%201-60.pdf
Part II (pp. 61-112) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Kubark%2061-112.pdf
Part III (pp. 113-128) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Kubark%20113-128.pdf

CIA, Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983
Part I (pp. 1-67) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Human%20Res%20Exploit%20A1-G11.pdf
Part II (pp. 68-124) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Human%20Res%20Exploit%20H0-L17.pdf

DOD, Improper Material in Spanish-Language Intelligence Manuals, SECRET, 10 March 1992
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/920310%20Imporper%20Material%20in%20Spanish-Language%20Intelligence%20Training%20Manuals.pdf

DOD, USSOUTHCOM CI Training-Supplemental Information, CONFIDENTIAL, 31 July, 1991
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/910801%20USSOUTHCOM%20CI%20Training%20(U).pdf

[L. Coyote]

116. Oliver North: Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs

The Oliver North File:
His Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 113
Feb 26, 2004 - Peter Kornbluh - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm


Washington D.C., 26 February 2004 - Diaries, e-mail, and memos of Iran-contra figure Oliver North, posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, directly contradict his criticisms yesterday of Sen. John Kerry's 1988 Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee report on the ways that covert support for the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s undermined the U.S. war on drugs.

Mr. North claimed to talk show hosts Hannity & Colmes that the Kerry report was "wrong," that Sen. Kerry "makes this stuff up and then he can't justify it," and that "The fact is nobody in the government of the United States, going all the way back to the earliest days of this under Jimmy Carter, ever had anything to do with running drugs to support the Nicaraguan resistance. Nobody in the government of the United States. I will stand on that to my grave."

The Kerry subcommittee did not report (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north06.pdf) that U.S. government officials ran drugs, but rather, that Mr. North, then on the National Security Council staff at the White House, and other senior officials created a privatized contra network that attracted drug traffickers looking for cover for their operations, then turned a blind eye to repeated reports of drug smuggling related to the contras, and actively worked with known drug smugglers such as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to assist the contras. The report cited former Drug Enforcement Administration head John Lawn testifying that Mr. North himself had prematurely leaked a DEA undercover operation, jeopardizing agents' lives, for political advantage in an upcoming Congressional vote on aid to the contras (p.121).

Among the documents posted today are: ......

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#doc1
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#doc4
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#bueso
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#noriega
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#northnotes

Also in the posting is Peter Kornbluh's detailed critique - the January/February 1997 cover story in the Columbia Journalism Review - of news coverage of the contra-drug allegations, including the controversial San Jose Mercury News series. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/storm.htm

Read the Documents
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#1
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#2
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#3
Kerry Report - Iran/Contra North Notebook Citation Bibliography http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#4

Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras

The National Security Archive obtained the hand-written notebooks of Oliver North, the National Security Council aide who helped run the contra war and other Reagan administration covert operations, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989 with Public Citizen Litigation Group. The notebooks, as well as declassified memos sent to North, record that North was repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking.

Document 1 .................. many more documents .....

[L. Coyote]

117. Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras

In 1987, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, led by Senator John Kerry, launched an investigation of allegations arising from reports of contra-drug links. One of the incidents examined by the "Kerry Committee" was an effort to divert drug money from a counternarcotics operation to the contra war.

On July 28, 1988, two DEA agents testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime regarding a sting operation conducted against the Medellin Cartel. The two agents said that in 1985 Oliver North had wanted to take $1.5 million in Cartel bribe money that was carried by a DEA informant and give it to the contras. DEA officials rejected the idea.

Document 6 (90 pp. / 9.47 MB - For best results, Right click and select "Save Target As..." http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north06.pdf )
Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, A Report Prepared by the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations of the Committtee on Foreign Relations, 100th Congress, 2d Session
The Kerry Committee report concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." (See page 41)

[L. Coyote]

118. U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers

Manuel Noriega

In June, 1986, the New York Times published articles detailing years of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega's collaboration with Colombian drug traffickers. Reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that Noriega "is extensively involved in illicit money laundering and drug activities," and that an unnamed White House official "said the most significant drug running in Panama was being directed by General Noriega." In August, Noriega, a long-standing U.S. intelligence asset, sent an emissary to Washington to seek assistance from the Reagan administration in rehabilitating his drug-stained reputation.

Document 7 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north07.pdf
Oliver North, who met with Noriega's representative, described the meeting in an August 23, 1986 e-mail message to Reagan national security advisor John Poindexter. "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship," North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us."

North tells Poindexter that Noriega can assist with sabotage against the Sandinistas, and suggests paying Noriega a million dollars -- from "Project Democracy" funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran -- for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic installations.

Document 8 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north08.pdf
The same day Poindexter responds with an e-mail message authorizing North to meet secretly with Noriega. ......

........ many more documents ...........

[greiner3]

119. Tell me it's not April 1 today!

[L. Coyote]

120. Kerry Report - Iran/Contra North Notebook Citation Bibliography = w/LINKS

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm
Kerry Report - Iran/Contra North Notebook Citation Bibliography

The text below is taken from page 146 of the Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy report prepared by the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations ("Kerry Committee"). Click on the links to view the relevant passages from Oliver North's notebooks.

