Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'dirty war' in Argentina

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Dec. 04, 2003

ARGENTINA
Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'dirty war' in Argentina
New evidence suggests that Henry Kissinger gave the Argentine military 'a green light' in its 1970s-80s campaign against leftists.
BY DANIEL A. GRECH
[e-mail]

BUENOS AIRES - At the height of the Argentine military junta's bloody ''dirty war'' against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ''we would like you to succeed,'' a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.

The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta's harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ''disappearance'' of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.

The document is also certain to further complicate Kissinger's legacy, which has been questioned in recent years as new evidence has emerged on his connection to human-rights violations around the world -- including in Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Kissinger and several top deputies have repeatedly denied condoning human-rights abuses in Argentina. (snip)

(snip) ''This document is a devastating indictment of Kissinger's policy toward Latin America,'' said John Dinges, an assistant professor at Columbia Journalism School and author of The Condor Years, a book on military dictatorships in the Southern Cone due out in February. ``Kissinger actually encourages human-rights violations in full consciousness of what was going on.'' (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/7409789.htm

[tom_paine]

1. Of course they did

But it's nice to see the truth squeak out.

Don't expect that in 2020.

[Eloriel]

2. He's not internationally wanted as a war criminal for nothin'!

The man can only go to selected countries anymore.

ELoriel

[MnFats]

3. I am shocked, shocked I tell you.

Imagine! Lethal skullduggery on the part of Nixon/Kissinger? Who would have thought!

No, seriously, it is good to have this kind of documentation come out, however belated.

Is Henry Kissinger fuggin' satan or what?

you could do a poll --- what was Henry Kissinger's worst war crime?
I think I'd have to go with the Christmas '72 carpet bombing of Hanoi....

[Zhade]

4. It's not the first evidence.

I have another declassified document sitting on my hard drive that proved the same thing a long time ago.

Ah, the media. Without them, where would we be? Free, maybe?

[Say_What]

6. Particualarly when atrocities are being commited today in Colombia

and the US funds most of it. Not a word in the corporate owned US media however.

[Judi Lynn]

34. New article on Colombian atrocities

Massacre reports investigated
Thursday, December 4, 2003 Posted: 1909 GMT ( 3:09 AM HKT)


BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A government commission visited a village in southwestern Colombia Thursday to investigate reports that armed men massacred at least 13 peasants there, a human rights official said.

Carlos Mayo, the regional representative of the nation's human rights ombudsman's office in the state of Narino, told RCN Radio that homicide investigators of the attorney general's office alerted him to the attack in the town of Llorente, 550 kilometers (345 miles) southwest of the capital, Bogota.

It was not clear who the assailants were, Maya said. Illegal armed fighters of leftist rebel groups as well as right-wing paramilitary forces operate in the region.

Paramilitary fighters have been accused of committing the majority of massacres in the nation's long-simmering civil war, though rebels have also been blamed for a long list of atrocities. (snip)

(snip) Meanwhile, the leader of Colombia's main paramilitary umbrella group called for South Africa-style truth commissions to help heal the wounds from massacres and torture committed by his troops over the last 20 years. (snip/...)

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/12/04/colombia.massacre.ap

[Say_What]

35. Uribe wants the paras to walk free if they surrender their arms --a joke

From yesterday:

<clips>

Colombian far-right warlord wants truth commission

...The former army scout faces 27 arrest warrants for crimes including mass murder and drug trafficking and has received two sentences of 40 years in absentia and another for 22 years for killing 56 people. He has admitted to many of the murders and is wanted by the United States for cocaine smuggling.

After a year of negotiations, more than 800 of the AUC's 13,000 fighters publicly laid down their arms in a ceremony broadcast from the city of Medellin last week.

But Castano insists that if peace talks are to advance further, Congress must approve a government-sponsored bill to would allow illegal combatants who lay down their arms to avoid jail, instead serving house arrest or paying fines.

"If I were to tell the self-defense forces today that they are all going to jail once the negotiations conclude, the only thing I would achieve is to instantly stop the process," he told El Tiempo.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04335947.htm

[Judi Lynn]

36. So nothing is changed, actually

The paras ALWAYS had Uribe's implicit support, it would seem, and as he explains, don't need to fear any repercussions from his government. Jeez.

(snip) But the prospect that Colombia's more than 20,000 Marxist guerrillas will start peace talks seems a distant one. Uribe has stepped up military spending to hunt them down. (snip)

So everyone who detests right-wing mass-murderers must be a "Marxist." Ya, that's the ticket. God only knows they have to be run down and destroyed.

