Italy seeks Condor plot suspects

[IndianaGreen]

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Monday, 24 December 2007, 21:36 GMT

Italy seeks Condor plot suspects

Prosecutors in Italy have issued arrest warrants for 140 people over a decades-old plot by South American dictatorships called Operation Condor.

One man - 60-year-old Uruguayan former naval intelligence officer Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli - has already been arrested in Salerno, south Italy.

Under Operation Condor, six governments worked together from the 1970s to hunt down and kill left-wing opponents.

Italian authorities have been looking into the plot since the late 1990s.

The investigation followed complaints by relatives of South American citizens of Italian origin who had disappeared.

A judge issued the arrest warrants on Monday, following a request from state prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7159666.stm

---

From 1975 until the 1980s, military dictatorships in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia,
Paraguay, and Peru cooperated in hunting down and killing their political opponents that had sought refuge in their respective countries.

[scarletwoman]

1. With help from Kissinger and the CIA. k&r (nt)

[dantyrant]

2. Hopefully they won't overlook Poppy Bush!

[MinM]

30. Operation Condor - South America's Gladio...

Larisa Alexandrovna has her own take on this..

http://www.atlargely.com/2007/12/operation-condo.html

Poor

Poppy

[Judi Lynn]

31. This is excellent! Just took my first look at the material you've added, coming back late to study

it.

Had never heard of the Gladio material, and I can imagine why! It's something the fascists would want to pass unnoticed by the taxpaying people who innocently pay the salaries of all the people employed to conduct these underhanded, malignant, murderous actions.

If more is coming out about this, and FINALLY people are awakening, this can only help. Not a moment too soon.

Welcome to D.U., MinM. :hi: :hi: :hi:

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. If Kissinger is guilty, why haven't they issued an arrest warrant for him?

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

18. There's still time, it may happen. He has had to change travel plans to avoid trouble already.

Here's an open letter I just found written in hope of keeping the bastard out of Canada:

Kissinger Out of Canada

A nonviolent coalition dedicated to respect for human rights Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0, [phone]

April 2, 1999

Lloyd Axworthy

Minister for External Affairs

125 Sussex Dr.

Lester B. Pearson Bldg.

Ottawa, ON K1A 0G2

Dear Lloyd Axworthy,

We are writing to you regarding the potential entrance to Canada of a known war criminal, Henry Kissinger, scheduled to appear in Toronto May 18 at the Diners Club Speakers Forum (contact: James F. Keating, President and CEO, Speakers Forum, The Leaders Lecture Series, Diner's Club International -- Enroute, 1235 Bay St, Ste. 400, Toronto, ON M5R 3K4). As you are no doubt aware, events in the United Kingdom have shown us that, as in the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, leaders cannot be held immune from prosecution under international law for crimes they have committed.

While much of the world is concentrating on war crimes in the Balkans, we must not pull the wool over our eyes when it comes to prosecution of war criminals at home. Canada's War Crimes Act is very clear in this regard: those who have committed or aided and abetted the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity are not to be allowed entry into Canada.

Kissinger's record of the past forty years is worth an inquiry from your department: his role in military coups, support for torture states, the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and saturation bombings of civilian populations is well documented.

As you are no doubt aware, residents of Toronto come from all parts of the world; many were forced to flee their countries of origin because of policies and regimes propped up and directly aided by Kissinger. As such, his appearance as a welcome guest in Toronto is one which insults those who experienced pain and suffering as a result of his criminal actions.

To cite one example, it has long been established that Kissinger was one of the key players driving the coup which placed Augusto Pinochet -- recently arrested in the U.K. for commiting crimes against humanity -- as dictator of Chile in 1973. Kissinger's arrogance towards Latin America was best revealed in his statement to the Chilean foreign minister Gabriel Valdes: "Nothing important can come from the South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance."

Kissinger chaired the 40 Committee, responsible for approving all sensitive covert operations, including the campaign to overthrow and assassinate Chile's democratically-elected President, Dr. Salvador Allende. Kissinger's arrogance is reflected in his statement, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."

A U.S. Senate investigation showed that, shortly after Allende was elected, Kissinger ordered a "cold-blooded assessment" of the "pros and cons and problems and prospects involved should a Chilean military coup be organized now with U.S. assistance." In a meeting with Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA director, terms such as "make the economy scream", "full-time job -- best men we have", and "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary" were used to describe efforts to overthrow Allende. One Nixon administration official, quoted in The Cold Peace, said "Through 1971, plans for killing Allende became firmer. The talk of the bazaar was that 'Henry wanted it.'"

Kissinger saw a democratic Chile as a "contagious example" which could "infect" Latin America and Europe. As Secretary of State, Kissinger helped cement Pinochet's position in Chile, and the resulting years saw unspeakable crimes committed against the Chilean people, including the torture, disapperarance and murder of tens of thousands of students, labour leaders, writers, artists and anyone suspected of harboring democratic thought. Now that Pinochet faces trial, those who aided and abetted the coup should also be held responsible.

The March 7, 1999 Guardian Weekly goes a step further in releasing recently declassified documents which show Kissinger went to great lengths to cover up human rights atrocities in Chile These files are part of the Spanish court case against Mr. Pinochet, and show that Kissinger refused to denounce a plan by Chile and other repressive regimes to set up the notorious terrorist Operation Condor, whose aim was the assassination of high-profile opponents of the Pinochet dictatorship.

The case of Chile is but one example. Kissinger support for the invasion and subsequent genocide in East Timor, support for apartheid in South Africa, for repression in Brazil and Argentina during the 1970s "dirty wars", the secret bombing of Cambodia, Laos, and threatened use of nuclear weapons against Hanoi during the U.S. invasion of Vietnam are but a partial list of nefarious Kissinger deeds.

Because of these and many other examples, we urge you to take immediate action to block the entry to Canada of Kissinger. If time does not allow for such action, we would ask that you detain Mr. Kissinger upon his arrival in Canada such that a tribunal inquiry may be established to hold him accountable for his crimes, just as the Spanish courts have attempted to proceed against mr. Pinochet.

We look forward to your prompt reply regarding this matter. In the meantime, we would like to refer you to Canada's War Crimes Act <35-36 Elizabeth II, Chapter 37), aid and abet section, which clearly shows that the actions of Kissinger in support of Augusto Pinochet make him subject to arrest and deportation upon his entry into Canada. [br />
Indeed, as you yourself have stated, "Ultimately, the only way you are going to get people to stop committing atrocities is if they recognize that someday, somewhere, some place, they will be held accountable for them." As a strong supporter of war crimes tribunals in the Balkans and Rwanda, we would hope that you would apply an equal standard to crimes committed by "our side" such as those committed by Kissinger.