Case Study: The Drug-Related Entries
...
Among the entries in the North Notebooks which discernably concern narcotics or terrorism are:

May 12, 1984…contract indicates that Gustavo is involved w/ drugs. (Q0266)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/May%2012,%201984.pdf

June 26, 1984. DEA- (followed by two blocks of text deleted by North) (Q0349)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/June%2026,%201984.pdf

June 27, 1984. Drug Case - DEA program on controlling cocaine- Ether cutoff- Colombians readjusting- possible negotiations to move on refining effort to Nicaragua- Pablo Escobar-Colombian drug czar- Informant (Pilot) is indicted criminal- Carlos Ledher- Freddy Vaughn (Q0354)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/June%2027,%201984.pdf

July 9, 1984. Call from Clarridge- Call Michel re Narco Issue- RIG at 1000 Tomorrow (Q0384)- DEA Miami- Pilot went talked to Vaughn- wanted A/C to go to Bolivia to p/u paste- want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos- Bud to meet w/ Group (Q0385)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%209,%201984.pdf

July 12, 1984. Gen. Gorman-*Include Drug Case (Q0400) Call from Johnstone- (White House deletion) leak on Drug (0402)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2012,%201984.pdf

July 17, 1984. Call to Frank M- Bud Mullins Re- leak on DEA piece- Carlton Turner (Q0418) Call from Johnstone- McManus, LA Times-says/NSC source claims W.H. has pictures of Borge loading cocaine in Nic. (Q0416)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2017,%201984.pdf

July 20, 1984. Call from Clarridge:-Alfredo Cesar Re Drugs-Borge/Owen leave Hull alone (Deletions)/Los Brasiles Air Field-Owen off Hull (Q0426)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2020,%201984.pdf

July 27, 1984. Clarridge:-(Block of White House deleted text follows)-Arturo Cruz, Jr.-Get Alfredo Cesar on Drugs (Q0450)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2027,%201984.pdf

July 31, 1984. -Finance: Libya- Cuba/Bloc Countries-Drugs. . . Pablo Escobar/Federic Vaughn (Q0460)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2031,%201984_1.pdf

July 31, 1984. Staff queries re (White House deletion) role in DEA operations in Nicaragua (Q0461)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2031,%201984_2.pdf

December 21, 1984. Call from Clarridge: Ferch (White House deletion)- Tambs- Costa Rica- Felix Rodriguez close to (White House deletion)- not assoc. W/Villoldo- Bay of Pigs- No drugs (Q0922)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/December%2021,%201984.pdf

January 14, 1985. $14 million to finance came from drugs (Q1039)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/January%2014,%201985.pdf

July 12, 1985. $14 million to finance came from drugs
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/July%2012,%201985.pdf

August 10, 1985. Mtg w/ A.C.- name of DEA person in New Orleans re Bust on Mario/ DC-6 (Q1140)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/August%2010,%201985.pdf

February 27, 1986. Mtg w/ Lew Tambs- DEA Auction A/C seized as drug runners.- $250-260K fee (Q2027)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/February%2027,%201986.pdf

Numerous other entries contain references to individuals or events whoch Subcommittee staff has determined have relevance to narcotics, terrorism, or international operations, but whose ambiguities cannot be resolved without the production of the deleted materials by North and his attorneys.

[L. Coyote]

127. Reagan, Oliver North, The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 2
The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb's series, "The Dark Alliance," has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.

........
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras

Click on the document icon next to each description to view the document. .......................

[L. Coyote]

121. ASSASSINATION: Koch wrote that Bush had called him and told him to "be careful."

ED KOCH THREATENED WITH ASSASSINATION IN 1976
NEW BOOK REVEALS "CONDOR" THREAT AGAINST FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN/MAYOR

CIA DELAYED RESPONDING TO INTELLIGENCE ON POSSIBLE TERRORIST PLOT BY ALLIED LATIN AMERICAN MILITARY OFFICIALS
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB112/

Washington, D.C. - Military officials of Uruguay, who were members of a secret Southern Cone intelligence alliance called Operation Condor, threatened to assassinate U.S. Congressman Edward Koch in mid-1976, according to a just published book, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press 2004). Written by investigative journalist John Dinges, the book reveals that the CIA intercepted the threat but failed to take any actions in response to it or to warn Congressman Koch for more than two months.

In an interview for the book, Koch said that the then Director of Central Intelligence, George Herbert Walker Bush, informed him in October 1976 that his sponsorship of legislation to cut off U.S. military assistance to Uruguay on human rights grounds had provoked secret police officials to "put a contract out for you."

.....................

In mid October 1976, Koch wrote to the Justice Department (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB112/koch01.pdf) asking for FBI protection and requesting "any additional information relating to this matter in your files…which I should be made aware of." None was provided to him. In his 1991 autobiography, Koch wrote that Bush had called him and told him to "be careful." But, until Dinges told the former mayor of New York City about Operation Condor in an interview in 2001, Koch was not aware of the connection between the threat on his life and the assassination operations of Condor, on which the CIA had concrete intelligence in the summer of 1976.

As a result of his meeting with Dinges, Koch petitioned the CIA and other agencies for more information on why he had not been expeditiously warned of a terrorist threat on his life. The CIA declined to declassify the relevant reports, but sent Koch a letter with this explanation for the delay: "The Agency's initial analysis of these comments was that they represented nothing more than alcohol-induced bravado. In the aftermath of the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC, U.S. officials questioned their assumption that other countries would not conduct assassinations in the U.S." (see Document 4 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB112/koch04.pdf)

Details of the threat have also been deleted from State and Justice Department documents released to Koch. But the documents reveal that the State Department took action after the fact to prevent the two officers from entering the United States. In late 1976, Colonel Fons and Major Gavazzo were assigned to prominent diplomatic posts in Washington D.C., but the State Department forced the Uruguayan government to withdraw their appointments with the public explanation that "Fons and Gavazzo could be the objects of unpleasant publicity…." The real reason, according to the documents, was the threat against Koch (see Document 3 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB112/koch03.pdf).