It's time for Colombia to get a civilized President: one who doesn't take his orders from the worst people who can slime their way into our government.

[Say_What]

38. Sounds just like RayGun and Central America where hundreds of thousands

were killed by US-supported RW death squads. Different decades but swap a few words such as *communism* for *terrorism* and this pretty much describes what is going on now in Colombia. US Foreign Policy never changes. Look at Iraq and we probably have the same thing. :puke:

<clips>

The new Republican administration soon declared El Salvador a principal battleground in its war against what it described as expansionist Communism. Ronald Reagan in a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers sketched his views on the strategic importance of El Salvador and Central America. "Central America", he said, "is simply too close, and the strategic stakes are too high, for us to ignore the danger of governments seizing power there with ideological and military ties to the Soviet Union. ... Soviet military theorists want to destroy our capacity to resupply Western Europe in case of an emergency. They want to tie down our attention and forces on our own southern border ..."

Reagan released massive amounts of military aid to El Salvador, helped create the Contras, an anti-Sandinista guerrilla front, and built up the Honduran army as a firewall against the further spread of revolution in the region. Guatemala's genocidal army was given covert support in its war against its indigenous population and secret military bases were set up in pacific Costa Rica to support the war effort against Nicaragua.

Harvard Professor John Coatsworth in his study of U.S. policies in Central America wrote that: "No U.S. government has ever devoted as much of its own political capital and the nation's resources to Central America as did the Reagan administration... . None had such profoundly traumatic effects on the region. None left office with such little control over events in the region."

In El Salvador, the Reagan Administration consistently rejected a negotiated settlement between the FMLN and the government. Although ostensively trying to build a centrist majority around the Christian Democratic (PDC) regime of Jose Napoleon Duarte, Reagan's insistence that the war be decided on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table insured that support for the political center would wane. For many Salvadorans, to support the PDC was to support war without end in El Salvador.

http://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page75.html

[Judi Lynn]

39. That's really hard to take.

We had NO idea Reagan was that blood thirsty at the time. Why? Our media simply didn't feel the need to give us an accurate picture of his actions. Yeah, some lib'rul media, all right.

The very idea of "Reagan's insistence that the war be decided on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table" is appalling.

(snip) After 1989, the Bush Administration turned away from its predecessor's policies. According to Coatsworth, Bush sought to restore Central America to its previous position as an area of secondary concern in U.S. foreign policy. After the embarrassment of the 1989 FMLN offensive and the murder of six Jesuits by the Salvadoran army, the Bush administration increasingly backed efforts by the UN to broker a negotiated settlement of the conflict. (snip)

So now _Bush's time at the helm shows us headed right back into the '80's with Reagan, all over again.

It's easy to note in that article you linked that the DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTS are the ones who sought more mature, more enlightened methods of interaction.

[burrowowl]

5. About time

He is a war criminal. Maybe some in the U$ will figure out why Ynakee Go Home was always written on walls in Latin America.
He once said Rummy was the most ruthless man he knew. Takes one to know one.

[Say_What]

7. German Justice Pursues Argentina's Killers

Kissinger ought to be part of this arrest warrant. Background on Jorge Videla follows.

<clips>

A German court has issued an arrest warrant for former Argentinian president Jorge Videla, who, along with other high-ranking military officers, may have been behind the deaths of two Germans.

Human rights organizations estimate that more than 30,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and killed between 1976 and 1983 under Argentina's military dictatorship. The regime systematically carried out kidnappings meant to keep Argentinians in a permanent state of fear and terror. In addition to the Argentinian victims, as many as 100 Germans and people of German origin were killed.

For nearly five years now, public prosecutors in Nuremberg have been investigating 69 members of Argentina's military dictatorship who are thought to have played a role in the murders of German citizens.