As we approach the year 2000, we would hope that the concept of human rights would be worth more than a passing comment or lip service, especially when it comes to one of the worst human rights violators of the second half of the 20th century.

Peace

Matthew Behrens, Laurel Smith and Brent Patterson

Kissinger Out of Canada

http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/kissinger.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a very weak, puny, inadequate Wikipedia on Kissinger:

On May 31, 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested a summons served on Kissinger while he was staying at the Ritz Hotel in Paris <21>. Loire wanted to question Kissinger for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor—a mid-1970s campaign of kidnapping and murder coordinated among the intelligence and security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—as well as the death of five French nationals under the Chilean junta <21>. As a result, Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department.

In July 2001, the Chilean high court granted investigating judge Juan Guzmán the right to question Kissinger about the 1973 killing of American journalist Charles Horman <21>, whose execution at the hands of the Chilean military following the coup was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing. The judge's questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but went unanswered.

In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory to the U.S. State Department, in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), requesting a deposition by Kissinger to aid the judge's investigation of Operation Condor.<22>

On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, DC, federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup.<21><23><24> Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt,<24> As a part of the suit, Schneider’s two sons are attempting to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for US$3 million.<24>

On September 11, 2001, the 28th commemorations of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian general and president Hugo Banzer, former Argentine general and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner for alleged involvement in Operation Condor.<25> The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean.

In late 2001, the Brazilian government cancelled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in São Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity from judicial action.<23><21>

Kenneth Maxwell's review, in Foreign Affairs November/December 2003, of Peter Kornbluh's book The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, discussed Kissinger's relationship with Augusto Pinochet's regime, in particular concerning operation Condor and Orlando Letelier's assassination, in Washington, DC, in 1976.

A 1978 cable released in 2000 shows 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 all of Latin America". Robert E. White, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, was concerned that the U.S. connection to Condor might be revealed during the then ongoing investigation into the 1976 assassination of Letelier.<26> Kornbluh and Maxwell both draw the conclusion from this and other materials that the U.S. State Department, on Kissinger's watch, had foreknowledge of the assassination.
(snip/...)

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He's got a hell of a karma account waiting for him down the road. Sure hope it will catch up with him before he dies.

[pitohui]

3. much luck to them it's way overdue EOM

,

[FogerRox]

4. Very interesting.

[Judi Lynn]

5. God, this is great news! Happy goddamned hunting to them. THEY are doing the world a favor if they

can find these filthy criminals.

I've heard that Cuban "exiles" from the U.S. participated. They definitely were part of the Condor operation which murdered Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letellier, and his American associate, and wounded her husband in Letelier's car on the streets of Washington, D.C., in BROAD DAYLIGHT.

_{George W. Bush} got right on it after he stole office and pardoned the two Cubans who headed to Miami. It was covered in the papers. Those two scums hardly spent any time in prison, after it was all said and done, for bombing the bejesus out of a perfectly fine person and his American assistant.

One of Posada’s co-conspirators in the Panamanian bomb plot, Guillermo Novo, was implicated, too, in the right-wing terrorism that flared up during George H.W. Bush’s year in charge of the CIA.

Novo was convicted of conspiracy in the bombing deaths of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt, who were killed on Sept. 21, 1976, as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C.

That terror attack, which was organized by Chile’s secret police with the aid of Novo and other anti-Castro Cubans, was the first case of state-sponsored terrorism in the U.S. capital. The bombing was part of a broader assassination campaign ordered by right-wing South American dictatorships under the code name “Operation Condor.”

If the Letelier-Moffitt murders had been solved quickly, there was a danger the revelations could have hurt Republican election chances in 1976, when President Gerald Ford was in a tight race with Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Linking the Chilean government to an audacious terror attack in the heart of the U.S. capital would have revived critical press coverage of the CIA’s role in the overthrow of Chile’s elected socialist government in 1973, a coup that had put in power Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who, in turn, launched “Operation Condor.”

At the time of the Letelier-Moffitt car bombing, Bush’s CIA had evidence in its files that implicated Pinochet’s secret police in the plot to kill Letelier, an outspoken critic of the military regime. But Bush’s spy agency withheld the incriminating information from the FBI and misdirected the investigation away from the guilty parties.
(snip/...)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html



One of the fine skills honed in this country by some real fine human beings (sarcasm): hiding somewhere and blowing up someone's car without ever being seen.

[bluesmail]

7. That's what happened to Judi Bari of EarthFirst!

Her car was bombed. That's what the pictures reminded me of. Yup. 1990. I don't believe they caught who did it.

[bluesmail]

6. Finally, Does it seem as though

other countries are cooperating with one another to stop * administration? Perhaps working in conjunction with agencies here? On edit, woops forgot the K & R.

[windoe]

11. Who are the Allied Forces

that would rescue us from our Hitler?
This same question runs through my mind sometimes: 'Can Americans alone overcome this 21st Century Fascism, or would we need the help of other countries?'

[Judi Lynn]

8. Oh, fooey! While looking for more information on the 2 bombers George W. Bush got out of prison who

after he stole the Presidency, I stumbled across this information, which leads into information on Klaus Barbi, the subject of another thread posted in "Editorials." He was the notorious Nazi torturer whom the CIA set up and protected in Bolivia after the 2nd World War:

......The International Fascista, in turn, was involved with Operation Condor, an international assassination consortium. Arguably the most celebrated of Condor’s victims was former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, killed by a bomb in Washington, D.C. in September of 1976. The elder George Bush was the head of the CIA at the time. FTR #’s 259 and 268 highlight the strong connections between Miami’s Cuban exile community, the assassination of Orlando Letelier, the Iran-Contra scandal and the forces mobilized on behalf of George W. Bush during the Florida “recount.”

12. Recently disclosed documents have revealed that Condor operatives were using a U.S. communications facility in Panama to liaise with their superiors. ("New Files tie U.S. to Deaths of Latin Leftists in 1970’s" by Diana Jean Schemo; New York Times; 3/6/2001; p. A6.)

13. “The cable said Condor nations ‘keep in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal zone, which covers all of Latin America. This U.S. communications facility is used mainly by student officers to call home to Latin America,’ the cable continued, ‘but it is also employed to coordinate intelligence information among the Southern Cone countries. They maintain the confidentiality of their communication through the U.S. facility in Panama by using bilateral codes.’” (Idem.)


14. The program excerpts RFA-20, setting forth the connection between operation Condor and Colonia Dignidad, a Nazi exile colony in Chile. (Secrets of the SS; Glenn Infield; Copyright 1981 ; Stein & Day; ISBN 0-88029-185-0; pp. 205-7.) (For more on Colonia Dignidad, see also: RFA-37 and FTR-265.)

