Fresh Wikileaks reveal Vatican called reports of Pinochet’s killings ‘propaganda’
Fresh Wikileaks reveal Vatican called reports of Pinochet’s killings ‘propaganda’
By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 8, 2013 8:55 EDT
ROME — The Vatican once dismissed reports of massacres by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as “Communist propaganda”, according to US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s leaked on Monday.
One cable dated October 18, 1973 sent to Washington by the US embassy to the Holy See relayed a conversation with the Vatican’s then deputy Secretary of State, Giovanni Benelli, the leak by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks showed.
Benelli expressed “his and the pope’s grave concern over successful international leftist campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation,” read the cable to then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“Benelli labelled exaggerated coverage of events as possibly greatest success of Communist propaganda,” it said, adding that the Italian monsignor said this showed “how Communists can influence free world media in future”.
More:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/08/fresh-wikileaks-reveal-vatican-called-reports-of-pinochets-killings-propaganda/
= new reply since forum marked as read
mentioned by Bertolli, from the article above:
“As is unfortunately natural following coup d’etat, Benelli observed, there has admittedly been bloodshed during mopping up procedures in Chile,” it said.
[center]
Osvaldo Romo, notorious Pinochet torturer
Sec. of State, Kissinger, left, with
Pinochet, center, facing forward. [/center]
Romo Wikipedia:
Osvaldo Romo
Osvaldo Romo Mena (c. 1938 – July 4, 2007) was an agent of the Chilean Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) from 1973 to 1990, during the rule of Augusto Pinochet. Involved in the forced disappearance of more than a hundred persons (among which the Spanish priest Antonio Llidó Mengual, member of Cristianos por el socialismo (Christians for Socialism) and MIR members Diana Aron Svigilsky, Manuel Cortez Joo and Ofelio Lazo), he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but several of these sentences were suspended by the Chilean Supreme Court.[1]
~snip~
Known as Guatón Romo ("Fatso Romo"or Comandante Raúl, he was one of DINA's most important torturers, operating among others centers in Villa Grimaldi.[1] On April 11, 1995, in an interview televised by Univisión, he commented in great detail, and evidently without remorse, on the techniques that had been used. These included the application of electricity to women's nipples and genitals, the use of dogs, and the insertion of rats into women's vaginas.[1]
—Would you do it again? Would you do it the same way?
—Sure, I'd do the same and more. I wouldn't leave anybody alive (...) That was one of DINA's mistakes. I was always arguing with my general: don't leave that person alive, don't let that person go free. There are consequences.
—As for throwing the corpses of the prisoners into the sea...
—I think it could have happened. (...) Throwing them into the crater of a volcano would be better... (...) Who'd go looking for them in a volcano? Nobody.
—On the day you die... what would your epitaph say? "Here lies the hangman, the torturer, the murderer..."
—Logical, logical. I accept that. But for me it was a positive thing. (...) I am at peace with my conscience and my beliefs.
— Extract from the interview, [2]
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/08/fresh-wikileaks-reveal-vatican-called-reports-of-pinochets-killings-propaganda/
"... always spreading propaganda and conspiracy theories. Pinochet couldn't kill a fly. Such a good Christian.
I'll say a pray for their soul..."