On Wednesday they went a step further by issuing an arrest warrant for former Argentinian President Jorge Videla, the former commander-in-chief of the Navy, Emilio Massera, and Gen. Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason, formerly head of an army corps division. The three men have been linked to the murders of German student Klaus Zieschank and sociologist Elisabeth Käsemann in the 1970s.

http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1049647_1_A,00.html

http://www.dw-world.de/dwelle/allgemein/bilder_show/0,3772,73632_1,00.jpg
Wanted in Germany: former Argentine officials Suarez Mason, Videla and Massera (from left)

---

Soon after the coup that brought him to power in 1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla began Argentina's dirty war. All political and union activities were suspended, wages were reduced by 60%, and dissidents were tortured by Nazi and U.S. trained military and police. Survivors say the torture rooms contained swastikas and pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. One year after Videla's coup, Amnesty International estimated 15,000 people had disappeared and many were in secret detention camps, but although the U.S. press admitted human rights abuses occurred in Argentina, Videla was often described as a "moderate" who revitalized his nation's troubled economy. Videla had a good public relations firm in the U.S., Deaver and Hannalord, the same firm used by Ronad Reagan, Taiwan, and Guatemala. Not surprisingly, his Economics Minister, Jose Martinez do Hoz, spoke, at Deaver's request, on one of President Reagan's national broadcasts in order to upgrade Argentina's reputation.

Videla also received aid from WACL, the World Anti-Communist League (see card 17), through its affiliale, CAL (Confederation Anticomunista Latinoamericana). CAL sent millions of dollars to Argentina from sources such as the Italo-Argentine Masonic Lodge P-2, an outgrowth of old U.S. anti-communist alliances with the Italian drug malia. As part of its WACL affiliation, Argentina trained Nicaraguan contras for the U.S. Videla left office in 1981, and aftar the Falklands Crisis of 1982 he and his cohorts were tried for human rights abuses by the new government.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/SouthAmerica.html

[Judi Lynn]

10. This is amazing

From your first link:

(snip) Several months ago, current Argentinean President Nestor Kirchner, himself a torture victim, lifted amnesty laws that protected crimes committed under the military dictatorship.(snip)

Looking for more about this, I read he was a leftist student, and that many of his friends disappeared.

(snip) Argentina's former military regime is believed to have killed between 15, 000 and 30,000 people, many of whom went missing while in military custody and whose bodies were never recovered.
(snip/)
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/by/Qargentina-spain-rights.R7We_DaQ.html


(snip) ASUNCION, Paraguay - Leaders in Argentina, Brazil and Chile are taking new steps to expose the killing, torture or other abuse of thousands of their countrymen by right-wing dictators from the 1960s to the 1980s. Paraguay's new president is expected to follow suit.


The latest action came Thursday, when Argentina's Senate, pushed by new liberal President Nestor Kirchner, voted overwhelmingly to revoke amnesty laws passed in 1986 and 1987 that had protected generals and their henchmen from prosecution.


Some of the motivation behind the new aggressiveness is personal: The old regimes oppressed, imprisoned or very personally offended three of the new left-liberal presidents: Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chile's Ricardo Lagos and Kirchner. The cleansing initiatives are widely popular, and easier now that the old regimes' leaders, such as Chile's ailing Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 87, are no longer intimidating figures.


It's also important for Latin countries to clarify their recent dark histories and sanction human-rights criminals who've lived and often prospered in their midst, many victims and their advocates say. Marcial Riquelme, a Kansas State University scholar who fled Paraguay's military regime 40 years ago, called the region's new effort "a recovering of the collective memory." Until there's an accounting of what happened to the victims, Riquelme said, "It is like an air crash where no bodies were recovered." (snip/...)
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/kevin_g_hall/6587524.htm

Say_What, you've put Nestor Kirchner's identity in perspective for someone who has been almost completely oblivious of Latin American history.

(Now we're starting to find out WHY it is that we haven't had more to read about Latin America in our own press in the last many years!)

[AP]

12. All of Latin America is in a revolt against neo-conservativism.

This is really an amazing time in history.

It's really interesting that this is happening during a Bush adminstration. I'd like to think that 8 years of Clinton allowed them to build up the wealth and power among middle and working classes to get enough inertia to roll over the right wing.

Also, as MLK said (quoting abolitionist Theodore Parker): "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it always bends toward justice." So, maybe this is all inevitable, in some sense.

I'm just happy it's happening now.

[Judi Lynn]

15. "The moral arc of the universe is long....

but it always bends toward justice."

Never heard this until now.

It could be that the time with Clinton allowed Latin America to see the U.S. (at that time, anywaya) wasn't obsessed with smashing them to smithereens, then controlling the survivors. That could have provided the view they needed that all was not lost.

[Say_What]

16. Unfortunately the corporate media never reports on LatAm

unless it's something they can rail against ala Hugo Chavez. What's going on in Colombia is the same sh*t that went on in Central America and we hear not one word. Colombia is the worlds third largest recipient of US military aid even though it has the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere.

<clips>

* Uribe is not a democratic stalwart, but a mean-spirited figure who is now leading an effort to exonerate the rightwing authors of major massacres in his country and to conspire to spare AUC drug traffickers from being extradited to the U.S.