15. “The trail then led to an enclave deep in the foothills of the Chilean Andes south of Santiago, an enclave known only as ‘the Colony’ to outsiders but officially named Colonia Dignidad (Noble Colony) by the Chilean government. Regardless of what name it is called, the secret colony is actually a Nazi stronghold that is protected by the Chilean government and which works very closely with the DINA {the Chilean secret police}. Informed sources within the Chilean government state that one of the responsibilities of the ex-Gestapo and ex-SS officers at Colonia Dignidad is to demonstrate nazi torture methods for the Chilean secret police and to instruct the DINA in such brutality. These sources verified that there is a detention camp for Chilean political prisoners within the colony. . . . The colony has its own airstrip, its own fleet of aircraft, and a private communications system. The elaborate communications system permits {ex-Luftwaffe officer Paul} Schaeffer and his colleagues to keep in radio contact with a ‘mother house’ in Sieburg {Germany} and with a mansion in Santiago that is filled with modern electronic communications equipment.” (Ibid.; pp. 205-6.)

16. The possibility that the communications system at Colonia Dignidad may have been used by Condor operatives to communicate with the facility at Panama is one to be seriously considered. The broadcast concludes with another excerpt from RFA-20, discussing former Lyons Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, and his work on behalf of Condor and elements of U.S. intelligence. (The Nazi Legacy: Klaus Barbie and the International Fascist Connection; Magnus Linklater, Neal Ascherson, Isabel Hilton; Copyright 1984 ; Holt, Rinehart and Winston; ISBN 0-069303-9; p. 269.) (For more on Barbie and his work for U.S. intelligence, see also: RFA #’s 2, 3, 17, 19, 27 and FTR #131.)

17. “Finally, as if to emphasize the many levels on which Barbie was now operating, a CIA report shows that the agency approved a meeting, organized by Barbie in 1977 in the tropical Yungas region of Bolivia, between representatives of the Chilean and Bolivian intelligence services. Barbie himself attended it. According to a Bolivian official who was there, the discussion centered around coordination between the two services and the promotion of Condor, a system of mutual aid between right-wing regimes in Latin America, promoted by the US to unify their anti-subversion activities.” (Idem.) (See also: L #’s 8, 9, 10, RFA #’s 31, 33, 35, 38, Miscellaneous Archive Shows M-29, M-39, M-43 as well as FTR #’s 41, 43, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 137, 160, 171, 168, 174, 181, 191, 249, 255.) (Recorded on 3/18/2001.)
(snip)

http://spitfirelist.com/f284.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some DU'ers know that Paul Schaeffer was the child-molesting monster who ran not one but TWO Colonias in Chile, kept the wives and husbands separate from each other, and handled torture of many prisoners for Augusto Pinochet, the U.S.-supported monster dictator of Chile.

Anyone curious about this nightmarish man, his two enclaves, his hideous place in history will find a lot to absorb in searches.
It has been speculated that they killed an American traveler who was unfortunate to get too close to their Colonia Dignidad in Chile.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colonia Dignidad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Colonia Dignidad ("Dignity Colony") is the former name of the present-day Villa Baviera, (Bavaria Village) settlement located in an isolated area in the Province of Linares, Maule Region of central Chile, near the village of Parral. It was founded by a group of German immigrants led by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer in 1961. The full name of the colony was Sociedad Benefactora y Educacional Dignidad, like its precursor which the immigrants started in the mid-1950s.

The colony grew to some 300 residents, both Germans and Chileans, and covered 137 square kilometers (53 square miles). The main activity at the colony was agriculture, but it also featured a school, a free hospital, two airstrips, a restaurant and even a power station. The colony was quite secretive, surrounded by barbed wire fences, searchlights and a watchtower, and contained secret caches of war weaponry (including a tank). Some have described it as a cult, though others considered it simply a group of harmless eccentrics. In recent years, though, some facts have emerged about the disturbing history of the colony. With Villa Grimaldi, it is considered as one of the most important detention and torture centers of Augusto Pinochet's era, and links with DINA have been alleged.

Colonia Dignidad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Colonia Dignidad ("Dignity Colony") is the former name of the present-day Villa Baviera, (Bavaria Village) settlement located in an isolated area in the Province of Linares, Maule Region of central Chile, near the village of Parral. It was founded by a group of German immigrants led by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer in 1961. The full name of the colony was Sociedad Benefactora y Educacional Dignidad, like its precursor which the immigrants started in the mid-1950s.

The colony grew to some 300 residents, both Germans and Chileans, and covered 137 square kilometers (53 square miles). The main activity at the colony was agriculture, but it also featured a school, a free hospital, two airstrips, a restaurant and even a power station. The colony was quite secretive, surrounded by barbed wire fences, searchlights and a watchtower, and contained secret caches of war weaponry (including a tank). Some have described it as a cult, though others considered it simply a group of harmless eccentrics. In recent years, though, some facts have emerged about the disturbing history of the colony. With Villa Grimaldi, it is considered as one of the most important detention and torture centers of Augusto Pinochet's era, and links with DINA have been alleged.

Accusations of abuse
Some defectors from the colony have portrayed the colony as a cult where leader Paul Schäfer held ultimate power. They claim that the residents were never allowed to leave the colony, and that they were strictly segregated by gender. Television and telephones were banned. Residents worked wearing Bavarian peasant garb and sang German folk songs. Sex was banned, with some residents forced to take drugs to reduce their desires. Severe discipline in the form of beatings and torture was commonplace -- Schäfer preached that discipline was spiritually enriching.


Child molestation
Paul Schäfer, a former Luftwaffe paramedic, was the founder and first leader ("Permanent Uncle") of Colonia Dignidad. He left Germany in 1961 after being accused of sexually abusing two boys. On May 20, 1997, he fled Chile, pursued by authorities investigating charges that he had molested 26 children of the colony. In March 2005, he was arrested in Argentina and extradited to Chile. He is also wanted for questioning about the disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler in 1985, an American Jewish mathematics professor of Russian origin.

Twenty-two other members of Colonia Dignidad were found guilty of aiding the molestation, including Dr. Hartmut Hopp, the second-in-command.


Torture
Investigations by Amnesty International and the Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report have verified that Colonia Dignidad was used by DINA, the Chilean secret police, as a concentration camp for the detention of political prisoners during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorial rule of Chile. Most accounts have this happening between 1973 and 1977 but precise dates are not known.

The son of DINA head Manuel Contreras claims that his father and Pinochet visited Colonia Dignidad in 1974, and that his father and Schäfer were good friends. The current leader of Villa Baviera admits that torture took place within the old colony, but says that Villa Baviera is a new entity.