[otherlander]

124. Kick

[L. Coyote]

126. Public Diplomacy and Covert Propaganda: The Otto Reich File

Public Diplomacy and Covert Propaganda: The Otto Reich File
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/

The Bush administration has floated the name of Otto Juan Reich for possible nomination .... Reich served in the Reagan administration as assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID) from 1981 to 1983, then as the first director of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD) from 1983 to 1986, and finally as ambassador to Venezuela.

Mr. Reich’s tenure at the Office of Public Diplomacy generated major controversy during the exposure of the Iran-contra scandal and left an extensive document trail, some of the highlights of which are included in this Briefing Book. For example:

* The Comptroller-General of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that some of the efforts of Mr. Reich’s public diplomacy office were “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” “beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities….” The same September 30, 1987 letter concluded that Mr. Reich’s office had violated “a restriction on the State Department’s annual appropriations prohibiting the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress.” ...

* The General Accounting Office in an October 30, 1987 letter and report found that Mr. Reich’s office “generally did not follow federal regulations governing contractual procedures” in its contracting “with numerous individuals and several companies.” .....

* The bipartisan report of the Congressional Iran-contra committees (November 1987, p. 34) found that “.... ‘public diplomacy’ turned out to mean public relations-lobbying, all at taxpayers’ expense.” ....

* A staff report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee (September 7, 1988) summarized various investigations of Mr. Reich’s office and concluded that

“senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State which reported directly to the National Security Council rather than through the normal State Department channels…. Through irregular sole-source, no-bid contracts, S/LPD established and maintained a private network of individuals and organizations whose activities were coordinated with, and sometimes directed by, Col. Oliver North as well as officials of the NSC and S/LPD. These private individuals and organizations raised and spent funds for the purpose of influencing Congressional votes and U.S. domestic news media. This network raised and funneled money to off-shore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or to the secret Lake Resources bank account in Switzerland for disbursement at the direction of Oliver North. Almost all of these activities were hidden from public view and many of the key individuals involved were never questioned or interviewed by the Iran/Contra Committees.”

* Mr. Reich responded in detail to questioning by staff of the Iran/Contra Committees in a formal deposition on July 15, 1987. The full text of the 122-page deposition is included here. ..(below).....

* On March 13, 1985, Mr. Reich’s deputy, Johnathan S. Miller, wrote a two-page report to White House director of communications Pat Buchanan, giving what Miller called “ive illustrative examples of the Reich ‘White Propaganda’ operation.” These included op-eds the office had written or placed covertly, without any acknowledgement of the government’s role, and planned op-eds under the contra leaders’ bylines.

* Mr. Reich sought and obtained staff for his office by getting them detailed from various U.S. military units engaged in “psychological operations.”
...........

documents are in PDF format. ...

[L. Coyote]

129. The CIA's Family Jewels = Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years, Warrantless wiretapping

The CIA's Family Jewels
Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years,
Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents

Update - Full Report Now Available and Full Text Searchable

CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File,
Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975, With White House Memcons on Damage Control

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222
Edited by Thomas Blanton - June 21, 2007 - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm


(Fair Use Cited.) Seymour Hersh broke the story of CIA's illegal domestic
operations with a front page story in the New York Times on Dec 22, 1974.

The full "family jewels" report, released today by the Central Intelligence Agency and detailing 25 years of Agency misdeeds, is now available on the Archive's Web site. The 702-page collection was delivered by CIA officers to the Archive at approximately 11:30 this morning -- 15 years after the Archive filed a Freedom of Information request for the documents.

The report is available for download in its entirety and is also split into five smaller files for easier download.

ALL FILES NOW FULL TEXT SEARCHABLE!

CIA's "Family Jewels" - full report (24 MB) - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/family_jewels_full_ocr.pdf

CIA's "Family Jewels" - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (with links to pdf files)

Top Ten Most Interesting "Family Jewels" Released by the CIA to the National Security Archive, June 26, 2007

1) Journalist surveillance - operation CELOTEX I-II (pp. 26-30)

2) Covert mail opening, codenamed SRPOINTER / HTLINGUAL at JFK airport (pp. 28, 644-45)

3) Watergate burglar and former CIA operative E. Howard Hunt requests a lock picker (p. 107)

4) CIA Science and Technology Directorate Chief Carl Duckett "thinks the Director would be ill-advised to say he is acquainted with this program" (Sidney Gottlieb's drug experiments) (p. 213) (My note: Sidney Gottlieb directed MK-ULTRA.)

5) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) reflecting Agency employee resentment against participation (p. 326)

6) Plan to poison Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (p. 464)

7) Report of detention of Soviet defector Yuriy Nosenko (p. 522)

8) Document describing John Lennon funding anti-war activists (p. 552)

9) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) (pp. 591-93)

10) CIA counter-intelligence official James J. Angleton and issue of training foreign police in bomb-making, sabotage, etc. (pp. 599-603)

Plus a bonus "Jewel": Warrantless wiretapping by CIA's Division D (pp. 533-539)

Today's release also includes ................

