Former Chilean soldier charged with murder after stunning radio confession

[bananas]

Source: Guardian

A former conscript in the Chilean army has been charged with murder after confessing on a live radio phone-in to participating in the deaths of 18 opponents of the late military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Guillermo Reyes Rammsy, 62, was arrested on Friday and charged over the 1973 murders of Freddy Taberna Gallegos and German Palomino Lamas, members of Chile’s Socialist Party.

The extraordinary confession began on Wednesday afternoon when a man called in to Chile’s most famous talk show “Chacotero Sentimental” (Loving Betrayal) and told host Roberto Artiagoitía that he was considering suicide.

After briefly describing a frustrated romance, the caller went on to describe his involvement in a string of human rights crimes. He said that, as a conscript, he had participated in 18 executions, following Pinochet’s military coup against the government of president Salvador Allende.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/former-chilean-soldier-charged-murder-radio-confession

[villager]

1. When does Kissinger confess and get charged?

[forest444]

2. In Hell.

‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’

[Judi Lynn]

10. Amazingly evil quote from a former US Secretary of State. Thanks. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

5. Ask her best buddy Hillary. nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. What a great story. So glad to hear this. Now we know how they can "disappear" people.

They blew some of their bodies up with dynamite. Grotesque.

It's wonderful learning a conscience refused to be buried and came back to haunt a killer for fascist, US-supported Pinochet.

[forest444]

6. Very reminiscent of Adolfo Scilingo's 'death flight' confession on Argentine radio in 1995.

By the dictatorship's own admission, up to 8,000 were thrown from military transport planes onto the Río de la Plata bay between 1976 and 1978. It got so bad, that bodies literally washed up on the shore in both Buenos Aires and Uruguay (across the bay) and fishermen would sometimes snag one of these cadavers.

An omertá-like code of silence had existed for years though, and though hundreds had been indicted no one had been convicted.

Then, on March 2, 1995, a former Navy officer, Adolfo Scilingo, simply walked into the radio studio run by left-wing journalist Horacio Verbitsky - and spilled the beans. Because he knew everything about the death flights down to fine details, and because by his own admission he had been unable to sleep well for years on account the memory, his confession turned into a real game changer for conservatives who still preferred to believe it "never happened." Many listeners later described it as something akin to the tours the Allied forces gave the German citizenry of the concentration camps they had vaguely heard about, but refused to believe actually existed.

It also had the effect to turning the blanket presidential pardons issued by neocon favorite Carlos Menem in 1990 into a real political liability for him. The pardons, and all other amnesty laws passed to shield the 1,000 or so officers implicated in the Dirty War from prosecution, were, as you know, rescinded by Néstor Kirchner in 2003; over 600 have since been convicted.

Scilingo himself was convicted by Judge Baltasar Garzón in Spain in 2005. His confession, though, was critical in turning the tide against impunity.



Lt. Cmdr. Adolfo Scilingo, the only one who ever showed any remorse - and whose confession changed history.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Adolfo Scilingo did the most important thing in his life when he dared to come clean

about the sadistic murders the US-supported fascist dictatorship committed, with his help, during the Dirty War.

After seeing your post, I found this article from the Independent:

~ snip ~

An official report concluded that 4,000 people were killed during the Dirty War and 9,000 disappeared. Human rights groups say a more accurate figure is that 30,000 "were disappeared" - Argentines prefer that term since the victims did not simply vanish. They were taken away and never seen again. Argentines believe the "death flight" idea was aimed at avoiding the discovery of mass graves, with the salt water and fish of the Atlantic and the mouth of the Plata river destroying the evidence.

The story has taken on an additional dimension with reports that the Roman Catholic church knew of or even suggested the "death flights". According to Captain Scilingo, churchmen supported the practice as "a non-violent Christian way to die. Chaplains comforted the officers involved [in the flights] with parables from the Bible about the necessity of separating the wheat from the chaff," he said.

Captain Scilingo said he had decided to reveal his experiences because he could not forget them. He had nightmares, had taken to sleeping pills and drink in an attempt to blot out the horror of his memories. He has told his story in a book called El Vuelo (The Flight), by Pagina 12 journalist, Horacio Verbitsky.

. . .

Most Roman Catholic clergymen avoided comment on Captain Scilingo's allegations. Pagina 12 reported this week, however, that the Church had in 1979 sold an island in the Parana river to the Navy to allow it to set up a secret detention centre for "subversives".

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/juntas-opponents-thrown-live-into-sea-1611261.html

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Here's hoping more will come forward to cleanse their conscience, try to pay some of the debt they owe mankind for their profound cruelty against living beings.