In March 2005, former DINA and CIA agent Michael Townley acknowledged to links between Colonia Dignidad and DINA, as well as relations with the Bacteriological War Army Laboratory. He would have spoken about biological experiments imposed to detainees, with the help of the fore-mentioned laboratory and another one, that used to be situated on Vía Naranja de Lo Curro hill <1>.

In 2005 the German-born Gisela Seewald, who arrived in Colonia Dignidad in 1963, confessed according to Judge Jorge Zepeda, that she applied psychiatric treatment against children, because Schäfer assured her they were possessed.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad

[mogster]

9. Some related links

Condor legacy haunts South America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3720724.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor#U.S._involvement

[Judi Lynn]

16. Super articles! Your BBC link refers to Pinochet's denial of any responsibility for Condor:

However, Gen Pinochet denied all knowledge of Operation Condor when he was questioned by a Chilean judge.

"No, I don't remember, because it wasn't my problem," he told Juan Guzman in September 2004. "That was an issue, I imagine, for mid-level officials."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901020701-265371,00.html



I just can't stand those mid-level officials, can you?

However, Time Magazine indicates Pinochet took a very active interest in his little CIA-assisted kingdom:

Pinochet liked to say that no blade of grass moved in Chile without his order.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901020701-265371,00.html

Whom to trust! Is it Pinochet, or is it EVERYONE ELSE?

[mogster]

19. Yes, good point

They will always deny, the dictators. They will claim that 'it wasn't like that' or 'people are lying', but in the end of the day they should be forced to admit responsibility for their actions. To blame the anonymous bureaucrat is not uncommon, but in a top down system like fascism, the mid-level officials will respond to the doctrine imposed from above anyway, out of fear, out of radicalized opportunism or out of pure self interest. The dictator inherits the blame for the whole system, while the mid-level officials will be judged after their position and what they actually did.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Reports: Italy Seeks Dirty War Suspects

Reports: Italy Seeks Dirty War Suspects
8 hours ago

ROME (AP) — Italian police made one arrest Monday as prosecutors issued warrants for former South American officials accused in crackdowns on dissent in several countries in past decades, news reports said.

Police in the southern city of Salerno arrested Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, a former naval intelligence officer in Uruguay, as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Italian and non-Italian opponents of South America's military dictatorships, the news agencies ANSA and Apcom reported.

Prosecutors in Rome issued warrants for the arrests of 140 officials who worked for the military dictatorships or the secret services in the 1970s and 1980s of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, Apcom reported.

The suspects include Argentina's former junta leader Jorge Videla and Uruguay's former dictator Juan Bordaberry, ANSA said. Both are already being held and facing prosecution in their home countries for human rights abuses.

More:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ixaVWQ32fYtV3KVBLN-fPMRpJ0BAD8TO6H7G0




Mr. Throw-them-out-of-planes-and-give-their-children-to-the-officers-like-door-prizes Jorge Videla



Younger and older Juan María "Rabanito" Bordaberry...

[struggle4progress]

12. Brazil signals no extradition for "Condor" suspects

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - 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 ...

"There is no such thing as extradition of Brazilian citizens for trial abroad. There can be a request from them to be arrested here, but that will depend on the analysis by the Brazilian justice system." ...

The constitution permits extradition only in the case of common crimes and only of naturalized Brazilians, the minister said. Crimes committed by Brazilians abroad are subject to domestic law. The Supreme Court had the final word, Genro said.

Brazil was under military rule from 1964 to 1985 but unlike the post-dictatorship governments of Chile and Argentina, has made little attempt to bring military men behind human rights abuses to justice ...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN2636740120071226

[Judi Lynn]

13. You may find this Time Magazine article from 1974 (during the coup) interesting:

Monday, Mar. 25, 1974
A Decade of Ditadura

Just ten years ago it was called the United States of Brazil—a functioning democracy with a representative government patterned on the American model. There, however, comparison with the U.S. ended. Although Brazil was the giant of South America, with about half its 6,888,000-sq.-mi. land mass, it was perennially hamstrung by internal problems. Now much of that has changed. Today Brazil, with a population of 103 million, is the major political and economic influence in South America; moreover its exports are spreading so far beyond the continent's shores that it is being billed as "the new Japan." But no longer is it the United States of Brazil. Ten years after a military coup ousted the leftist government of President Joāo Goulart, it remains in the iron grip of a junta; in 1967 the generals renamed the country the Federated Republic of Brazil.

When they took over, the generals declared their intention to rule only "temporarily"; they gave themselves three years. Last week Pat Nixon flew into the gleaming, Oscar Niemeyer-inspired capital Brasilia to witness the inauguration of a new President, but the ceremony signaled no easing of the reins. In a brief swearing in, low-keyed President-select (meaning selected by the generals) Ernesto Geisel promised to uphold a constitution that his three immediate predecessors (all generals) had carefully tailored to meet their authoritarian requirements.

Carbon Copies. Geisel, 65, will be the first Protestant ever to rule what is the world's largest Roman Catholic nation. One of the original plotters of the coup, he served four years as head of Petrobras, the state-owned oil monopoly. The new chief of state is almost a carbon copy of the taciturn outgoing President, Emilio Garrastaz Médici, and few changes seem in prospect. In fact, given the self-effacing, collective character of the Brazilian oligarchy, who wears the presidential mantle at any particular time is of little importance.

What is important is the remarkable stability and success of Brazil's decade-old right-wing dictatorship. Its achievement has far-reaching implications, a fact that President Nixon accurately noted in an ebullient 1971 salute to the visiting Medici: "As Brazil goes, so will the rest of the Latin American continent." That encomium caused brass buttons to pop on Brazilian uniforms. It also chilled the political leaders of Brazil's neighbors—notably Argentina—who fear the imperial ambitions of a new "colossus on the make."

