U.S. arrests three accused of S.American war crimes

[atreides1]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday announced the arrests of three former South American military officers suspected of war crimes, including the accused chief interrogator of Argentina's former military government.

The suspects include Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro, a retired Argentine army major, who ICE said is accused by Argentine authorities in the torture and deaths of several people during Argentina's so-called Dirty War period from 1976 to 1983.

A second suspect, Telmo Ricardo Hurtado-Hurtado, was arrested in Miami and charged with visa fraud.

Juan Manuel Rivera-Rondon, another former Peruvian army officer accused in the same massacre, was arrested in Baltimore on immigration charges.



Read more: news.yahoo.com

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So we can send back Argentines and Peruvians, but Cubans can stay!!!!!!

[dipsydoodle]

1. So when are they going to arrest

Kissinger ?

[Judi Lynn]

2. The Washington Post is also running this article. Here's that link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301215.html

This is VERY good news, considering these men ran that utterly evil Kissinger-backed Dirty War.

Interesting Chronology of events surrounding the June 10, 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133/chron.htm

Newly declassified documents show U.S. role in 1970s Latin American dictatorships
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=282073&rel_no=1



Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro

From an older site:

Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro
Army Major
(alias "Cachorro")

Barreiro was chief torturer at "La Perla". He participated in kidnappings and murders, and in hiding evidence of the disappeared from the International Red Cross.

He was arrested and held at an Army base in April 1987 for his role in La Perla. He refused to appear before the Court, and was supported by the military at the base where he was being held. Other military followed suit occupying other bases. The crisis averted when President Alfonsin went to one of the bases. A few weeks later, based on a proposal by Alfonsin, the Argentine Congress approved the Due Obedience Law which amnestized almost all the military.

Barreiro was born in Buenos Aires and currently lives in Bahía Blanca. He is married to Ana Maggi and has four children.

http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg/tort/ejercito/barreiro/eng.html

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Ex-Peruvian Soldier Arrested in Fla.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Read Article & Comments (0) Trackbacks(0) Post Your Comments
A former Peruvian soldier convicted in his homeland for his role in a 1985 massacre has been arrested in Florida and charged with lying on his visa application, authorities said Monday.

Telmo Ricardo Hurtado, 45, was arrested Friday. He was charged with making a false statement to obtain a U.S. visa and made his first appearance Monday in federal court.

Hurtado falsely stated in his December 2002 U.S. visa application that he had never been arrested or convicted of a crime, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

In reality, he was convicted in 1993 in Peru on charges of abuse of authority and giving false statements in connection with the 1985 Accomarca massacre of suspected guerrillas, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to six years in a Peruvian military prison and ordered to pay a fine.

Nearly 70 villagers, including children, pregnant women and elderly people, were killed by Hurtado and his soldiers, according to court documents.
(snip)

http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?contentGUID=1c356fb7-fc58-4243-bff3-9825f3a6668d

Longer article:

U.S. arrests three accused of S.American war crimes
Tue Apr 3, 2007 3:59PM EDT

~snip~
Barreiro is wanted by a Cordoba judge investigating the disappearance of a student who was kidnapped in September 1977, local newspapers reported on Tuesday. They said he had managed to flee Argentina for the United States in 2004.

A second suspect, Telmo Ricardo Hurtado, was arrested in Miami and charged with visa fraud.

An affidavit in the case described him as a former Peruvian army platoon commander responsible for the rape and murder of villagers in Accomarca, Peru, during a military search for members of the leftist guerrilla group, the Shining Path.

Juan Manuel Rivera, another former Peruvian army officer accused in the same massacre, was arrested in Baltimore on immigration charges.

According to victims' lawyers, Hurtado fled the country in 2002 when renewed efforts were made to investigate the massacre. Last year, the victims' legal representatives asked for his extradition.
(snip/)

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0325005520070403

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Well, that's 3 Republican votes from they won't be getting in the next national election.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Washington Post: U.S. Holds Suspects In War Crimes

U.S. Holds Suspects In War Crimes
Argentine in Va. Among 3 Arrested

By Spencer S. Hsu and Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; Page A01

Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro seemed to fit in well with his neighbors in Virginia's placid horse country. The quiet, genteel man from Argentina opened an art and antiques store after moving into a farmhouse last year in The Plains.

From the FB Art Gallery & Antiques store attached to his home to a craft shop called Pampa's Corner on nearby Main Street, Barreiro kept a low profile, selling imported leather goods and artwork with his wife.

That unassuming life imploded Sunday morning, when U.S. immigration agents bundled the retired Argentine army major into a van to face criminal charges of visa fraud and eventual deportation to his native country, where he is accused of serving as the chief interrogator at a clandestine torture facility known as La Perla during Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s and 1980s.

