Argentina May Reveal Dirty War Secrets

[Joanne98]

AP) Argentina on Friday authorized officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in human rights trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of atrocities committed during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

In other developments, a federal judge probing right-wing death squads that operated during the chaotic, 20-month presidency of Isabel Peron issued a new warrant for her arrest in Spain.

President Nestor Kirchner's decree lifts the ban on former and current military, police and government officials from revealing state secrets in certain court cases.

Administration officials said the decree strips former officers and officials of any pretext for resisting testifying.

"This is a historic measure," Defense Minister Nilda Garre said at a news conference. He said it shows Kirchner's commitment to fighting "impunity in all its forms."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/27/ap/world/mainD8MTEUV00.shtml

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I wonder

what we will learn about our own Government because of this...

"President Nestor Kirchner's decree lifts the ban on former and current military, police and government officials from revealing state secrets in certain court cases."



National Reorganization Process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process

[Joanne98]

2. That's a good point.

[High Plains]

9. It could open up a new window in Operation Condor

in which the dictatorships of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay), along with the United States, cooperated in the cross-border kidnapping, torture, and murder of political dissidents. More blood on Kissinger's hands.

[ohio2007]

3. That was the period they had that to do with England

over the Falkland Islands.
Yes, they distracted their population with the patriotic distraction of retaking the Falklands ( Malivina's (sp) ) occupied by Britain.
The defeat led to the downfall of military govt of Argentina. Which directly leads to this 'breaking news' article.

[Judi Lynn]

4. This is so important. If only right-wing forces can be FINALLY held accountable.

From the article:

Encouraged by Kirchner, who took office in 2003, prosecutors and judges have reactivated hundreds of cases dating to the country's "dirty war" against leftists.

Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as missing from the dictatorship era's state crackdown on leftist dissent. Human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000.

Dirty War cases took on new life after Argentina's Supreme Court annulled 1980s amnesty laws two years ago. Those laws had shielded former military and police agents allegedly allied with the junta.

Garre said Friday's decree also covers the violent years preceding the 1976 military coup.

Former President Isabel Peron, who has lived in Spain since her 1981 exile, is awaiting an extradition request in connection with death-squad killings during her 1974-1976 rule.

Peron, whose full name is Maria Estela Martinez de Peron, was informed Thursday by Spain's National Court that an Argentine judge had issued a warrant for her arrest.

It was the second warrant for her arrest this month. On Jan. 12, she was detained in Madrid at the request of another Argentine judge investigating disappearances during her chaotic 20-month rule.
(snip/)

Sure hope they will reach out to tap Henry Kissinger, as well. It's the "right" thing to do. Of course, they wouldn't do anything crude, like throw him out of helicopters, or airplanes, unlike the military junta he assisted.



Isabel Perón. Bring her home, just like Pinochet.

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

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

~snip~
8:00 am, June 10, 1976 - Secretary of State Kissinger meets early in the day with the Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Guzzetti, for over one hour. The U.S. participants included Under Secretary for Economic Affairs William Rogers, Under Secretary for International and Security Affairs Carlyle E. Maw, and Luigi R. Einaudi as note taker. On the Argentine side, Guzzetti was accompanied by Ambassador Pereyra and Argentina's Ambassador to the OAS and renowned diplomat Julio Cesar Carasales.

{Note: the Memorandum of Conversation for this meeting was misdated June 6, 1976. The meeting took place during the morning of June 10, 1976, when Kissinger met with several foreign dignitaries attending the OAS General Assembly in Santiago. That afternoon he traveled to Mexico City. See Secretary Kissinger's travels at the State Department historian's web page and the Secretary's calendar of events for that day}

The encounter is cordial and the Secretary never raises the issues of torture and disappearances in Argentina, nor the Americans endangered there. The Memorandum of Conversation shows that after a series of pleasantries, Guzzetti opens the substantial part of the meeting by stating: "Our main problem in Argentina is terrorism. It is the first priority of the current government that took office on March 24."

In closing, Secretary Kissinger says, "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures."
(snip/...)

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

[Benhurst]

5. Criminal minds ...

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly," Lady Macbeth

"If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly," Henry Kissinger

[Peace Patriot]

7. Guzzetti: "Our main problem in Argentina is terrorism." Gee, where have I

heard that...um...recently?

[Peace Patriot]

6. I want to see that headline HERE!

Latin America is leading the way, and showing us what democracy looks like. Hard work on transparent elections, and grass roots organization. Leftists (majorityists) elected in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Nicaragua, with strong leftist movements in Peru and Paraguay (which will bear fruit in the next election cycle) and in southern Mexico and Mexico City.

Example: In Venezuela, they handcount FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the vote, cuz they don't trust the voting machines. Know how much we handcount*?