* His recent effort to grant amnesty to members of the country’s murderous rightist paramilitaries, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), has drawn fierce condemnation by policymakers, the press, and human rights organizations worldwide.

* Uribe has publicly disparaged human rights groups and endangered the lives of their activists, deceitfully insinuating that they are in league with leftist Colombian guerrillas.

* The State Department flagrantly violated objective standards by approving the human rights certification of Colombia in July, closing its eyes to the military’s recurring violations and close operational links between the armed forces’ units in the field and the AUC.

* The AUC is one of the country’s chief traffickers of illegal drugs and its major human rights abuser. These are facts that Washington episodically condemns and then promptly disregards.

more...

[dani]

19. I'm not sure I'd credit Clinton too much

regarding US - Latin American relations then and the current situation. Clinton and Gore accelerated the arming/training of the Mexican military for their low intensity conflict against the indigenous peasants of southern Mexico (particularly the Zapatistas of Chiapas).

The Slippery Slope: US Military moves into Mexico
S. Brian Wilson
1998
http://www.brianwillson.com/awolslippery.html

I think there's some similarities with Peru, with supporting the repressive Alberto Fujimori regime.

The sad thing is I know Gore has a knowledge of the causes/consequences of poverty and misery caused by land inequities in parts of Latin America that is fueling the violence and guerilla warfare, but he still supported regressive NAFTA and WTO, and the repressive "militarized democracies" of Latin American, all of which made the social problems worse.

[Say_What]

21. Clinton also rewrote Plan Colombia to suit US interests

In the documentary Plan Colombia a Colombian congressman was interviewed who said that the Colombian congress didn't even get a chance to debate it. It was a back room deal struck between Clinton, the president Pastrana, and the US State Department. Grace Livingstone, in here new book Inside Colombia reveals the same thing.

<clips>

Mariela Kohon: In your recently published book Inside Colombia, you state that Plan Colombia has been turned from a peace plan into a ‘battle plan’ and that ‘the military element is by far the most important’. What is Plan Colombia and what do you mean by this statement?

Grace Livingstone: There were two versions of Plan Colombia. The first version was written in Spanish by Colombians in May 1999. It was not particularly radical, but it was a peace and development plan which aimed to dissuade peasants from growing coca crops or joining armed groups by investing in alternative rural development and education. It did not mention drugs trafficking, military action or spraying crops with pesticides.

US officials re-wrote the draft entirely in October 1999. Their involvement was so extensive that the final version of Plan Colombia was published in English – not Spanish. Strengthening the authority of the state (by re-equipping and expanding the armed forces) became the main objective. An intensive militarised crop spraying campaign was also introduced. The US basically transformed Plan Colombia to meet their own perceived security needs – that is, the need to combat the Colombian guerrillas. It was used as a vehicle to step up counter-insurgency aid and US military involvement in Colombia at a time when combating drugs was the only acceptable pretext for intervention.


http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Dec2003/x-Dec2003-Livingstone.html

[Say_What]

23. War on Drugs --a front for counter-insurgencies to protect US interests

from the article

...In the fall of 1996, U.S. President Clinton sent an additional $112 million in military equipment (including helicopters, surveillance aircraft, patrol boats, troop gear, ammunition, training and technical assistance) to Colombian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, and Mexican militaries.2 Thus, under the guise of the drug war, the Clinton administration is beefing up repressive security forces responsible for numerous human rights abuses, including Mexico. In a short period of time, U.S. military aid is being tripled to fight the drug war in Latin America.3

In Clinton's latest anti-drug budget of $15.l billion, he proposes creation of an anti-narcotics base in Panama to augment the U.S. military's role throughout the region. In fiscal year (FY) 1997, Clinton requested $213 million for the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Account, primarily to arm and train military and police forces in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico.4

[Say_What]

14. What's Otto REICH up to in Ecuador?

More leaders (US lapdogs) about to topple in South America (not good news for Uncle Sam). Globalization is not going well.

<clips>

Presidential Campaign Drug Scandal Deepens Crisis for Ecuador’s President Gutiérrez

COHA told: “It could be just the tip of the iceberg.”

· Neck and neck, Ecuador’s Gutiérrez challenges Peru’s Toledo as being among South America’s weakest democratic links, and a prime candidate to be the next leader to be forced from office by a frustrated and betrayed citizenry.

