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Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
–backed campaign of
political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...
and
state terror State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111. Definition There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper de ...
involving
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...
operations and assassination of opponents. It was officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the
Southern Cone The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
of
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...
. Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths directly attributable to Operation Condor is highly disputed. Some estimates are that at least 60,000 deaths can be attributed to Condor, roughly 30,000 of these in Argentina, and the Archives of Terror list 50,000 killed, 30,000
disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...
and 400,000 imprisoned. Additionally, American political scientist J. Patrice McSherry gives a figure of at least 402 killed in Condor operations which crossed national borders in a 2002 source, and mentions in a 2009 source that of those who "had gone into exile" and were "kidnapped, tortured and killed in allied countries or illegally transferred to their home countries to be executed... hundreds, or thousands, of such persons—the number still has not been finally determined—were abducted, tortured, and murdered in Condor operations." Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests, monks and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals and suspected guerrillas. Although it was described by the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) as "a cooperative effort by the intelligence/security services of several South American countries to combat terrorism and subversion," combatting ''guerrillas'' was used as a pretext for its existence, as guerrillas were not substantial enough in numbers to control territory, gain material support by any foreign power, or otherwise threaten national security."El Estado de necesidad"
(in Spanish); Documents of the Trial of the Juntas at Desaparecidos.org.
Condor's key members were the governments in
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
,
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
,
Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
,
Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...
, and
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
;
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
signed the agreement later on.
Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
and
Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
later joined the operation in more peripheral roles. The United States government provided planning, coordinating, training on torture, and technical support and supplied military aid to the Juntas during the
Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and
Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
administrations. Such support was frequently routed through the CIA.


Antecedents: The 1970s

Operation Condor, which took place in the context of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, had the tacit approval and material support of the United States. In 1968, U.S. General Robert W. Porter stated that "in order to facilitate the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries, we are ... endeavoring to foster inter-service and regional cooperation by assisting in the organization of integrated command and control centers; the establishment of common operating procedures; and the conduct of joint and combined training exercises." According to American historian J. Patrice McSherry, based on formerly secret CIA documents from 1976, in the 1960s and early 1970s plans were developed among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies to deal with perceived threats in South America from political dissidents. A declassified CIA document dated 23 June 1976, explains that "in early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia met in Buenos Aires to prepare coordinated actions against subversive targets." The program was developed following a series of government '' coups d'états'' by military groups, primarily in the 1970s: * General
Alfredo Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan army officer and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 to 3 February 1989. Stroessner led a coup d'état on 4 May 1954 with t ...
took control of
Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...
in 1954. * The Brazilian military overthrew the president
João Goulart João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...
in 1964. * General Hugo Banzer took power in
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
in 1971 through a series of coups. * A civic-military dictatorship seized power in
Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
on 27 June 1973. * Chilean armed forces commanded by General Augusto Pinochet bombed the presidential palace in Chile on 11 September 1973, overthrowing democratically elected president Salvador Allende. * General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez takes control of
Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
after a successful coup in 1975 * A military junta headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
on 24 March 1976. According to American journalist A. J. Langguth, the organization of the first meetings between Argentinian and Uruguayan security officials, concerning the watching (and subsequent disappearance or assassination) of political refugees in these countries, can be attributed to the CIA, as well as its participation as intermediary in the Argentinian, Uruguayan and Brazilian
death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are f ...
s meetings. The National Security Archive reported, "Founded by the Pinochet regime in November 1975, Operation Condor was the codename for a formal Southern Cone collaboration that included transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance and assassination, according to the National Security Archive's documentary evidence from U.S., Paraguayan, Argentine, and Chilean files." Under this codename mission, several people were killed. As the report stated, "Prominent victims of Condor include two former Uruguayan legislators and a former Bolivian president, Juan José Torres, murdered in Buenos Aires, a former Chilean
Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
,
Bernardo Leighton Bernardo Leighton Guzmán (August 16, 1909, Negrete, Bío Bío Province – January 26, 1995, Santiago) was a Chilean Christian Democratic Party politician and lawyer. He served as minister of state under three presidents over a 36-year ca ...
, as well as former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year old American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C."