[L. Coyote]

162. The Legacy of Theodore Shackley by David Corn

The Legacy of Theodore Shackley by David Corn
AlterNet - Dec 13, 2002 - http://www.alternet.org/story/14767/

The notorious CIA man is gone, but the story of his career lives on as a cautionary lesson for an era shaped by a secret war on terrorism.

Shackley had been one of the agency's top men, the epitome of a Cold War covert bureaucrat. In the 1950s, he served in Berlin, a center for espionage, running agents across the Iron Curtain. (Agency efforts at that time were generally abysmal; most agents the CIA sent to spy on East European were captured or turned into double agents.) In the early 1960s, he was in charge of the CIA's massive station in Miami, which failed to penetrate Fidel Castro's government but conducted sabotage operations against Cuba and occasionally supported cockamamie assassination efforts (some using mob connections) against Castro.

He went on to become chief of station in Laos and managed a secret war in which U.S.-encouraged tribal forces fought against the North Vietnamese. (The tribes ended up decimated -- in part because Shackley and others pushed them to do what was best for the U.S. military. not themselves.)

Then Shackley was chief of station in Vietnam, where the agency never succeeded in collecting much valuable intelligence on the Viet Cong and where it was involved in the controversial Phoenix program, a supposed intelligence-gathering operation in which U.S.-assisted South Vietnamese units sometimes assassinated rather than apprehended their targets.

After years in the field, Shackley rose through the ranks at headquarters, leading the Western Hemisphere division (and overseeing the CIA's operations in Chile to overthrow Salvador Allende .......

[Dangerman]

130. The George Bushes...

deserve their own special place in hell for this.

I don't care how many times they "claimed" they "received" Jesus Christ as their savior...

They are wicked and God will never forgive them no matter what they do!

I hope they burn in hell!

[goclark]

138. Their crimes sure give the world HELL every day Nt

[L. Coyote]

131. The U.S. Intelligence Community's Secret Historical Document Reclassification Program

Declassification in Reverse
The U.S. Intelligence Community's Secret Historical Document Reclassification Program
Edited by Matthew M. Aid - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB179/index.htm

Washington, D.C., February 21, 2006 - The CIA and other federal agencies have secretly reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to a report published today on the World Wide Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Matthew Aid, author of the report and a visiting fellow at the Archive, discovered this secret program through his wide-ranging research in intelligence, military, and diplomatic records at NARA and found that the CIA and military agencies have reviewed millions of pages at an unknown cost to taxpayers in order to sequester documents from collections that had been open for years.

The briefing book that the Archive published today includes 50 year old documents that CIA had impounded at NARA but which have already been published in the State Department's historical series, Foreign Relations of the United States, or have been declassified elsewhere. These documents concern such innocuous matters as the State Department's map and foreign periodicals procurement programs on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community or the State Department's open source intelligence research efforts during 1948.

Other documents have apparently been sequestered because they were embarrassing, such as a complaint from the Director of Central Intelligence about the bad publicity the CIA was receiving ........

officials at CIA and military agencies have argued that during the implementation of Executive Order 12958, President Clinton's program for bulk declassification of historical federal records, many sensitive intelligence-related documents that remained classified were inadvertently released at NARA, especially in State Department files. Even though researchers had been combing through and copying documents from those collections for years, CIA and other agencies compelled NARA to grant them access to the open files so they could reclassify documents. While this reclassification activity began late in the 1990s, its scope widened during the Bush administration, and it is scheduled to continue until 2007. The CIA has ignored arguments from NARA officials that some of the impounded documents have already been published.

...........

Raiding the Presidential Libraries

It is now evident that the multi-agency historical document reclassification program was expanded in or about 2003 to include the NARA-run Presidential Libraries, especially a review of previously declassified documents housed at the Kennedy and Johnson Libraries. .............

The Damage Done

The results of the multi-agency reclassification effort since it began have dramatic and disturbing ...since 2001 security personnel from the agencies involved have "surveyed" 43.4 million pages of documents held by NARA ... since 2001 9,500 documents totaling 55,500 pages have been reclassified and withdrawn from public circulation ..........

[L. Coyote]

135. Italy judge issues 140 arrest warrants in "Plan Condor" case = 2007.12.24

At least one nation is seeking some justice, albeit Bush has again escaped indictment!

=================================================
Italy judge issues warrants in "Plan Condor" case
Dec 24, ROME (Reuters) - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071224/ts_nm/argentina_italy_condor_dc


An Italian judge on Monday issued arrest warrants for 140 Latin Americans suspected of involvement in a coordinated persecution of leftists and dissidents by Latin America's military rulers in the 1970s, Italian news agencies said.

Almost all of those on the list are living in Latin America and a number are already in custody there as part of investigations into the conspiracy known as "Plan Condor."

One man, Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, a former member of the Uruguayan secret services, was arrested in southern Italy, the Ansa and Agi news agencies reported. The warrants involve Argentines, Bolivians, Brazilians, Chileans, Paraguayans and Peruvians. They are suspected of complicity in the deaths of 25 Italian citizens killed in Latin American by military regimes in the 1970s, the news agencies reported.

Under Italian law, Italian magistrates can investigate the killings of Italian citizens overseas. ............