The junta has run Brazil with efficiency and cold skill. It has imposed strict censorship on the press and the arts and has imprisoned and tortured priests and Catholic lay workers who have been organizing among the poor. With the notable exception of Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Archbishop Helder Pessoa Cámara of Recife and Olinda,* opponents of the regime have been cowed or brutalized into silence. The generals have relentlessly tracked down leftists. In late 1969 they killed Guerrilla Leader Carlos Marighella, the one man who had the personal magnetism to lead an underground movement. According to apologists for the junta, torture is something that "used to happen." Unfortunately, there are plenty of victims who insist that it is still happening.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942828,00.html?promoid=googlep

[Judi Lynn]

14. Information on how the government of Brazil was destabilized and the coup made possible:

~snip~
The subsequent fifteen years have shown that with the overthrow of Joao Goulart, democracy in Brazil came to a screeching halt. After a shaky twenty years, basic political rights were abandoned. Provisions of the First Institutional Act drawn up after the coup created a cassacao, or political death for ten years. These emergency powers soon gave way to a Second Institutional Act. The Fifth Institutional Act shut down Congress, suspended habeas corpus for political activity, and gave full autocratic power to the president.16 Labor laws enacted after the coup rescinded virtually all job-related rights: the right to strike, to negotiate directly with the employers instead of the state, and to establish trade union representation within factories.17 The destruction of democracy in Brazil was evidence of the impossibility of serving two masters. Goulart was never able to reconcile the legitimate demands of domestic pressure groups with the external economic constraints of Brazil's creditors. As a final ironic twist, Goulart's refusal to succumb to foreign pressures only served to irritate undemocratic forces inside Brazil to the point where they saw it in their interest to get rid of democracy and Goulart in one fell swoop.

Imperialism's Internal Allies: Brazil's National Enemies

In the fall of 1961, just as Joao Goulart was assuming the presidency, the United States began to make contact with his right-wing opposition. At the same time, the CIA began a multifaceted penetration of Brazilian society designed to influence that country's internal politics. Lincoln Gordon, U.S. ambassador to Brazil, was appointed the same day that Goulart's predecessor, Janio Quadros resigned. Soon after his arrival in October, Gordon met with a right-wing admiral named Silvio Heck. Heck informed Gordon of a poll of the armed services which revealed that over two-thirds of the enlisted men opposed Goulart. Heck also hoped that when it came time to oust Goulart "the U.S would take an understanding view."18 Although Gordon later determined that Heck's figures were exaggerated, he never once warned Goulart or his advisers of this conspiracy.

The CIA, for its part, took more than a passive interest in helping right-wing military forces come to power in Brazil. The overthrow of Goulart and the destruction of democracy in Brazil was effected through the manipulation of diverse social groups. Police, the military, political parties, labor unions, student federations and housewives associations were all exploited in the interest of stirring up opposition to Goulart. Yet, while Washington's original intent may have been to replace Goulart with the strongman General Castello Branco, the guaranty of the coup's longterm success demanded an increase in U.S. material and training for the Brazilian security forces which continues to this day.
(snip)

(Does any of THIS sound familiar, by now?)
Another part of the CIA's effort to create anti-Goulart sentiment in Brazil was the rigging of elections. Working through a front group called the Instituto Brasileiro de Acao Democratica (IBAD), the CIA channeled money into local political campaigns. IBAD, in turn, passed the money through its two branches, Democratic Popular Action (ADEP) and Sales Promotion, Inc.30 In the 1962 elections, IBAD not only funded more than one thousand candidates but recruited them so that their first allegiance would be with IBAD and the CIA. At every level, from state deputies up to governorships, the CIA stacked the ballots in favor of its candidates.

In February, 1964, the CIA was nearly "burned" by a parliamentary investigation into its violation of election laws in 1962.31 The CIA had spent close to $20 million, but a scandal was averted by three developments: five of the nine members of the investigating committee had themselves received CIA funds; three of banks involved -- First National City Bank, the Bank of Chicago, and the Royal Bank of Canada -- refused to reveal the foreign sources of the money deposited in the IBAD and the ADEP accounts; and lastly, Goulart, still hoping to appease Washington, saw to it that the final report was laundered.

The CIA also manipulated certain members of the student movement. The benefits of having assets in the universities, however, were not realized until after the overthrow of Goulart. Though largely ineffectual before the coup, the Grupo de Acao Patriotica (GAP) was later used to spy on members of the national student union (UNE). GAP was founded by Aristoteles Luis Drummond whose hero was the right-wing Admiral Silvio Heck.32 During a radio talk show he did in Rio de Janeiro, Drummond expounded on GAP's determined defense of liberty and property, which he claimed only the military could safeguard. Not surprisingly, the interview was rebroadcast by the Voice of America. Later on, the CIA supplied Drummond with 50,000 books and Cold War pamphlets on the communist menace and, more to the point, diatribes against the UNE. Still, GAP's following was small and whenever Drummond put up posters saying "GAP with Heck," he made sure it was in the dead of the night.

In the four years following the coup, however, Drummond and GAP came to play a key role in the new junta. For example, during a student demonstration in May of '68, protesting the discriminating cost of education, a military jeep was overturned and set on fire. The next morning, Drummond was asked to speak about the incident with President Costa e Silva. Boarding a military aircraft, Drummond was flown to Brasilia where he spent an hour with the president identifying leaders of the demonstration and assuring Costa e Silva that they were communists who did not represent the majority of students.33

More:
http://www.namebase.org/brazil.html

[Judi Lynn]

15. Yes, they really loved to torture folks in that festive Brazilian Dirty War!

!snip~
Yet, the information on dissidents in Couto e Silva's files was inconclusive, and the processing of prisoners was cumbersome. An alternative resource had to be found. The sense of limitations on the part of the Brazilian police soon gave rise to vigilante groups which sought to appease the fears of Brazil's new leaders and their U.S. backers. One of the men who acted on these concerns was Henning Albert Boilesen, president of a liquid gas company. The suspicion that Boilesen was in the pay of the CIA grew when he began soliciting money from wealthy industrialists for a new organization called Operacao Bandeirantes (OBAN).35 OBAN united the various military police intelligence services into one paramilitary organization which knew no limits.

Esquadraos da Morte (Death Squads) were not a new phenomenon in Brazil. Before the coup they had been a source of extra income for off-duty policemen. If a thug needed a rival eliminated, he could arrange for a member of a Death Squad to get the job done. Despite salary increases from the AID, six years after the coup Death Squad executions by off-duty police personnel were still taking place. And now, a new wrinkle had been added. The "Ten for One" dictum meant that for every killing of a Death Squad member, ten people would die. When a Sao Paulo police investigator was killed in 1970, nearly twenty people were executed by the police.36

U.S. AID officials knew of and supported police participation in Death Squads. In Uruguay, a CIA operations officer, William Cantrell, used the cover of an AID Public Safety Advisor to help set up the Department of Information and Intelligence (DII).37 Cantrell's chauffeur, Nelson Bardesio was himself a member of the Death Squad in Montevideo. Under interrogation by Tupamaros guerrillas in 1972, Bardesio testified that the DII served as a cover for the Death Squad. Bardesio's testimony further revealed that a Brazilian diplomat offered to set up radio communications between Brasilia and Montevideo. Uruguayan intelligence officials, claimed Bardesio, received Death Squad-type training in Brazil. The living link between the two countries' Death Squads is Sergio Fleury, a top officer of the political police in Brazil. A leader in the elimination of the Brazilian left, Fleury has been identified by hundreds of political prisoners as the man who supervised their torture.38 Through his work in the Death Squads, Fleury's infamy has spread from Sao Paulo to all of Brazil and on to Uruguay. On at least two occasions, he met with groups of Uruguayan police through CIA contacts.39