History

Cooperation among various security services had existed prior to the creation of Operation Condor, with the aim of "eliminating Marxist subversion." During the Conference of American Armies held in
Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in th ...
on 3 September 1973, Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, head of the Brazilian army, proposed to "extend the exchange of information" between various services in order to "struggle against subversion."
free access in French
an
in Portuguese
)
In March 1974, representatives of the police forces of Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the
Argentine Federal Police The Argentine Federal Police ( es, Policía Federal Argentina or PFA) is the national civil police force of the Argentine federal government. The PFA has detachments throughout the country. Until January 1, 2017, it also acted as the local la ...
and co-founder of the Triple A death squad, to implement cooperation guidelines. Their goal was to destroy the "subversive" threat represented by the presence of thousands of political exiles in Argentina. In August 1974, the corpses of Bolivian refugees were found in garbage dumps in Buenos Aires. In 2007, McSherry also confirmed the abduction and torture during this period of Chilean and Uruguayan refugees who were living in Buenos Aires, based on newly declassified CIA documents dated June 1976. On 25 November 1975, General Augusto Pinochet's 60th birthday, leaders of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Manuel Contreras, chief of
DINA Dina ( ar, دينا, he, דִּינָה, also spelled Dinah, Dena, Deena) is a female given name. Women * Dina bint Abdul-Hamid (1929–2019), Queen consort of Jordan, first wife of King Hussein * Princess Dina Mired of Jordan (born 1965), Princ ...
(the Chilean secret police), in Santiago de Chile, officially creating the Plan Condor. According to French journalist Marie-Monique Robin, author of ''Escadrons de la mort, l'école française'' (2004, ''Death Squads, The French School''), General Rivero, intelligence officer of the
Argentine Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, in es, Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina, are controlled by the Commander-in-Chief (the President) and a civilian Minister of Defense. In addition to the Army, Navy and Air Force, there are t ...
and former student of the
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, developed the concept of Operation Condor."L'exportation de la torture" (The exporting of torture)
interview with Marie-Monique Robin, in ''
L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...
'', 30 August 2003
Based on the governments' perception of threats, officially the targets were armed groups (such as the MIR, the
Montoneros Montoneros ( es, link=no, Movimiento Peronista Montonero-MPM) was an Argentine left-wing Peronist guerrilla organization, active throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The name is an allusion to the 19th-century cavalry militias called Montone ...
or the ERP, the Tupamaros, etc.), but the governments broadened their attacks against all kinds of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by the Valech Commission. The Argentine "
Dirty War The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 a ...
", for example, which resulted in approximately 30,000 victims according to most estimates, kidnapped, tortured and killed many trade-unionists, relatives of activists, social activists such as founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, nuns, university professors, etc. From 1976 onwards, the Chilean DINA and its Argentine counterpart,
SIDE Side or Sides may refer to: Geometry * Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape) * Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape) Places * Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece * Side (Caria), a town of a ...
, were the operation's front-line troops. The infamous "
death flights Death flights ( es, vuelos de la muerte, links=no) are a form of extrajudicial killing practiced by military forces in possession of aircraft: victims are dropped to their death from airplanes or helicopters into oceans, large rivers or even mount ...
," theorized in Argentina by Luis María Mendía – and previously used during the
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
(1954–62) by French forces;— were widely used. Government forces took victims by plane or helicopter out to sea, dropping them to their deaths in planned disappearances. It was said that from this military bombardment that OPR-33 infrastructure located in Argentina was destroyed. In May 1976, members of Plan Condor met in Santiago, Chile, at which the participating countries discussed "long-range cooperation... hatwent well beyond information exchange" and were given code names. In July, the CIA gathered intelligence that members of Plan Condor had the intention of striking "against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing abroad." In late 1977, due to unusual storms, numerous corpses washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires, producing evidence of some of the government's victims. There were also hundreds of cases of babies and children being taken from mothers in prison who had been kidnapped and later disappeared; the children were handed over in illegal adoptions to families and associates of the regime. The CIA also reported that Operation Condor countries took very well to the idea of working together, and developed their own communications network and combined training initiatives in areas such as psychological warfare. In a report written from Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry W. Shlaudeman to Kissinger 3 August 1976, it was reported that the military regimes in South America were coming together to join forces for security reasons. They were concerned about the spread of Marxism and the implications that this could have on their grasp on power. This new force operated in other member's countries in secrecy. Their goal: to seek and kill terrorists of the "Revolutionary Coordinating Committee" in their own countries and in Europe.The Third World War and South America
/ref> Shlaudeman expressed concern that the "siege mentality" that permeated the members of Operation Condor could lead to a larger chasm between the military and civilian institutions in the region. He was also fearful that this could lead to increasing isolation of these countries from developed Western nations. He believed that there was justification to some of their fears, yet he felt that by reacting too strongly these countries could engender a strong terrorist counter reaction similar to the PLO in Israel. U.S. documents dated 17 April 1977, listed Chile and Argentina as both active in utilizing communications media for the purpose of broadcasting propaganda. The objective of the propaganda had two purposes. The first purpose was to defuse/counter criticism of the governments involved by foreign media and the second was to cultivate national pride in the local populace. One propaganda piece created by Chile entitled, "Chile after Allende," was distributed amongst the governments acting under Condor. However, the document notes only that Uruguay and Argentina were the only two countries to acknowledge the agreement. Paraguay's government was listed only as utilizing the local press, "Patria", as its main propaganda producer. A meeting that was to have taken place in March 1977, discussing "Psychological warfare techniques against terrorists and leftist extremists", was canceled due to the restructuring of the intelligence services of both Argentina and Paraguay. A 2016 declassified CIA report dated 9 May 1977, titled "Counterterrorism in the Southern Cone," underscored one "aspect of the program involving Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina envisages illegal operations outside Latin America against exiled terrorists, particularly in Europe." "The military-controlled governments of the Southern Cone," the document read, "all consider themselves targets of international Marxism." The document highlighted Condor's fundamental characteristic, constituting as part of a long tried "regional approach" to pacifying "subversion," came to fruition in early 1974 when "security officials from all of the member countries, except Brazil, agreed to establish liaison channels and to facilitate the movement of security officers on government business from one country to the other." One of Condor's "initial aims" was the "exchange of information on the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta (RCJ), an organization...of terrorist groups from Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay" whose "representatives" in Europe were "believed to have been involved in the assassinations in Paris of the Bolivian ambassador to France last May and an Uruguayan military attache in 1974." The CIA report noted that the fundamental mission of Condor was the liquidation of "top-level terrorist leaders" as well as non-terrorist targets including "Uruguayan opposition politician Wilson Ferreira, if he should travel to Europe, and some leaders of Amnesty International." Condor was also seen by the CIA to be "engaged in non-violent activities, including psychological warfare and a propaganda campaign" that utilized the reach of the media to "publicize crimes and atrocities committed by terrorists." Additionally, in an appeal to "national pride and the national conscience," Condor called for the citizenry comprising its member nations to "report anything out of the ordinary in their neighborhoods." In 1980, another meeting took place in which Montensero was captured. It was said that the RSO would not kill them if they agreed to cooperate and give information regarding future meetings in Rio.