· Otto Reich arrives in Quito to stiffen Gutiérrez’s resolve and to assure him that although the average Ecuadorian has overwhelmingly turned against him, Washington is still 100 percent behind its market reform protégé in Quito, but drug charges against Gutiérrez could complicate Reich’s mission.

· Gutiérrez’s approval ratings are at an all-time low of 15.9 percent following allegations that he accepted $30,000 in campaign funds from the country’s alleged major king pin, César Fernández, who was arrested in October on charges of drug trafficking.

· Tension is noticeably growing between Gutiérrez and Alfredo Palacio, the country’s vice president, after the latter reiterated that Fernández had backed Gutiérrez’s presidential campaign, even as the two officials met in private on the night of December 2.

---

Will Peru’s President be the Next Andean Domino to Fall?

<clips>

Is Toledo destined to join a growing group of has-been presidents, including de la Rua of Argentina, Mahuad of Ecuador and Sánchez de Lozada of Bolivia?

· In June of this year Toledo’s approval rating hit a rock-bottom 11%.

· Alejandro Toledo faces growing opposition due to inconsistent policy-making, egregious insensitivity, and an inability to honor election promises to improve the standard of living of the country’s poor.

· Anger over mishandled privatization strategies has led to massive protests this year and last, causing Toledo to repeatedly impose states of emergency, and call out the police and the military.

· Resurgence of the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path, and their links to narcotrafficking, pose a growing threat to Toledo’s government.

· As in other Andean countries, militant coca growers and intransigent U.S. drug policies promise to bring matters to a head.

· The Lori Berenson case could be a wild card forcing Toledo to take action to defuse its irritant impact on U.S.-Peruvian relations.

[Judi Lynn]

17. You dropped a bombshell!

Thank goodness you shared this article:

(snip)While the steady loss of broad, popular support has caused Gutiérrez’s government to teeter, the latest blow against him could turn out to prove fatal. On November 14, the Quito daily El Comercio alleged that Gutiérrez had received $30,000 in campaign funds from César Fernández, the controversial former governor of the coastal province of Manabí, who in October was arrested on drug trafficking charges. The resulting scandal has dealt a major blow to what remained of Gutiérrez’s dwindling public standing, as the respected newspaper Hoy reported on December 2 that the president’s approval rating stood at 15.9 percent, registering a drop of more than 40 points since he first took office. On November 24, six of his ministers, among them those of finance, education and labor, turned in their resignations in the aftermath of a widening drug-related scandal. Presidential spokesperson Marcelo Cevallos has predicted that the entire cabinet would resign shortly. (snip)

(snip) Just as these events were transpiring, Otto Reich, the Presidential Envoy to the Western Hemisphere, arrived in Quito on December 2, to visit Gutiérrez. Reich's presence in the Ecuadorian capital was clearly meant to be a show of support by Reich, although not necessarily by the Bush administration, for Gutiérrez. During an interview jointly held with Ecuadorian foreign minister Patricio Zuquilanda, Hoy reported that Reich said, “We want to assure ourselves that Ecuadorian democracy remains alive, we support it and that it is with the president with who we will maintain relations.” Although the details of the meeting between Reich and Gutiérrez were not released, according to Hoy, Reich’s ostensible intention was to deliver a message that Washington would back Gutiérrez, even if he decided not to conform to the IMF's demand that he eliminate the state subsidy on gas – a plan which has already provoked angry reactions from indigenous and popular movements.

The Real Reason for Reich’s Visit?

But according to other sources, Reich’s mission had a somewhat more self-serving purpose in mind. Washington now looks upon Gutiérrez as a free market buffer against the further spread of populism in the region, as well as someone who is willing to walk the extra mile to cooperate in Washington’s Andean drug strategy and to guarantee the integrity of the country’s border with Colombia in that country’s war against drug traffickers and guerillas, even though the bilateral relations between the two countries recently have been shaky.

Otto Reich, the ultra rightwing Cuban exile who is perhaps the most controversial figure in the U.S.-Latin American policymaking field, may also have his own agenda in mind. It is a certainty that Reich was aware of the drug charges against Gutiérrez, just as he was aware last year that he was meeting with Venezuelan coup plotters in Washington, which he artfully denied. As a Presidential Envoy to the Western Hemisphere (a position which was awarded to him by the intercession of Florida Governor Jeb Bush to placate Miami’s conservative leadership), Reich’s activities are not closely monitored. It is most likely that Reich – who sees all things through an anti-Havana prism – was hoping that he could recruit Gutiérrez to replace the former disgraced Argentine president, Carlos Menem, as Washington’s hatchet man on Cuba in the OAS. (snip)

Otto strikes again.