Looking forward to learning more about this era, and about Adolfo Scilingo. His words should never be forgotten. He describes what happens when fascists get the upper hand anywhere.

[forest444]

8. Excellent link. The confession also brought world attention to the state of impunity at the time.

Menem had become convinced that the red-carpet treatment he was giving the multinationals that were swooping down on Argentina in the '90s to buy valuable state firms at raffle prices, would shield him from too much criticism of his 1990 blanket pardons in the international media. And, largely, it did - until Scilingo's confession.

I'm not saying he should be pardoned; he did, by his own admission help throw over 1,200 people of of planes himself. But when Kirchner later ended the era of impunity in 2003, he himself mentioned that without Scilingo's confession, others might have not confessed, and the trials would have been that much more difficult to restart - much less obtain convictions on.

The duality of people.

[Jesus Malverde]

4. The call....

[Judi Lynn]

9. Ex-soldier held after radio caller admits Chile slayings

Dec 12, 3:08 PM EST

Ex-soldier held after radio caller admits Chile slayings

By PATRICIA LUNA
Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A 62-year-old army veteran has been arrested after a man called a radio talk show and confessed to taking part in 18 killings during the former Chilean dictatorship's so-called dirty war against leftists during the 1970s.

Police on Friday arrested former conscript to Guillermo Reyes Rammsy, identifying him as the man who made an emotional 25-minute call to a radio program this week. A judge placed him under house arrest.

During the program, the caller who gave his name as "Alberto" recounted taking several people to the desert, shooting them in the head and blowing them up. He said "not even their shadow was left."

"Have you heard where the disappeared are?" the caller asked. "Nobody has told you where the disappeared are ... Well, it's because they aren't. They are totally disintegrated. Nothing remained."

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_CHILE_CALL_IN_CONFESSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-12-12-13-46-26

[center]

Guillermo Reyes Rammsy[/center]

[joshcryer]

11. I hope his conscious gets him to rat out others.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Reuters: Chileans shocked by radio confession of Pinochet-era executions

Chileans shocked by radio confession of Pinochet-era executions

Source: Reuters - Sat, 12 Dec 2015 22:05 GMT

By Rosalba O'Brien

SANTIAGO, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A caller into a radio show shocked Chile this week with a chilling confession of executions he had taken part in as a conscript during Chile's military dictatorship, and the socialist party said a judge had ordered his arrest.

A caller to the "Chacotero Sentimental" radio station on Wednesday, who identified himself as 62-year-old "Alberto", began talking about a love affair but then moved on to describing how he had executed people during the 1970s.

The brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990, when an estimated 3,200 people were murdered and another 28,000 tortured by the state. Many of the victims had been affiliated with the socialist government of Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a 1973 coup.

. . .

Some politicians on the right still defend Pinochet's legacy, saying the coup saved Chile from Allende's Marxist agenda. For years, conservatives blocked attempts to prosecute members of the military accused of dictatorship-era abuses.

More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20151212220718-2bugd/

[rafeh1]

13. Grunts get jail

While the suits go scot free

[Judi Lynn]

14. Regarding SOME forms of US-supported Pinochet's torture of political prisoners:

Torture Under Pinochet

By Lauren R. Foote February 7, 2007

The Report of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture was commissioned in 2003 to create the most comprehensive list possible of those who were imprisoned and tortured for political reasons during the military dictatorship from September 1973 to March 1990. This mandate was vastly different from that of the first Chilean truth commission, The Rettig Report of 1991, which enumerated solely those who had been disappeared or murdered.

Published in 2005, the report greatly expanded on the official version of the extent of repression in Chile. The Commission took testimony from 35,868 individuals who were tortured or imprisoned improperly. Of those, 27,255 were verified and included. An unknown number of victims did not come forward to give testimony. Scholars estimate that the real number is between 150,000 and 300,000 victims.

94 per cent of the verified testimonies include incidents of torture. The short list of methods includes repeated kicking or hitting, intentional physical scarring, forcing victims to maintain certain positions, electric shocks to sensitive areas, threats, mock execution, humiliation, forced nudity, sexual assault, witnessing the torture or execution of others, forced Russian roulette, asphyxiation, and imprisonment in inhumane conditions. There are many individuals with permanently distorted limbs or other disfigurations. For others, the memory of the humiliation is what remains. One man testified, “While they interrogated me, they took off my clothes and attached electrodes to my chest and testicles…They put something in my mouth so that I wouldn’t bite my tongue while they shocked me.”