The systematic use of torture was also condoned if not encouraged by U.S. AID officials. Police in Brazil once speculated on what the Public Safety Advisor Dan Mitrione would do if he were witness to the torturing of a prisoner. One said he would leave. Another asked, "Where, the country?" "No," said the first, "leave the room."40 To this day, the U.S. Public Safety Program in Brazil has assisted in the training of over 100,000 federal and state police personnel. Moreover, 600 high-ranking officers have received training at the now-defunct International Police Academy (IPA) on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington DC.41 The United States is also responsible for the construction, equipping, and development of the curriculum and faculty of Brazil's National Police Academy, its National Telecommunications Center; and the National Institute of Criminalistics and Identification.42

In the actual torturing of prisoners, the military and civilian police worked hand in hand. It was a common practice for prisoners to be taken from a prison run by the civilian police to one run by a branch of the military and then back again to a facility run by the police. CENIMAR, the navy's intelligence section, had its main prison and torture center in the basement of the Ministry of the Navy, near the docks of the harbor in Rio de Janeiro. U.S. Navy officers based at the naval mission often heard screams from across the courtyard. But none of them -- not even mission commander, Rear Admiral C. Thor Hanson -- ever raised the matter with their hosts.43

From the CENIMAR facility, prisoners were shipped across Guanabara Bay by motor launch to a prison on the Isle of Flowers. Inside the low white buildings were interrogators who specialized in torture. The staff there was made up of members of the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS). The island's commander was Clemente Jose Monteiro Filho, a graduate of the School of the Americas (commonly referred to as the escuela de golpes, the school of coups) at Fort Gulick in the Panama Canal Zone.44 The leader of interrogation and torture was Alfredo Poeck, a navy commander who had taken a three month course at the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg in 1961.45
(snip)http://www.namebase.org/brazil.html
(Same source as the post immediately before this one.)

[struggle4progress]

20. "Nunca Mais" used to be available on the web in English translation

but I can't find the site

Here's a link to the Portuguese text: http://www.dhnet.org.br/dados/projetos/dh/br/tnmais/index.html

And scanned portions in English may be available here: http://tinyurl.com/2w4vox

[Judi Lynn]

22. Just bought the book in English online after reading the English portions you linked.

It would be impossible to NOT want to know as much as possible about this effort to write it all down.

Here's the place where I found a copy:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0292704844/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Torture in Brazil: A Shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments, 1964-1979, Secretly Prepared by the Archiodese of São Paulo (ILAS Special Publication) (Paperback)
by Brazil Archdiocese of São Paulo (Author), Joan Dassin (Contributor, Editor), Jaime Wright (Translator)

Amazon.com
In the military regime that ruled Brazil for 21 years, beginning in 1964, torture was so common a tactic of repression that military personnel were instructed in how to conduct it, with political prisoners used as "guinea pigs" for class exercises. In this grim book, originally published in Portuguese as Brazil: Nunca Mais (Brazil: Never Again) in 1985, human-rights activists published evidence--surreptitiously collected documents of actual military court trials--that showed not only the extent of torture, but the complicity of the judicial branch, which knew that many confessions were falsely obtained under duress. With relentless detail, the documents discuss who was tortured, what instruments were used to exact pain, and the physical, psychological, and moral consequences of brutal abuse, with the aim of forcing acknowledgment of the atrocities and creating an environment where reform and progress can be achieved, where people feel represented by their government rather than live in fear of it. As the man who at the time was archbishop of São Paulo writes in his preface, "This entire book is written in blood and with much love for our country."

Review
Choice : This is the most important book to come out of Brazil in this decade, perhaps in the last 30 years.

Book Description

"This is the most important book to come out of Brazil in this decade, perhaps in the last 30 years."

—Choice

From 1964 until 1985, Brazil was ruled by a military regime that sanctioned the systematic use of torture in dealing with its political opponents. The catalog of what went on during that grim period was originally published in Portuguese as Brasil: Nunca Mais (Brazil: Never Again) in 1985.

The volume was based on the official documentation kept by the very military that perpetrated the horrific acts. These extensive documents include military court proceedings of actual trials, secretly photocopied by lawyers associated with the Catholic Church and analyzed by a team of researchers. Their daring project—known as BNM for Brasil: Nunca Mais—compiled more than 2,700 pages of testimony by political prisoners documenting close to three hundred forms of torture.

The BNM project proves conclusively that torture was an essential part of the military justice system and that judicial authorities were clearly aware of the use of torture to extract confessions. Still, it took more than a decade after the publication of Brasil: Nunca Mais for the armed forces to admit publicly that such torture had ever taken place. Torture in Brazil, the English version of the book re-edited here, serves as a timely reminder of the role of Brazil's military in past repression.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Dan Mitrione

This was the time and place American torturer, former police chief from Richmond, Indiana, Dan Mitrione, entered the torture business "big time." He worked in Brazil first, then in Uruguay. When he died, (murdered, not surprisingly) Richard M. Nixon sent his Press Secretary, and his son-in-law, David Eisenhower to the funeral, and Frank Sinatra and someone else like him held a benefit to raise money for his family. He was hailed as a "hero!"

Assassination Attempts: Dan A. Mitrione Government Agent Part 1

About the assassination of Dan A. Mitrione a U.S. government agent, his biography and history in Uruguay.
The Victim: DAN A. MITRIONE. Mitrione was a U.S. Government agent who was dispatched to Latin America as part of the U.S. Government's attempt to maintain totalitarian puppet-allies. He supposedly advised local officials on traffic safety, but his real job was to create sophisticated police states in order to minimize the possibility of popular rebellion against dictatorial regimes.

Dan Mitrione started as a cop in Richmond, Ind., in 1945. He became police chief in 1955 and joined the FBI in 1957. In 1960, under the State Department's International Cooperation Administration (predecessor of the Agency for International Development-AID), he went to Brazil to train police there in advanced counterinsurgency techniques. During his 7 "Public Safety" years in Brazil, the use of torture against opponents of the military regime became virtually routine. In addition, the Brazilian police, many of whom were trained by Mitrione, formed a vigilante "Death Squad" which disposed of over 100 "undesirables" without arrest or trial.

