Uruguay's Congress upholds military amnesty

[Judi Lynn]

Uruguay's Congress upholds military amnesty
By RAUL O. GARCES, Associated Press
Fri May 20, 8:30 pm ET

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – A proposal to annul an amnesty for officials of Uruguay's former dictatorship fell one vote short in the country's Congress on Friday after a bitter debate that reopened divisions from the 1973-85 military government.

The ruling center-left Broad Front party had pushed to overturn the amnesty for soldiers, but one of its congressmen abstained, leaving it one vote short of a majority in the 99-seat legislature.

Hundreds of leftist activists ringed the Congress building to demand an end to the amnesty that had protected soldiers from prosecution for kidnappings, killings and other abuses committed by the dictatorship.

Veterans groups, meanwhile, were rankled by the fact that the measure would have left intact a similar amnesty for Marxist guerrillas who fought both the dictatorship and the elected civilian governments that preceded it.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110521/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_uruguay_amnesty

[Judi Lynn]

1. U.S. involvement in Uruguay goes back a long time, at least as far as the torturer, Dan Mitrione:

http://i43.photobucket.com.nyud.net:8090/albums/e372/tlthe5th/jonestown/mitrione.gif

Mitrione
Dan Mitrione
From Wikipedia

Daniel A. Mitrione (August 4, 1920 – August 10, 1970) was an Italian-born<1> American police officer, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a United States government advisor for the Central Intelligence Agency in Latin America.

Career
Mitrione was a police officer in Richmond, Indiana, from 1945 to 1947 and joined the FBI in 1959. In 1960 he was assigned to State Department's International Cooperation Administration, going to South American countries to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." A. J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, claimed that Mitrione was among the US advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them<2> Langguth also claimed that older police officers were replaced "when the CIA and the U.S. police advisers had turned to harsher measures and sterner men."<3> and that under the new head of the U.S. Public Safety program in Uruguay, Dan Mitrione, the United States "introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil… torture had become routine at the Montevideo jefatura."<4>

From 1960 to 1967, Mitrione worked with the Brazilian police, first in Belo Horizonte then in Rio de Janeiro. He returned to the US in 1967 to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (USAID), in Washington D.C.. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under USAID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety.
Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 US intervention.<5>

Uruguayan posting and death
In this period the Uruguayan government, led by the Colorado Party, had its hands full with a collapsing economy, labor and student strikes, and the Tupamaros, a left-wing urban guerilla group. On the other hand, Washington feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende, in 1970.<4> The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practiced since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine.<6> He is quoted as having said once: "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect."<7> Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives claimed Mitrione had taught torture techniques to Uruguayan police in the cellar of his Montevideo home, including the use of electrical shocks delivered to his victims' mouths and genitals.<8> He also helped train foreign police agents in the United States in the context of the Cold War. It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were allegedly executed once they had served their purpose.<9>

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

~~~
Forever Missing Part 2

~snip~
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://www.miaminewtimes.com/2005-08-11/news/forever-missing-part-2/