[L. Coyote]

136. CRIMES OF WAR - Operation Condor: Deciphering the U.S. Role

Operation Condor: Deciphering the U.S. Role
by J. Patrice McSherry - July 6, 2001 - http://www.crimesofwar.org/print/onnews/condor-print.html


According to recently de-classified files, the U.S. aided and facilitated Condor operations as a matter of secret but routine policy.

In mid-April, 2001, Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba issued path-breaking international arrest warrants for two former high-ranking functionaries of the military regimes of Chile and Paraguay. These two, along with an Argentine general also summoned by the court, are accused of crimes committed within the framework of Operation Condor. Judge Canicoba presides over one of several cases worldwide investigating abductions and murders linked to Condor, a shadowy Latin American military network created in the 1970s whose key members were Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, later joined by Peru and Ecuador. Condor was a covert intelligence and operations system that enabled the Latin American military states to hunt down, seize, and execute political opponents across borders. Refugees fleeing military coups and repression in their own countries were "disappeared" in combined transnational operations. The militaries defied international law and traditions of political sanctuary to carry out their ferocious anticommunist crusade.

The judge's request for the detention and extradition of Manuel Contreras of Chile, former chief of the gestapo-like Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), and former dictator Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, along with his summons for ex-junta leader Jorge Videla of Argentina, represents another example of the rapid advances occurring in international law and justice since the arrest of General Pinochet in 1998. In effect, the struggle against impunity is being "globalized."

As human rights organizations, families of victims, lawyers, and judges press for disclosure and accountability regarding human rights crimes committed during the Cold War, inevitable questions arise as to the role of the foremost leader of the anticommunist alliance, the United States. This article explores recent evidence linking the U.S. national security apparatus with Operation Condor. Condor took place within the broader context of inter-American counterinsurgency coordination and operations led and sponsored by the Pentagon and the CIA. U.S. training, doctrine, organizational models, technology transfers, weapons sales, and ideological attitudes profoundly shaped security forces in the region.

Recently declassified documents add weight to the thesis that U.S. forces secretly aided and facilitated Condor operations. ...........

[L. Coyote]

137. Known Cases of U.S. Collaboration with Condor = "Contreras was a CIA asset"

....

In the cable, White reported a meeting with Paraguayan armed forces chief General Alejandro Fretes Davalos. Fretes identified the Panama Canal Zone base of the U.S. military as the site of a secure transnational communications center for Condor. According to Fretes Davalos, intelligence chiefs from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay used "an encrypted system within the U.S. telecommunications net," which covered all of Latin America, to "coordinate intelligence information." In the cable, White drew the connection to Operation Condor and questioned whether the arrangement was in the U.S. interest--but he never received a response.

The Panama base housed the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the U.S. Special Forces, and the Army School of the Americas (SOA), among other facilities, during most of the Cold War. Tens of thousands of Latin American officers were trained at the SOA, which used the infamous torture manuals released by the Pentagon and the CIA in the mid-1990s. Latin American officers trained in Panama have confirmed that the base was the center of the hemispheric anticommunist alliance. One military graduate of the School said, "The school was always a front for other special operations, covert operations." Another officer, an Argentine navy man whose unit was organized into kidnap commandos ("task forces") in 1972, said the repression was part of "a plan that responded to the Doctrine of National Security that had as a base the School of the Americas, directed by the Pentagon in Panama." A Uruguayan officer who worked with the CIA in the 1970s, said that the CIA not only knew of Condor operations, but also supervised them.

The second astonishing piece of recently-released information is the admission by the CIA itself in September 2000 that DINA chief Manuel Contreras was a CIA asset between 1974 and 1977, and that he received an unspecified payment for his services. During these same years Contreras was known as "Condor One," the leading organizer and proponent of Operation Condor. The CIA never divulged this information in 1978, when a Federal Grand Jury indicted Contreras for his role in the Letelier-Moffitt assassinations. .............

...........increasingly weighty evidence suggests that the U.S. national security apparatus sponsored and supported Condor operations. The new evidence reopens important ethical, legal, and policy issues ......... new documentation provokes troubling questions about the country’s central role in financing, training, and collaborating with institutions that carried out torture, assassination, and coups in the name of national security. During the Cold War, the ends were assumed to justify the means, resulting in appalling abuses that violated the human rights and fundamental freedoms the U.S. government publicly espoused.

A process of truth and accountability is needed in this country to address the U.S. role in Latin American repression ..........

[fascisthunter]

139. The Same Right Wing That HATES Chavez?

no way....

[L. Coyote]

140. Chilean Gen. Contreras fingers USA: Letelier DC car bomb assassination "was jointly decided" by CIA

Chilean general speaks of dirty deeds
Emile Schepers - Dec. 15, 2007 - http://www.pww.org/index.php/article/articleview/12200/1/402

Like a terrible figure from a recurring nightmare, former Chilean Gen. Juan Manuel Contreras has once again thrust himself into the limelight of U.S.-South America relations.

In a Dec. 3 statement on Chilean television, Contreras claimed the Sept. 21, 1976, car bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier, a foreign minister under socialist President Salvador Allende, was jointly decided upon by Chile’s military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and U.S. Gen. Vernon Walters, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s U.S. assistant, was also killed in the blast. Her husband Michael Moffitt was injured but survived. At the time, the head of the CIA was George H.W. Bush, later president and the father of the current U.S. chief executive.