Documentation of Mitrione's activities has been compiled by a wide range of investigators, from religious groups to Hollywood film makers. NARMIC, a research/action arm of the American Friends Service Committee, reported that:

. . . after training such a police force, Mitrione returned to the U.S. as a Latin America expert. In 1967 he trained foreign officers in the techniques of counterguerrilla warfare at the AID-Public Safety Police Academy in Washington, D.C. In July of 1969, Mitrione headed for South America again, this time to Uruguay for AID. He was the leader of a 4-man team of Public Safety advisors that trained 1,000 Uruguayan police in police management, patrolling, use of scientific and technical aids, antiguerrilla operations and border control. These trainees have in turn instructed an untold number of police in more outlying regions of the country.

Mitrione himself, during his year-long stay, trained personnel in transportation techniques, established a police training facility and a radio network for Montevideo police, and set up a joint operations center of communications to facilitate cooperation between the police and the army.

To accomplish what he called "Uruguay's total penetration," Mitrione designed and initiated the following measures according to Costa-Gavras and Franco Solinas, authors of State of Siege:

A network of spies and infiltrators in high schools and universities.

Hidden cameras in terminals, etc., to photograph all persons traveling to socialist countries.

An increase in the size of the city militia from 600 to 1,000 men.

New gases, new .45-caliber machine guns, an increase in the use of shotguns. Inspection of all mail and publications coming from socialist countries.

Inauguration of police training courses in the recruitment of informers, interrogation techniques, use of explosives, etc.

More:
http://www.trivia-library.com/a/assassination-attempts-dan-a-mitrione-government-agent-part-1.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Torture’s Teachers

By A.J. Langguth

~snip~
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…

A few months later, Mr. Mitrione paid with his life for those excesses. Five years late, thanks to the effort of such men as former Senator James Abourezk, the police advisory program was finally abolished.

But few of the accomplices in torture have ever been called to account. Years ago in open hearings, Senator Frank church tried to force some admissions but his witnesses sidestepped his staff’s sketchy allegations. Given the willingness of congress to accept the C.I.A.’s alibis about national security, I don’t think any other public hearings would fare better.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~snip~
Daniel A. Mitrione, Sr. was never an FBI man; he was a small-town Indiana police chief who helped lead a covert war against leftist groups in Latin America.

In the late Fifties, Mitrione, Sr. was officially employed by the U.S. State Department, though the CIA was deeply involved in his work. He was first sent to Brazil and then Uruguay to teach what the State Department termed "public safety" to police. Traveling with him were his wife Henrietta and nine children, including young Dan, who was born in 1947 and basically grew up in South America, learning Spanish and idolizing his father.

But in 1970, after more than a decade in foreign lands, disaster struck the Mitrione clan. Dan, Sr. was kidnapped by the Tupamaro guerrilla group in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. As the family -- and America -- anxiously waited and watched the national news reports on the ordeal, he was held for eleven days. The group demanded the release of numerous political prisoners, but the Uruguayan government refused to negotiate. On August 10, Mitrione's bound and gagged body was discovered in the trunk of a stolen 1948 Buick convertible on a Montevideo street. He'd been shot twice in the head.

In the United States, the fallen father was hailed as a hero and martyr for freedom. President Richard Nixon sent his son-in-law, David Eisenhower; Secretary of State William Rogers; and a red, white, and blue commemorative wreath to the funeral in Mitrione's hometown of Richmond, Indiana.

"Mr. Mitrione's devoted service to the cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world will remain as an example for free men everywhere," White House spokesman Ron Ziegler announced.

Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis flew to Richmond and put on a benefit concert that raised $20,000 for the family. "I never met Richmond's son, Dan Mitrione," Sinatra said to the crowd after Lewis warmed them up. "Yet he was my brother ... as all of us in America are brothers."

What the general public didn't know was that Mitrione, Sr. had been doing far more than teaching helpful police tactics in South America. Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives claimed Mitrione had taught brutal, deadly techniques of torture in the cellar of his Montevideo home. They alleged he electrically shocked his victims' mouths and genitals, among other ghastly things. In one of the most disturbing revelations, reported by a CIA operative from Cuba named Manuel Hevia Conculluela, Mitrione was said to have practiced on beggars picked up from the capital's streets, four of whom reportedly died while serving as human guinea pigs.

More:
http://bestof.miaminewtimes.com/2005-08-11/news/forever-missing-part-2/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~snip~
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.
"The violent methods which were beginning to be employed," said Otero, "caused an escalation in Tupamaro activity. Before then their attitude showed that they would use violence only as a last resort."
The newspaper interview greatly upset American officials in South America and Washington. Byron Engle later tried to explain it all away by asserting: "The three Brazilian reporters in Montevideo all denied filing that story. We found out later that it was slipped into the paper by someone in the composing room at the Jornal do Brasil."
Otero had been a willing agent of the CIA, a student at their International Police Services school in Washington, a recipient of their cash over the years, but he was not a torturer. What finally drove him to speak out was perhaps the torture of a woman who, while a Tupamaro sympathizer, was also a friend of his. When she told him that Mitrione had watched and assisted in her torture, Otero complained to him, about this particular incident as well as his general methods of extracting information. The only outcome of the encounter was Otero's demotion.
William Cantrell was a CIA operations officer stationed in Montevideo and ostensibly a member of the OPS team. In the mid-1960s he was instrumental in setting up a Department of Information and Intelligence (DII), and providing it with funds and equipment. Some the equipment, innovated by the CIA's Technical Services Division, was for the purpose torture, for this was one of the functions carried out by the DII.
"One of the pieces of equipment that was found useful," former New York Times correspondent A. J. Langguth learned, "was a wire so very thin that it could be fitted into the mouth between the teeth and by pressing against the gum increase the electrical charge. it was through the diplomatic pouch that Mitrione got some of the equipment he needed in interrogations, including these fine wires.''

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for posting the information on "Nunca Mais." I was not aware this existed at all, and am looking forward so much to getting this book in the next few days. Really appreciate it.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Damn! It just struck me that THIS torturer was hired by the Eisenhower administration!

I've looked at this article time and time again, but I was focused on the shock of learning an American was involved in torture in Latin America that long ago.

It just came through when I saw, as if for the first time, "In the late Fifties, Mitrione, Sr. was officially employed by the U.S. State Department, though the CIA was deeply involved in his work."

This extends the timeframe considerably.

[struggle4progress]

25. I'd completely forgotten about Dan Mitrione. Thanx for the reminder.

[Peace Patriot]

21. "who wears the presidential mantle at any particular time is of little importance."