Barreiro was among three former South American military officers suspected of war crimes whose arrests were announced yesterday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has renewed its efforts to crack down on alleged human rights violators living as fugitives in the United States.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040300979.html?hpid=topnews

[Roland99]

4. Why arrest them now?

What does the US gov't have to gain (or hide) at this point?

[Judi Lynn]

5. It might have happened in an effort to obscure the Republican Presidents' close ties

to the death squads in Central and South America over the years, an attempt to distance from their involvement, now that the Democrats are finally in charge of committees which can investigate.

I've read that John Kerry did some great work in committee investigating Iran/Contra, and other atrocities, during the time it was possible. There are many Congresspeople who've been very concerned with getting a very close look at Colombia, finally. You may remember that Senator Paul Wellstone went there to investigate for himself, and both had a bomb discovered exactly where he was expected to stop during a trip, which was fortunately found and removed before he arrived, and also was mysteriously DRENCHED in Round-Up plant killing product, along with his aides by an airplane spraying fields for coca plants:

A prominent U.S. Senator and other government officials from both Washington and Bogotá stood on a Colombian mountainside above fields of lime-green coca -- the plant sacred to Andean Indians, but also the source of the troublesome drug cocaine. They were awaiting a demonstration of aerial herbicide spraying, part of the U.S. drug war in Colombia. The spectacle, put on by the U.S. embassy in Bogotá last December, was supposed to address Senator Paul Wellstone's doubts about the accuracy and safety of the U.S.-sponsored drug fumigation program. Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, is a fierce critic of military aid to Colombia and the demonstration needed to come off without a hitch, to win him over to the use of aerially sprayed herbicides. The night before, U.S. officials had responded to the Senator's skeptical questions by assuring him that the spraying would target coca fields without harming food crops.

"They had said that by using satellite images they could hit very precisely targets without any chance of danger to surrounding crops" said Jim Farrell, Wellstone's spokesperson, who was also there. However that turned out not to be the case. "On the very first flyover by the cropduster, the U.S. Senator, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Colombian National Police, and other Embassy and congressional staffers were fully doused -- drenched, in fact -- with the sticky, possibly dangerous (herbicide) Roundup."

"Imagine what is happening when a high-level congressional delegation is not present," Farrell noted, pointing out that careful preparation had gone into the botched flyover. Wellstone left Colombia completely unconvinced by the Embassy.
(snip)

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=669

Also from the article posted:

A month before Wellstone was doused with Roundup, Colombian indigenous leaders visited Congress to personally speak out against the fumigation: "The twelve indigenous peoples have been suffering under this plague as if it were a government decree to exterminate our culture and our very survival," said José Francisco Tenorio, the only leader who was not afraid to use his real name. "Our legal crops -- our only sustenance -- manioc, banana, palms, sugar cane, and corn have been fumigated. Our sources of water, creeks, rivers, lakes, have been poisoned, killing our fish and other living things. Today, hunger is our daily bread. In the name of the Amazonian Indigenous people I ask that the fumigations be immediately suspended."

[Roland99]

6. Wow, thanks for that news. I wasn't aware of that.

I know Kerry's long been a thorn in the BFEE side, though, continuing thru the BCCI investigation.

[Bacchus39]

7. so you'd prefer they stayed here???

and not be arrestd??

[Larry Ogg]

8. I took a look into my crystal ball and saw the future firing of several

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who were not performing as expected. The crystal ball also showed the Bush administrations newly appointed ICE officers found there was insufficient evidence against these three former South American military officers suspected of war crimes. In addition these three individuals will be exonerated of all charges and find gainful employment as security officers at the 1000 acre Bush ranch in Paraguay…

[Judi Lynn]

9. Peruvian torture suspect lived quietly in Miami Beach

Posted on Fri, Apr. 06, 2007
Peruvian torture suspect lived quietly in Miami Beach
A Peruvian torture suspect who lived quietly in Miami Beach is set to face a U.S. magistrate.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY AND TYLER BRIDGES
[e-mail]

Telmo Ricardo Hurtado easily blended into the Miami Beach neighborhood of South American immigrants living in motel-type apartments until immigration agents nabbed the former Peruvian military officer accused of leading a 1985 massacre that killed 69 men, women and children.

Today, Hurtado, 45, who studied briefly at the old U.S. Army School of the Americas, will stand before U.S. Magistrate John O'Sullivan, who will decide if he is eligible for bond.
(snip)

In Peru, Lorenzo Gómez -- who lost his 80-year-old father, a sister-in-law and a cousin and her two children in the Accomarca massacre -- hailed Hurtado's arrest, as did Francisco Soberón, who heads a human rights group.

''He is an assassin who burned people alive, including women with children,'' Gomez said. ``He's a savage. We've been fighting for 22 years to bring him to justice.''
(snip/...)

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/65198.html