Contreras said Pinochet and Walters also jointly plotted the murder of former Chilean army chief Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife, who were killed by a car bomb in Argentina in 1974.

Contreras headed the DINA, the Chilean secret political police, from the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that overthrew Allende until 1977. ..........

[L. Coyote]

158. By Way of Conclusion = "truth and accountability is needed in this country"

By Way of Conclusion

Although the documentary record is still fragmentary and many sources continue to be classified, increasingly weighty evidence suggests that the U.S. national security apparatus sponsored and supported Condor operations. The new evidence reopens important ethical, legal, and policy issues stemming from the Cold War era. In fragile Latin American democracies today, civilian governments are still struggling to deal with the legacies of state terror and to control their still-powerful military-security organizations, while families are still trying to learn what happened to their disappeared loved ones.

For U.S. citizens, the new documentation provokes troubling questions about the country’s central role in financing, training, and collaborating with institutions that carried out torture, assassination, and coups in the name of national security. During the Cold War, the ends were assumed to justify the means, resulting in appalling abuses that violated the human rights and fundamental freedoms the U.S. government publicly espoused.

A process of truth and accountability is needed in this country to address the U.S. role in Latin American repression, as a number of lawyers and human rights activists have advocated. Moreover, U.S. officials should unequivocally reject security doctrines that rationalize violations of human rights as legitimate means to any end.

===================
J. Patrice McSherry is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University and author of Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in Argentina (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997) and numerous articles on Condor and the Latin American military. She began studying Condor in the early 1990s and has conducted research in Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, and the United States.

[L. Coyote]

160. FBI Report Robert Scherrer "surveillance of subjects inside the United States"

FBI Report to Chilean Military on Detainee, June 6, 1975: This letter, one of a number sent by FBI attache Robert Scherrer to Chilean General Ernesto Baeza, provides intelligence obtained through the interrogation of a captured Chilean leftist, Jorge Isaac Fuentes. The document records U.S. collaboration with Chile's security forces, including the promise of surveillance of subjects inside the United States. Fuentes was detained through Operation Condor--a network of Chilean, Argentinian and Paraguayan secret police agencies which coordinated tracking, capturing and killing opponents. According to the Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch30-rep.htm), he was tortured in Paraguay, turned over to the Chilean secret police, and disappeared.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch30-01.htm

[libodem]

141. This creeps me out

like a bad novel. How could our good country have been allowed to behave like this? Yuck.

[L. Coyote]

142. How can we live thinking we are a "good country" when "our country" behaves like this?

How long ago did we become the "good Germans?"

[L. Coyote]

148. George H.W. Bush, the CIA & a Case of State Terrorism

George H.W. Bush, the CIA & a Case of State Terrorism
by Robert Parry - The Consortium online magazine, September 23, 2000
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/GBush_CIA_StateTerror.html


Chilean government assassin had killed a Chilean dissident and an American woman with a car bomb in Washington, D.C., George H.W. Bush's CIA leaked a false report clearing Chile's military dictatorship and pointing the FBI in the wrong direction.

The bogus CIA assessment, spread through Newsweek magazine and other U.S. media outlets, was planted despite CIA's now admitted awareness at the time that Chile was participating in Operation Condor, a cross-border campaign targeting political dissidents, and the CIA's own suspicions that the Chilean junta was behind the terrorist bombing in Washington.

In a 21-page report to Congress on Sept. 18, the CIA officially acknowledged for the first time that the mastermind of the terrorist attack, Chilean intelligence chief Manuel Contreras, was a paid asset of the CIA.

The new report was issued almost 24 years to the day after the murders of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt, who died on Sept. 21, 1976, when a remote-controlled bomb ripped apart Letelier's car as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue, a stately section of Washington known as Embassy Row.

In the new report, the CIA also acknowledged publicly .....

[Rex]

149. Like son like father.

Some of the worst political trash EVER to go through our system! The BFEE and all their drones.

[Bright Eyes]

150. Time to bomb Argentina!

[L. Coyote]

159. Chilean henchmen - murder- Buenos Aires bombing. CIA & FBI reports

Posada and his accomplices, active collaborators of Pinochet’s fascist police
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD –Special for Granma International - http://www.granma.cu/ingles/mar03/mier26/12posada.html


THE charges against a number of Chilean henchmen for the 1974 murder of General Carlos Prats, former chief of the Armed Forces, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires have another Cuban connection .....

Following the coup d’état against constitutionally-elected President Salvador Allende Goznes, the fascist Chilean junta ordered the National Intelligence Office (DINA) to support the criminal projects of Cuban-American terrorists, who were proposing to exchange their respective services in order to liquidate opponents of the dictatorship based abroad.

DINA’s objective was to physically eliminate opposition both inside and outside the country. This was how Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo – all of them founders of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), along with pediatrician and killer Orlando Bosch – actively participated in a significant number of support tasks for Pinochet’s junta, as advisors or providers of mercenaries, explosive materials and logistical support.

A declassified FBI report, dated April 29 1986, confirms a meeting between exiled Cubans and Pinochet on March 17, 1975. Pinochet offered them financial assistance on the condition that they unified the various counterrevolutionary groups. He also promised to mediate in their favor before heads of state in Paraguay and Uruguay, both countries living under cruel dictatorships.