[Say_What]

22. Amazing isn't it what the US press never gets around to informing the

public of.

<clips>

Between 1971 and 1991, Texaco extracted more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon. In order to save millions of dollars, Texaco simply dumped the toxic wastes from its operations into the pristine rivers, forest streams and wetlands, ignoring industry standards.

Texaco's oil operations devastated one of the most biologically fragile places on earth. 2.5 million acres of rainforest were lost; Oil spills equivalent to 2 Exxon Valdez disasters have contaminated the land and water; and the company recklessly dumped 20 billion gallons of highly toxic wastewater into streams and rivers.

In 2001, Texaco merged with Chevron, forming the second largest energy company in the world. Now it is Chevron's legal and ethical responsibility to clean up the mess that Texaco left in Ecuador.

Amazon Watch has launched an international campaign in solidarity with Ecuadorian groups to demand that ChevronTexaco CLEAN UP, PAY UP and NEVER COME BACK TO ECUADOR!!! download brochure (PDF).
For more information: [e-mail].

http://www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/EC/toxico/

[Say_What]

27. First hand account of Amazon destruction in Ecuador by Chevron-Toxico

The third in a three part series.

<clips>

...Over the next two days we traveled extensively around the most contaminated areas -- which are roughly equivalent to the distance between San Francisco and San Jose and as wide as our greater Bay Area. We visited a Cofan village (an indigenous people) where we presented much-needed school supplies that we had brought with us.

We were struck that, in the middle of this lush Amazon rain forest surrounded by rivers and streams, that these villagers had no clean water to drink. All of these water sources that had nourished this people for countless generations were now contaminated by the oil and other chemicals from the drilling that Texaco had done during the last quarter-century.

This village depended on one spring that they had dug deep below the ground water to find. Every day, villagers line up at 6 a.m. for their water ration, and during the summer months there is often not enough to go around.

We spent time in the village of San Carlos, with a population of 3,000 people. We met with a high school class and heard stories of widespread illnesses and struggles to survive. Outside the school, the fiery flares at the top of the oil wells burn day and night. In an environment very similar to the jungle we had so recently visited, we were aware of the absence of the lovely birds, and other wildlife. They were replaced instead by the web of pipelines and the streams stained by the shiny oil slicks that five communities of people must still use for their drinking and bathing.



more...

[Say_What]

29. 30,000 disappeared in Argentina

and Nestor Kirchner wants to prosecute those responsible. This article is from last July after he took office. I saw a documentary on Argentina about the continuing demonstrations there of the unemployed. They have pages of photos of the disappeared--four photos per 8x10 page that they lay side by side--the display of the faces of the 30,000 disappeared seems to go on forever. Heart rentching.

<clips>

...Most inspiring has been his decision to take on Argentina's unpunished human-rights abusers. Up to 30,000 Argentines disappeared during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, victims of what's known as the "dirty war," which was marked by kidnappings, torture and illegal executions.

After putting a handful of generals and admirals on trial for their crimes, Argentine governments shied away from prosecuting the military abusers, partly for fear of angering the armed forces and upsetting the country's fragile stability, partly because they saw little point in nosing into the dark corners of the past. Far better, it was thought, to put all that to rest and get on with the future.

Mr. Kirchner sees things differently. He thinks that ending the years of "impunity" enjoyed by the torturers and abusers is a key to reforming the country's institutions. Making them pay for their crimes would show Argentines that he is serious about bringing accountability and honesty to a system where the connected and powerful can get away with anything from graft to murder.

To make sure that justice is done, Mr. Kirchner is preparing to repeal a decree that made it impossible for human-rights violators to be extradited for trial abroad. A crusading Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, is seeking the extradition of 46 Argentines on human-rights charges. France and Italy, too, have sought Argentines who victimized their citizens.

Mr. Kirchner and his ministers have also indicated they will seek to overturn two much-disputed 1987 laws that bar the prosecution of military officers for dirty-war crimes. If he succeeds in changing the makeup of the Supreme Court, it could strike down the laws later this year. Opinion polls show that two-thirds of Argentines support trial or extradition for dirty-war abusers.

<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030724.cogee24/BNStory/International/>

[dani]

8. kick

This is something I'd like to see get some coverage in the Big Media. Truth for a change.

