Butcher of Lyons arrested in Bolivia on this day in 1983

[Judi Lynn]

Butcher of Lyons arrested in Bolivia on this day in 1983
19 January 2010 | 00:31 | FOCUS News Agency

Butcher of Lyons arrested in Bolivia on this day in 1983. Klaus Barbie, the Nazi Gestapo chief of Lyons, France, during the German occupation, is arrested in Bolivia for his crimes against humanity four decades earlier.
Legal wrangling, especially between the groups representing his Jewish and French Resistance victims, delayed his trial for four years. Finally, on May 11, 1987, the "Butcher of Lyons," as he was known in France, went on trial for 177 crimes against humanity. In a courtroom twist unimaginable four decades earlier, Barbie was defended by three minority lawyers--an Asian, an African, and an Arab--who made the dramatic case that the French and the Jews were as guilty of crimes against humanity as Barbie or any other Nazi. Barbie's lawyers were more interested in putting France and Israel on trial than in actually proving their client's innocence, and on July 4, 1987, he was found guilty. For his crimes, Klaus Barbie was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, France's highest punishment.

http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=n207149

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Wiki. excerpt:

War crimes
He first set up camp at Hôtel Terminus in Lyon. It was his time as head of the Gestapo of Lyon that earned him the name Butcher of Lyon. Evidence suggests that he personally tortured prisoners and is responsible for the deaths of up to 4,000 people.<1> The most infamous case is the arrest and torture of Jean Moulin, one of the highest-ranking members of the French Resistance. In April 1944, Barbie ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu. After his surgery in Lyon, Klaus Barbie rejoined the SIPO-SD of Lyon in Bruyeres-in-Vosges France where he was also responsible for a massacre in Rehaupal in September 1944.

In 1947, Barbie became an agent for the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).<2> In 1951, he fled to Juan Peron's Argentina with the help of a ratline organized by U.S. intelligence services<3> and the Ustashi Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović. Asked by Barbie why he was going out of his way to help him escape, Draganovic responded, "We have to maintain a sort of moral reserve on which we can draw in the future."<4> He then emigrated to Bolivia, where he lived under the alias Klaus Altmann. Testimony of Italian insurgent Stefano Delle Chiaie before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism suggests that Barbie took part in the "Cocaine Coup" of Luis García Meza Tejada, when the regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980.<5>

Barbie was also reported to have worked as an officer for Bolivian intelligence and helped plan concentration camps, and formulate torture and repression techniquies for anti-government rebels while Bolivia was under a violent dictatorship.

While in Bolivia, Barbie managed a company that diverted Belgian and Swiss arms to Israel while Israel was still under a post-Six-Day War international arms embargo. A report in the Israeli press alleges that Barbie also had frequent dealings with Israel concerning supplies of Israeli arms to Latin American countries and "various underground organizations."<6>

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

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Wiki. expcerpt on Garcia Meza:

The García Meza Dictatorship, 1980-81
Of extremely conservative anti-communist persuasion, García Meza endeavored to bring a Pinochet-style dictatorship that was intended to last 20 years. He immediately outlawed all political parties, exiled opposition leaders, repressed the unions, and muzzled the press. He was backed by former Nazi officer Klaus Barbie and Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie. Further collaboration came from other European neofascists, most notoriously Ernesto Milá Rodríguez (accused of the Paris synagogue bombing of 1980. <1> Among other foreign collaborators were professional torturers allegedly imported from the notoriously repressive Argentine dictatorship of General Jorge Videla.

The García Meza regime, while brief (its original form ended in 1981), became internationally known for its extreme brutality. The population was repressed in ways as the Banzer dictatorship did. Indeed, some 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the Bolivian army and security forces in only 13 months. The administration's chief repressor was the Minister of Interior, Colonel Luis Arce, who cautioned that all Bolivians who may be opposed to the new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms."

The most prominent victim of the dictatorship was the congressman, presidential candidate, and gifted orator Marcelo Quiroga, murdered and "disappeared" soon after the coup. Quiroga had been the chief advocate of bringing to trial the former dictator, General Hugo Banzer (1971-78), for human right violations and economic mismanagement.

Drug trafficking
The García Meza government drug trafficking activities led to the complete isolation of the regime. The new, conservative U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, kept his distance, aware of the regime's unsavory links to criminal circles. Eventually, the international outcry was sufficiently strong to force García Meza's resignation on August 3, 1981. He was succeeded by a less tainted but equally repressive general, Celso Torrelio.

All in all, the Bolivian military would sustain itself in power only for another year, and would then beat a hasty retreat to its barracks, embarrassed and tarnished by the excesses of the 1980-82 dictatorships (it has never returned to the Palacio Quemado).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garc%C3%ADa_Meza_Tejada

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org.nyud.net:8090/nazioccupation/images/Klaus%20Barbie.jpg http://www.lessignets.com.nyud.net:8090/signetsdiane/calendrier/images/juillet/4/barbie_pendant_proces.jpg