Another FBI document, dated December 17, 1974, specifies that Chile offered paramilitary training to the Cubans, to the extent that the Chilean government provided terrorist Orlando Bosch with passports to enable him to undertake operations.

Likewise, another declassified report shows that the future founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, personally took part in negotiations with fascist Chilean military personnel on December 12, 1974.

The plot formed a part of Plan Condor ......

......

In Chile, former head of DINA’s foreign department, General Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, is now blaming former agent Michael Townley for the murder of the former Chief Commander of the Armed Forces, Carlos Prats, and his wife.

Juan Carlos Manns (Contreras’ lawyer) explained that they wanted the extradition of Michael Townley (now resident in the United States) in order to "clarify his statements" on the crime. In 1999, Townley announced before Argentine judge María Servini de Cubría in Washington, that he had carried out the attack in Buenos Aires on the orders of Contreras.

On the other hand, an investigation ordered by Servini is still underway against Michael Townley, who is charged with having personally placed an explosive device beneath General Prats’ car.

However, a 21-page CIA report directed to Congress and published on September 18, 2000 confirmed that Contreras and brigadier general Espinoza were those who directly ordered the attack and that Michael Townley, his "chief terrorist" was responsible for contracting the Cuban-Americans. Townley, a U.S. citizen based in Chile, arrived in the United States illegally with a Paraguayan passport

[KansDem]

152. Works for me! (nt)

[L. Coyote]

156. Wikipedia: Operation_Condor U.S. Involvement

In the cable Ambassador White reported a conversation with General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, who informed him that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor " in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which cover all of Latin America". According to Davalos, this installation was "employed to co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". Robert White feared that the US connection to Condor might be publicly revealed at a time when the assassination in the U.S.A. of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt was being investigated. White cabled that "it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest."

The "information exchange" (via telex) included torture techniques (e.g. near-drowning, and playing recordings of victims who were being tortured to their families).

This demonstrates that the US facilitated communications for Operation Condor, and has been called by J. Patrice McSherry (Long Island Univ.) "another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor."(Operation Condor: Cable Suggests U.S. Role (English) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010306/ National Security Archive (6 March 2001). Retrieved on 2006-12-15.)

It has been argued that while the US was not a key member, it "provided organizational, intelligence, financial and technological assistance to the operation."("Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America" J. Patrice McSherry ISBN 978-0742536876)

Material declassified in 2004 states .....

........ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor .....

[L. Coyote]

157. SourceWatch - Plan Condor

SourceWatch - Plan Condor
From SourceWatch - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Plan_Condor


Some history on Plan Condor (aka Operation Condor) can be found in articles in CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/solo10012003.html)... andDissidentVoice (http://dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Solo_Condor-US.htm).

The United States' determination to destroy opposition to its domination in Latin America stemmed from its defeat in Vietnam. The 1972 team in Paris helping Henry Kissinger negotiate with the Vietnamese included current US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte and Vernon Walters, later a key adviser to Ronald Reagan, then Army Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. In those days George Bush Sr. was ambassador to the UN.

By 1975, Bush Sr. (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Herbert_Walker_Bush) was head of the CIA and working together with Kissinger and Vernon Walters to develop Plan Condor--a coordinated operation against opposition movements throughout Latin America.<4> Plan Condor involved using illegal covert means such as the assassination team coordinated between the Chilean DIN security service and Miami Cuban terrorists like Orlando Bosch, Guillermo Novo and Luis Posada Carriles.<5> It also meant supporting brutal government policies of mass repression in countries throughout South America. Plan Condor was an ambitious and successful attempt to coordinate that repression.

4.The same team helped set up in 1975 the Committee on the Present Danger (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_the_Present_Danger), in which Paul Dundes Wolfowitz was a leading figure.

5.Hernando Calvo Ospina, "Pinochet, la CIA y los terroristas cubanos", 23 de agosto del 2003, www.rebelion.org.

Plan Condor--alive and well

The progression from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay through Central America to present day Venezuela and Colombia is clear. The same actors appear time after time. Elliott Abrams, John Negroponte, Colin L. Powell, Richard Armitage, John Maisto Roger Noriega and Otto Reich all move between comfortable jobs in US government and the corporate plutocracy that dictates US government policy.

The United States and the European Union are in Latin America for the same reasons as the Spanish, Portuguese, British, French and Dutch colonialists before them ....

................

[L. Coyote]

163. BRAZIL: Senator wants probe .... military downplays role in Condor killings

Brazil military downplays role in Condor killings
Raymond Colitt - BRASILIA, Jan 4 (Reuters) - http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN04288185


Brazil's military .... would not have deported suspects had it known they would be killed, a former army colonel said .... Jarbas Passarinho, a senior government official during Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, played down Brazil's deportation of suspects to neighboring countries.

"I'm convinced the government wouldn't have sent them had it known the person would be killed in Argentina," Passarinho, 87, told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper in an interview.

He rejected comparisons that likened the deportations to Nazis sending Jews to concentration camps........

Argentina, Chile and Paraguay have investigated and put military officials on trial in recent years and the latest case renewed calls for Brazil to step up its own such efforts. Paulo Vannuchi, secretary for human rights, said last week that Brazil should annul a 1979 amnesty law that pardoned military officials for political crimes. He urged Brazilian courts to implement international treaties condemning such crimes.

Leaders of the influential Brazilian lawyers' association said Brazilian governments had been cowardly for not investigating wrongdoing during the military regime........