[Say_What]

18. Never happen, we'll hear about it like we did Latin America -years later

Meanwhile, the US sends millions (our tax dollars) to Colombia who has the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere. Between 1996 and 2000, Occidental Oil spent more than $8.6 million lobbying congress for military aid to Colombia and aid to protect the Caño-Limón pipeline. Recently, the Bush administration allotted $98 million to protect the pipeline.

U.S. Military Aid and Oil Interests in Colombia

[MrPrax]

9. Double Whammy for Hank...

His 'crimes' in Latin America get re-visited as well as his name coming up, along with choirboy Perle, in the investigation involving the bilking of Hollinger shareholders by Lord Tubby Black...
Maybe he will go down after all...
He has few friends...see how fast he was turfed from the 911 Comm.--even the neo-cons howled like stuck pigs over that one...

[AP]

11. I think this is one of the thousands of docs Clinton declassified.

I think Clinton probably did a great deal to help people understand what really happened in South America by declassifying so many documents.

(Don't forget to read The Pinochet Files by Peter Kornbluh (about Chile).)

[AndyTiedye]

13. A Nuremberg Trial For Kissinger

I Like The Sound Of That!

[tinnypriv]

31. Eh?

Did you even read the story before you got into another of your "I Love Clinton" posts?

[UpInArms]

20. here is another link

regarding Kissinger and Argentina

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm

ARGENTINE MILITARY BELIEVED U.S. GAVE GO-AHEAD FOR DIRTY WAR

New State Department documents show conflict between Washington and US Embassy in Buenos Aires over signals to the military dictatorship at height of repression in 1976

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part II
Edited by Carlos Osorio

Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were "euphoric" over signals from high- ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The Embassy reported to Washington that after Mr. Kissinger's 10 June 1976 meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti, the Argentine government dismissed the Embassy's human rights approaches and referred to Kissinger's "understanding" of the situation. The current State Department collection does not include a minute of Kissinger's and Guzetti's conversation in Santiago, Chile.

On 20 September 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill reported that Guzzetti said "When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA 'get it over quickly'."

...lots more...

and lots of other links

truly horrifying

Kissinger is a mega-criminal and everytime they put in him in a position to speak to or for the US, I am revolted.

[nolabels]

25. Kissinger name comes to mind everytime I ponder what is happening

in US foreign affairs. I knew this had to be true and was going to come out sooner or later. Henry's MO and fingerprints were all over the thing and it is about time. I would also like to say though this guy is all over the globe in history and even currently, not just in latin american countries in the 60's and 70's.

I think a volume or even a library could be put up on this guy. Never knew how evil the guy was till I started looking up things, on what happened in different places and times. Everywhere I looked, his effing name popped up. I started a thread a while back for that reason. This guy truly is creepy

The early stuff with Henry is pretty tricky too. Check it out in some of these other threads

Is Henry Kissinger a war criminal, fascist or just misunderstood
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=345935

Kissinger & BCCI spells BUSH & 9-11
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=377323

It's time for another Bush/Nazis thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=199853

[Judi Lynn]

26. Document 6:

Deputy Chief of Mission, Maxwell Chaplin reported on a meeting held on June 14 with "Mr. Pereya," the highest civilian in the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chaplin was acting under instructions of the Department of State to raise concern for the recent kidnapping of Uruguayan and Chilean refugees in Buenos Aires who had been tortured and released on June 12.

"2. Charge expressed USG concern over refugee abductions, and raised broader issue of human rights. To illustrate for him how foreign press covered such matters and how Congressional critics dealt with them, he was also provided with copies of Washington Post story on abduction and remarks of Congressman Koch at CIAR on June 7…

3. response was an impassioned, almost fanatic defense of GOA. With regard to substance of the issue, Pereya contended that GOA was doing best it could in an all-out war with extremists; that it was not possible to prevent occasional excesses by embattled security forces… he and president Videla were as deeply and genuinely concerned about the problems of human rights as any foreign observe. He did not comment directly on the truth or falsehood of the abduction reports

4. When he reached the topic of the UNHCR, 's indignation was barely controlled. He said that Argentina had provided refuge for over 500,000 Aliens since 1973 most of them Chileans. The country had made an enormous effort to deal with this problem, and the effort was totally unrecognized…

5. In a review of events at the OASGA, expressed satisfaction over his conclusion that Secretary Kissinger was realistic and understood the GOA problems. On human rights, he stated that the Secretary had quoted from Herodotus a reference to refugees taking over the city that gave them refuge, and this indicated his implicit agreement with the GOA's position."