Example: In Argentina, when the rich indebted the country with onerous World Bank loans, and ripped off the money leaving the poor to pay the debt, the poor and middle class got together and took tiny hammers and went round breaking every bank ATM display window in the country, in protest. Three governments later--in quick succession--they finally got a leftist government that negotiated with Venezuela to bail them out of World Bank debt on easy terms, and the country is now on the road to recovery.

Example: In Bolivia, when Bechtel Corp. privatized the water and then jacked up the prices to the poorest of the poor--even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater!--the people of Cochabamba rose up in protest and threw Bechtel out of their country--and elected the first indigenous president of a South American nation--Evo Morales.

Example: When Hugo Chavez was under assault by the Bush Junta and the entire corporate press corps, and called Bush "the devil" at the UN, Rafael Correa, running for president in Ecuador, risked his entire campaign by stating that Chavez's remark insulted the devil. The voters roared with laughter and elected Correa overwhelmingly with 60% of the vote.

Example: When Chavez was running for reelection (at about the same time), under non-stop Bushite/fascist assault, Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, visited Venezuela two weeks before the election, on a state visit to open the new Orinoco Bridge. Could have postponed it. Didn't. Chavez won with 61% of the vote. (Lula also recently defended Bolivia's right to nationalize its own natural gas, and stated that Brazil and everyone else should be paying Bolivia a fair price.)

Solidarity. Vision. Representing the interests of the PEOPLE against global corporate predators. Resisting the Bushite/fascist "divide and conquer" tactic.

Perhaps it is because they have suffered, more than we have, direct mass murder of leftists and the poor, often by US-backed dictators, and have seen and experienced the many horrors of fascism, corporatism, rule by the rich and militarism, that they are so conscious now of how their societies were ripped apart by these forces, and so determined to prevent that from ever happening again. We in the U.S. are young to fascist rule--it is very shocking to us--and, because of our great potential power as citizens and voters--living as we do at center of Corporate Rule-- different tactics have been used to oppress us. Disinformation. Non-stop, pervasive corporate news propaganda. And now, direct control over our election totals with electronic voting machines run on "trade secret," proprietary programming, with virtually no audit/recount controls. So it is taking us longer to realize that our democracy has become a farce, and that the bared teeth of fascist brutality is just beneath the surface.

I think democracy and fairness will triumph in the end. It's what most people want. The key is re-empowering the People--with transparent elections and with access to real information and real political discussion--such as the internet provides. In Latin America, computers are few and far between among the people who are really driving this democracy revolution--the poor--but they have their own ways of communicating and networking, and we have ours. Our situation is different in some particulars, but not in general outline. Empowerment of the people is the key--by whatever means we have at hand.

---------------------------------

*(0% to 1%, depending on the stranglehold that rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations, Diebold and ES&S, have on local election officials and legislators. 0% to 1%! It is outrageous!)

--------------------------------

"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales

"We want partners not masters." --Evo Morales

[Judi Lynn]

11. Thinking of your remarks on propaganda 24/7. Do you remember

that after CNN had been in operation a short time, under the direct watch of Ted Turner, right-wingers started referring to it as "Communist News Network?" It has been courting the right-wing for YEARS since then, and that stigma has remained since the right-wing went after them, just as it went after the print journalists for daring to publish news which was accurate!

It seems so far in the remote past that CNN did NOT whore itself to the right-wing it's almost impossible to imagine it ever was more legitimate.
We have been duped for years by our own "news" sources. Sure glad the internetS came along when it/they did! Unless the right-wing can seize control of that, or ALL the international outlets, we just may have a fighting chance.

(Don't forget we have learned several ways that although the Defense Department let us know it publishes bogus news stories in papers in foreign countries (allegedly to fool the "enemy" (I think everyone is included in that grouping!)) and although sometimes our own media will inadvertantly print the articles without knowing their real source (yeah, sure!), that practise has really been at work since Otto Reich stepped into the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Reagan Administration, and gained fame as a filthy, lying, relentless propagandist.



Right-wing propaganda specialist, former ambassador to Venezuela, sometimes lobbyist for Bacardi, Lockheed-Martin, Cuban "exile" Otto Reich.

6/8/01

The Return of Otto Reich
Will Government Propagandist Join Bush Administration?
By Jeff Cohen

~snip~
If you think the United States has never employed propaganda officers, meet Otto Reich. He may soon be our country's chief diplomat in Latin America if the Bush administration has its way.

In March, Bush announced his intention to nominate Reich as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. If he's officially nominated, it will be interesting to see how journalists handle Reich -- because from 1983 through 1986, it was Reich's job to handle journalists. That's when he commanded the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, whose main mission was to inflame fears about Nicaragua and its left-wing Sandinista government that had come to power by overthrowing a corrupt, U.S.-supported dictator.