.........

========================
Brazil signals no extradition for "Condor" suspects
Wed Dec 26, 2007 - RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN2636740120071226


Brazilian authorities said they were awaiting notification from Italy on Wednesday on arrest warrants for suspects in a repression campaign during Latin America's dictatorship era, but said that Brazilian citizens could not be extradited for trial abroad.

An Italian judge on Monday issued arrest warrants for 140 Latin Americans suspected of involvement in Operation Condor -- a coordinated campaign by Latin America's military rulers in the 1970s to persecute leftists and dissidents.

The warrants name Argentines, Bolivians, Brazilians, Chileans, Paraguayans and Peruvians sought for complicity in the deaths of 25 Italian citizens. The list included 13 Brazilians.

"We have received no information, be it from the Italian or Brazilian governments," a Federal Police spokeswoman in Brasilia said.

"There is no such thing as extradition of Brazilian citizens for trial abroad. There can be a request from them to be arrested here ........

.....

==================
RIO DE JANEIRO • Brazilian senator wants probe into ‘Operation Condor’
Web posted at: 1/1/2008 - REUTERS - http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Americas&month=January2008&file=World_News2008010104819.xml


A senior senator has called for an official probe into Brazil's role ... after a former general admitted Brazil's security forces handed over leftists to Argentina's military dictatorship.

"What they did was turn people in to face death," Sen Cristovam Buarque was quoted as saying .....

Among those arrested were 13 Brazilians, suspected of involvement in the campaign.......

Buarque said he wanted the Senate's human rights commission, of which he is a member, to call reserve general Agnaldo Del Nero to testify about Brazil's involvement.

Del Nero, former section chief in the Brazilian army's intelligence department, told O Estado de S Paulo newspaper on Sunday that the Brazilian military had arrested Argentine leftist militants as part of Operation Condor.

"We didn't kill. We arrested people and handed them over........"

[L. Coyote]

166. Virtual Truth Commission = Telling the Truth for a Better America

Virtual Truth Commission
Telling the Truth for a Better America
Reports by Topic: Operation Condor
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/condor.htm


Description

Operation Condor was a 1970s terrorist conspiracy by six U.S.-supported Latin American governments -- Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay -- to murder their political opponents around the world. ...........

American Involvement

Creation of Operation Condor

* Col. Manuel Contreras, who organized the terror network, had set up the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), the Chilean secret police, two months after the September 1973 coup. CIA station chief Stuart Burton, who arrived in Santiago in May 1974, established a close liaison with Contreras and DINA. U.S. Embassy political officer John Tipton, who at the time was cabling protests of human-rights abuses and coauthoring a dissent channel memorandum that called for more U.S. attention to the issue, told me the CIA and DINA were working together. He said, "I don't believe the CIA set up DINA, but they were in a close relationship. Burton and Contreras used to go on Sunday picnics together with their families. That permeated the whole CIA station."
* In August 1975, Contreras had met in Washington with CIA deputy director Vernon A. Walters. Up until then, cooperation between the security services of the Latin American dictators had been informal. There are no declassified documents that prove Walters urged or approved the plan to set up Operation Condor, but the month after meeting with Walters, Contreras asked Pinochet, in a memo obtained by Italian courts, for another $600,000 for "reasons that I consider indispensable," one of which was "the neutralization of the government junta's principal adversaries abroad, especially in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, the U.S.A. and Italy."

...... The Chilean government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission says U.S. Embassy personnel were involved in the capture of a Chilean by Paraguayan police. .....

1976: The FBI Learns of Operation Condor

A week after the killings of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S., and his Instiute for Policy Studies colleague Ronni Moffitt in Washington in 1976, Robert Scherrer, the FBI's attache in Buenos Aires assigned to the case, reported key information to Washington. Scherrer had learned from an Argentine official that Chile was the center of something called Operation Condor, established to share intelligence and engage in joint operations against "so-called 'leftists,' communists and Marxists," he wrote in a recently release document. He said the operation included setting up teams to carry out assassinations around the world and speculated it might have orchestrated the Washington bombing. Scherrer learned that the CIA had already reported on Operation Condor. Lucy Komisar, "Operation Condor and Pinochet", Los Angeles Times, Commentary, November 1, 1998. http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/COMMENT/t000099121.html ..........

.... 1993: Paraguayan archives of terror reveal Nazi and drug trafficking connection ........

[L. Coyote]

167. PERU: Peruvian Government Rejects Extradition of Francisco Morales Bermudez to Italy

Peru Rejects Extradition of Bermudez to Italy
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE7FCDA9E-EE26-4AB9-8661-2DEFE2A9FD17%7D)&language=EN


Lima, Jan 3 (Prensa Latina) Criticism to the Peruvian government for denying the extradition to Italy of former military governor Francisco Morales Bermudez became severe after confirming that the luck of the criminal is in hands of the executive.

In a unanimous way, consulted jurists, like the congressman of the governing party Javier Valle, agreed that President Alan Garcia shouldn"t have rejected without any further analysis the arrest warrant of Morales Bermudez and a foreseeable Italian order of extradition.

.... accused for the kidnapping and disappearance, in 1980, of a group of Argentines exiled in Lima, in an operation of repressive agents of both countries......

The judicial power officially confirmed that the decision on any order of extradition ... judgment of the Supreme Court is only "a qualified opinion" for the analysis of the executive.