For women, it was an especially violent experience. The commission reports that nearly every female prisoner was the victim of repeated rape. The perpetration of this crime took many forms, from military men raping women themselves to the use of foreign objects on victims. Numerous women (and men) report spiders or live rats being implanted into their orifices. One woman wrote, “I was raped and sexually assaulted with trained dogs and with live rats. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother who were also detained. I also had to listen to my father and brother being tortured.” Her experiences were mirrored by those of many other women who told their stories to the commission.

The question of whether some human rights can be encroached upon in the interest of national (or global) security is one without an easy answer and it is a question that should and will be debated. Perhaps some human rights will be suspended in tumultuous times. But if you choose to argue that the trauma Chile faced during Pinochet’s reign necessitated “some” repression, do so with a full understanding of what you are defending.

More:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/2/7/torture-under-pinochet-we-were-peeling/

[Octafish]

15. When'll Poppy Bush face justice for his role in murder of Chilean diplomat and American woman?

As head of CIA, Poppy exteneded some kind of professional courtesy to the terrorists who bombed Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffit in 1976. He told then Cong. Ed Koch that there was nothing CIA could do protect him, either.



Unsealed Documents Show Pinochet 'Directly' Involved in Capitol Hill Assassinations

Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt became 'symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship'

by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
CommonDreams, Oct. 8, 2015

Loved ones have long charged that U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet had a direct hand in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his Institute for Policy Studies colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Now, they may finally be vindicated.

The administration of President Barack Obama on Thursday publicly released documents that appear to show that Pinochet was behind the murders of Letelier and Moffitt, who have become "symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at IPS, told Common Dreams.

The materials, which include CIA papers, were given to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

SNIP...

Letelier’s son, Chilean Senator Juan Pablo Letelier, is one of the few people who has reviewed the trove and confirmed to the Guardian that they conclusively show Pinochet directly ordered the killing. In addition, the documents reportedly reveal that Pinochet had intended to cover up his role in the assassination by killing his spy chief.

"In (Pinochet’s) predisposition to defend his position he planned to eliminate Manuel Contreras to keep him from talking," Senator Letelier told the Mesa Central show on Tele13 Radio.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/08/unsealed-documents-show-pinochet-directly-involved-capitol-hill-assassinations

From 2006: Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush

Poppy Bush told Ed Koch 'nothing I can do' to stop your assassin, yet he ran CIA & Op CONDOR.



'I’m sorry, Ed. There’s nothing I can do': Shocking untold tale of the Chilean government's plot to KILL Ed Koch...and how CIA director George Bush couldn't help

* Then a New York congressman, Koch won the ire of South American dictators he'd begun a crusade to help oust in the name of democracy

* Exiled Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier was assassinated days before Koch was warned in a shocking act of terrorism in Washington

* A new book links the threat on Koch to what was known as Operation Condor, a top secret terrorism corps involving Pinochet and other despots

In The Condor Years, John Dinges reveals Bush knew of Condor threats against Koch but failed to warn him until Letelier's spectacular murder

By JOSHUA GARDNER
Daily Mail (London), PUBLISHED: 10:58 EST, 18 February 2014

Ed Koch's status as a beloved New York City mayor hid a shocking untold history: the late politician was the target of a widespread South American terror operation's 70s-era assassination plot, a new book revealed Tuesday.

While still serving as a New York congressman working to oust ruthless despots from beleaguered countries like Chile and Uruguay, Koch received a phone call in 1976 from then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush telling the future mayor to watch his back.

Just days before, Washington saw its worst act of terror ever when an exiled Chilean ambassador was snuffed out with a car bomb on Embassy Row. Bush called to tell Koch he was next, and there was nothing he could do.

'Listen, my agents have gotten news that there’s a contract out on your life,' Bush told the horrified four-term congressman in a conversation recalled to author John Dinges by Koch.

SNIP...

Cue Operation Condor: an alliance of six Latin American countries led by Chile and Pinochet which formed secretly as a means of collaborating when one country wanted an enemy on foreign soil dead.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562159/Shocking-untold-tale-Chilean-governments-plot-KILL-Ed-Koch-CIA-director-George-Bush-help.html

Justice.

[bananas]

16. So new information about the 1976 Washington DC car-bomb assassination is still coming out.

Thanks for posting that.

Oct. 8, 2015

<snip>

The administration of President Barack Obama on Thursday publicly released documents that appear to show that Pinochet was behind the murders of Letelier and Moffitt, who have become "symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at IPS, told Common Dreams.

The materials, which include CIA papers, were given to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

<snip>