How the US Backed Pinochet’s Henchman Manuel Contreras
How the US Backed Pinochet’s Henchman Manuel Contreras
By: Nick MacWilliam-mk
Published 11 August 2015 (1 hours 12 minutes ago)
Contreras was U.S trained and U.S. approved.
Manuel Contreras was the military henchman who, more than any other, enforced the brutal repression that governed Chile during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
As head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) secret police - often referred to as Pinochet’s Gestapo - Contreras was responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds of people. Today most of his victims remain among Chile’s thousands of disappeared, their families condemned to perpetual grief in absentia by the inhumanity of military rule.
Unlike his master, however, General Contreras was brought to account for the crimes he committed. When he died last week at the age of 86 in a military hospital in Santiago, Contreras was serving more than 500 years in prison for human rights abuses carried out by the DINA.
In addition to the disappearances that terrorised Chile, he directed the infamous Operation Condor extermination programme which targeted dissidents across Latin America and as far away as the United States and Europe.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/How-the-US-Backed-Pinochets-Henchman-Manuel-Contreras-20150811-0025.html