"In fact, given the self-effacing, collective character of the Brazilian oligarchy, who wears the presidential mantle at any particular time is of little importance." --Time

Although the circumstances are different, does this not sound hauntingly familiar? No matter whom they let us pretend that we are "electing," nothing changes. The unjust war continues. Torturing prisoners continues. Shredding of our Constitution continues. Billions of our tax dollars down the rat-hole of war profiteers and the super-rich continues. Corporate predator control of our laws, our political representatives, and our economy continues--no matter how detrimental to us. And do we really expect this to change this year? The 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in all the new voting systems, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, will insure that fascist policy continues, no matter whose name they put on it, as president, and it furthermore insures a fascist majority in Congress, so that, whatever name they put on Congress, Democratic or Republican "is of little importance."

The "collective character of the Brazilian oligarchy" is also true here. "Self-effacing"? Well, the shock is that Bush and Cheney are hardly "self-effacing." In-your-face fascism--peons! However, there are many "self-effacing" fascist operatives behind them, for instance, far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson (major investor in ES&S voting systems--brethren to Diebold), and the 5 fascist billionaire CEOs who control all news and opinion in this country. Do you know their names? I don't. I'd have to look them up. The billionaire CEOs of the few banking, finance and investment predators that control our economy (to our detriment). The secretive Bilderberg Group. One of the problems in understanding who is running things is that the current oligarchy is not "Brazilian" or "American"--it is global. And very "self-effacing." Its headquarters are everywhere and anywhere. Its Dark Lords operate far from the people whose lives they profoundly affect.

[Judi Lynn]

23. That "self-effacing" act is their belief they can cover their real instincts and fool those

who don't know much about them. You've seen that "self-effacing" crap in the functionaries like that P.O.S. who did the official harrassment of Bill Clinton: Kenneth Starr, for one example. It's not all that convincing, is it?



Maybe that's their description of their own version of "good old boys" in Brazil. You never know. These pompous gasbags presume to imagine they seem "charming" or "open and honest" or "warm" or "cordial," probably, (why else would they be driven to make such asses of themselves) to the public. In their dreams!

[AlphaCentauri]

26. Sometimes it's too late for justice

those killers may have been selling pizzas with a lot a commodities while a lot a people had suffer in latin america.

[Blue_Tires]

27. ttt

[AlphaCentauri]

28. Is that spyware or something?

[Blue_Tires]

29. just a little Mets animated gif

i haven't clicked on it for awhile, but when i did, i see my mcafee siteadvisor turned red...i'll drop the link...

thanks

[Judi Lynn]

32. Italy Seeks 139 Suspects From Dirty Wars

Italy Seeks 139 Suspects From Dirty Wars
By ARIEL DAVID – 17 hours ago

ROME (AP) — Italy is requesting the extradition of 139 former South American leaders and their underlings over the disappearance, torture and death of Italians who were caught up in a crackdown on dissent in the 1970s and '80s, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Those sought were involved in the military dictatorships of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay and are accused in the kidnapping and murder of 25 Italian dissidents, said lead prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo.

Suspects include Argentina's former junta leader Jorge Videla and Uruguay's former dictator Juan Bordaberry — both currently under house arrest and being prosecuted in their native countries.

Capaldo said he expects replies to the extradition requests in the coming months.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he said court proceedings could go ahead even without extraditions, as Italian law allows suspects to be tried in absentia.

More:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gV2FdgFVmPgEOfrg1L4Vg9Qj59xAD8U3AENO0

[Judi Lynn]

33. Death of Accused Torturer Probed

Death of Accused Torturer Probed
By BILL CORMIER 01.08.08, 8:23 PM ET

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Detained family members of an accused torturer poisoned days before he was to appear in court appealed for their freedom Tuesday amid suspicions the man was killed to keep him from talking about dictatorship-era abuses.

Hector Febres, poisoned last month by a large dose of cyanide, was found dead in his cell in a military brig Dec. 10, four days before a court was to rule on charges he kidnapped and tortured four dissidents during Argentina's 1976-83 military regime.

His widow, Stella Maris Guevara, and their grown children, Hector Ariel and Sonia Marcel, were detained hours later on orders of Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, who is investigating Febres' death.

The family's defense lawyer, Claudio Casio, on Tuesday told the Noticias Argentinas news agency that allegations his widow and children were involved in a possible coverup of his death were baseless and should be dismissed. He said he filed an appeal for their release.

Febres had known he possessed risky information, gleaned as a former officer at the Navy Mechanics' School, the dictatorship's main secret torture center, according to excerpts of a legal document published by the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin.

The document quotes Judge Salgado saying that Febres had made a "clear decision" to discuss his alleged role in military repression and "perhaps the destiny of children born in captivity," despite his awareness of the risks associated with implicating others.

At least 88 children born to political prisoners who disappeared during Argentina's dictatorship have been located, according to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group formed by missing prisoners' mothers, now devoted to finding their grandchildren.

Febres' death hinders efforts to track down more missing children - but the current investigation into his killing could pinpoint other abusers who might have wanted him dead, said Estela de Carlotto, president of the grandmothers' group.

More:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/01/08/ap4509200.html



Hector Febres
Argentine torture defendant may have been silenced
Mon Jan 7, 2008 11:47am EST

By Fiona Ortiz

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - A former coast guard officer found dead in jail days before the verdict in his trial for torture may have been killed to keep him from talking about human rights violations during Argentina's 1976-1983 dirty war, a judge's resolution said.

Hector Febres, defendant in a high-profile human rights case, died on December 10 of cyanide poisoning in the comfortable suite where he was held in a coast guard complex.
(snip)

Febres pleaded not guilty during his trial, but had recently told family and a priest friend he was planning to talk at his sentencing about crimes committed by the military because he was feeling like a scapegoat, according to the judge's resolution.

Febres may have been intending to provide information about what happened to babies born in captivity during the dirty war and illegally given out for adoption under fake names.

"There is evidence (Febres) had made a clear decision to reveal his part in the illegal repression and perhaps the destination of children born in captivity," the judge's resolution said, according to the source.

Security officials have maintained an almost absolute silence about rights violations during the dictatorship when some 11,000 people were killed according to an official report, or as many as 30,000 according to human rights groups.

In 2006, a witness in an earlier human rights trial -- which led to a life sentence for a former police commissioner -- disappeared and is still missing in what many believe was an effort to intimidate witnesses at future trials.

Under former President Nestor Kirchner courts turned over earlier amnesties for dirty war crimes. Kirchner's wife, current President Cristina Fernandez, has pledged to continue making human rights justice a priority.

The Kirchners were student activists in the 1970s and friends of the couple were killed during the military regime.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0733271920080107?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

[AlphaCentauri]

34. Poor Latin America! So far from God, so close to the United States n/t