It's really good to be able to examine this material, UpInArms. Sure wish more people knew about it NOW. Of course they will in future years. Right now would be so much better, wouldn't it?

Thanks for the link(s).

[UpInArms]

28. I read about this about a year ago and just wept

it is truly appalling that this information is not widely known.

Thanks so much for the posting and getting this out.

A little a time may open some people's minds to what has been happening with our foreign policies for the past half century.

I truly believe that the NSA of 1947 was a death knell for freedom around the globe.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17603.htm

it opened the floodgates of hell :(

[Vogon_Glory]

24. Our Sins Will Be Better Remembered This Century

I expect that the US' role in the Argentines' "Dirty War" will be remembered far longer than a lot of earlier mischief in Central America early in the last century, mainly due to demographic shifts.

The reason that these will be remembered will be because of those Latin Americans who are leaving or who have already left their homelands back in the 1980's and 1990's. I'm not simply talking about those who left for the United States and their children who are only now gaining the power, wealth, and status to be able to make their voices heard; I'm also talking about those emigres and exiles who have left Latin America for Europe.

The ruling factions may be able to spin doctor their knavery in Latin America to "100% Amurrican" Freepers, but they won't be able to spin that to the children of political refugees and the children of economic migrants living in the US and Europe.

[mobuto]

30. Amazing

For Kissinger's lack of even the most limited attempt at subtlety, if nothing else.

I'm reading the memos in disbelief. Kissinger's perfidy never fails to astonish.

[nolabels]

32. This was on page two of my local paper today

(That’s where real news appears on slow days in the So Cal. Press-Enterprise, circulation approx 190,000)
They never did report on Henry flying out to Moscow with poppy to see Putti and other partners in crime. The way all these higher tier spooks run around together now-a-days you would think the world is just one giant Honduras.

The only speculative reason I could figure out for why that AP reported this is someone must of seen Henry picking out headstones or something (though I wouldn’t put too much on a bet that they were for him personally).

[Say_What]

33. If you throw Kissinger's name into Google News it pulls quite a few

articles. This one is from the FT in the UK. Why this POS isn't in prison for war crimes is beyond me.

<clips>

Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, backed a 1976 crackdown on dissidents by the Argentine military dictatorship that ultimately resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, according to documents released on Thursday.

In meetings in the US with Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, the Argentine foreign minister of the day, Mr Kissinger and other senior US officials urged the military junta to speed its counter-subversion operations and finish the job before the US Congress cut off military aid.

The meetings, in October 1976, took place after seven months in which the military junta rounded up, tortured and executed thousands of leftists in Argentina. According to a State Department transcript of the meetings, obtained by the Washington-based National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Kissinger told the visiting Argentine official: "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported.

"What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better - we won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better."

<http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493748038>

[Judi Lynn]

37. I'd like to think at some point he'll begin to regret his choices

(snip) Why the law wants a word with Kissinger
April 30 2002


He won the Nobel Peace Prize and his name was once a byword for diplomacy. But Henry Kissinger may yet be called to account for the murder and mayhem the US orchestrated in the 1970s, writes Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens.

Here are some snapshots from the recent career of Henry Kissinger. In May last year, during a stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, he is visited by the criminal brigade of the French police, and served with a summons. This requests that he attend the Palais de Justice the following day to answer questions from Judge Roger Le Loire.

The judge is investigating the death and disappearance of five French citizens during the rule of General Pinochet in Chile. Kissinger declines the invitation and leaves Paris at once.

In the same week, Judge Rodolfo Corrall of Argentina invites Kissinger's testimony in the matter of "Operation Condor" - codename for a state-run death squad, operated by the secret police of six countries - Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador - during the 1970s and '80s. (snip)

(snip) Later in the year, Judge Guzman in Santiago, Chile, sends a written summons to the State Department requesting Kissinger's testimony about the death and disappearance of an American citizen, Charles Horman, in the early days of the Pinochet dictatorship. (The Homan story was dramatised by Constantine Costa-Gavras in the award-winning movie Missing.) Once again, no reply is received to this request for testimony.

On September 10, a major civil suit is filed in the Federal Court in Washington DC by the relatives and survivors of General Rene Schneider, the former head of the Chilean general staff, who was assassinated in 1970 because of his opposition to a military coup.

The lawsuit charges Kissinger with ordering and arranging Schneider's murder. The attorney for the plaintiffs, Professor Michael Tigar, announces that every document in the indictment comes from declassified government sources. (snip)

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/29/1019441343996.html