By covertly disseminating intelligence leaks to journalists, Reich and the OPD sought to trump up a Nicaraguan "threat," and to sanctify the U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's government as "freedom fighters." The propaganda was aimed at influencing Congress to continue to fund the Contras.

Take the scary news that Soviet MiG fighter jets were arriving in Nicaragua. With journalists citing unnamed "intelligence sources," the well-timed story surged through U.S. media on the night of Ronald Reagan's reelection. At NBC, Andrea Mitchell broke into election coverage with the story. The furor spurred a Democratic senator to discuss a possible airstrike against Nicaragua. But the story turned out to be a hoax. Several journalists later acknowledged they'd been handed the story by Reich's office.

It isn't the only erroneous story journalists link to the OPD. According to the Miami Herald, for example, Reich's office promoted the fable that Nicaragua had acquired chemical weapons from the Soviets. According to Newsweek, the OPD told reporters that high-level Sandinistas were involved in drug trafficking, but U.S. drug officials said there was no evidence for such a charge.
(snip/...)

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2446

[Judi Lynn]

8. This is sad, another new Argentina story:Argentina's `angel of death' denies role in nuns' murder

Argentina's `angel of death' denies role in nuns' murder

AP, BUENOS AIRES
Friday, Jan 26, 2007, Page 7
A former Argentine navy captain dubbed the "Angel of Death" by human rights groups testified in court on Wednesday, denying he helped abduct two French nuns and suggesting French "undercover agents" played a role in their deaths.

Captain Alfredo Astiz, 56, was accused in the 1977 disappearance of nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, along with a dozen other people, including the founder of the human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Azucena Villaflor.

All were reportedly held at the former Navy Mechanics' School, the chief clandestine torture center of the 1976 to 1983 military dictatorship and some were thrown into the ocean from helicopters in Argentina's infamous "death flights."

In all previous court cases, Astiz had claimed his constitutional right to not to testify. He testified to Judge Sergio Torres, who is investigating torture at the Navy Mechanics' School in one of several junta-era human rights cases reactivated when the Supreme Court two years ago annulled a pair of 1980s amnesty laws.
(snip/...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/27/ap/world/mainD8MTEUV00.shtml

~~~~~~~~

~snip~
Alfredo Astiz was born on 17 November 1950. He was lieutenant of a frigate belonging to the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), and at that time he was put in charge of an undercover group. Very quickly, he tried to infiltrate the “Mothers of the May Square” organisation under the name of Gustavo Niño, under the pretext of having a brother who had “disappeared”.

In December 1977, Astiz was implicated in the disappearance of two French nuns, Sister Alice Domon and Sister Leonie Duquet, whose remains have never been found.

In 1978, he was to be found in France, with a mission to infiltrate the Argentinean refugee community.

In June 1979 he was appointed assistant naval attaché to South Africa.

During the Falklands war between Argentina and Britain, he was responsible for the main island of Georgia, and it was he who signed the surrender treaty on 10 June 1982. He was made a prisoner by the British.
(snip/...)

http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/alfredo_astiz_311.html

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

Sure glad they've got him.

Last Updated: Saturday, 26 July, 2003, 01:34 GMT 02:34 UK
Argentina's long wait for justice

By Daniel Schweimler
BBC News

~snip~
The military came to power in March 1976 after a period of political instability and growing violence.

They began a systematic campaign to wipe out left-wing terrorism - but the terror carried out by the state exceeded anything previously seen in Argentina.

Students, union leaders and political activists were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and never seen again.

They were tortured at secret locations and some were even thrown, bound and gagged, from planes and helicopters into the River Plate and Atlantic Ocean.

Kirchner has dared to act where predecessors vacillated
Many Argentines reserve a special hatred for the man known as the blond angel of death, the former naval captain, Alfredo Astiz.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3098489.stm

(_Bush family friend, former Argentinian President Carlos Menem was the one who gave the Dirty War officials COMPLETE IMMUNITY from prosecution, originally.)



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How the angel of death trapped the women:

~snip~
Lawyers for the nuns said they were targeted after befriending mothers of illegally detained dissidents. After they were seized, the nuns were taken to the Navy School of Mechanics and later disappeared, prosecutors said.

They contend the nuns were seized on information provided by Astiz, saying he infiltrated a group of relatives of victims by claiming to be a brother of one of those who disappeared.

Duquet's body was identified last year through DNA tests after forensic experts exhumed several bodies that washed up on the south Atlantic coast in December 1977 and later found buried in an unmarked grave. Domon's body was never recovered.
(snip/)

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=82&sid=735442



Alice Domon and Leonie-Renee Duquet

[NoodleyAppendage]

10. Maybe we'll finally get hard evidence to put away Kissinger...

The blood of many nations stains the hands of that soulless toad of a human being.

J