Revelations about Condor

The dictatorships and their intelligence services were responsible for tens of thousands of killed and missing people in the period between 1975 and 1985. Analyzing the political repression in the region during that decade, Brazilian journalist Nilson Mariano estimates the number of killed and missing people as 2,000 in Paraguay; 3,196 in Chile; 297 in Uruguay; 366 in Brazil; and 30,000 in Argentina. Estimates of numbers of killed and disappeared by member countries during the period of operation are 7,000-30,000 in Argentina, 3,000-10,000 in Chile, 116–546 in Bolivia, 434–1,000 in Brazil, 200–400 in Paraguay and 123–215 in Uruguay. While many sources combine these numbers into a single death toll attributable to Operation Condor, killings directly linked to Condor's cross-border military and intelligence cooperation between South American dictatorships are, by definition, only a small subset of the total. McSherry, for example, estimated in 2002 that at least 402 individuals were killed or "disappeared" in Condor operations: "Some 132 Uruguayans (127 in Argentina, 3 in Chile, and 2 in Paraguay), 72 Bolivians (36 in Chile, 36 in Argentina), 119 Chileans, 51 Paraguayans (in Argentina), 16 Brazilians (9 in Argentina and 7 in Chile), and at least 12 Argentines in Brazil". McSherry added that "some 200 persons passed through Automotores Orletti, the key Condor detention center in Argentina," and cautioned that "these figures are likely underestimates". In 2009, McSherry offered a range of "hundreds, or thousands ... murdered in Condor operations," acknowledging that "the number still has not been finally determined". On 22 December 1992, torture victim Martín Almada and José Agustín Fernández, a Paraguayan judge, visited a police station in the Lambaré suburb of
Asunción Asunción (, , , Guarani: Paraguay) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of ...
to look for files on a former political prisoner. They found what became known as the "Archives of Terror" (Portuguese: ''Arquivos do Terror''), documenting the fates of thousands of Latin American political prisoners, who were secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The archives held a total of 60,000 documents, weighing 4 tons and comprising 593,000 microfilmed pages. Southern Cone Operation Condor resulted in up to 50,000 killed; 30,000 "disappeared"; and 400,000 arrested and imprisoned. Some of these countries have relied on evidence in the archives to prosecute former military officers. Martín Almada, ''Paraguay: The Forgotten Prison, the Exiled Country'' A higher number of 90,000 killed has been put forth by La Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos (FEDEFAM). According to these archives, other countries, such as Peru, cooperated by providing intelligence information in response to requests from the security services of the
Southern Cone The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
nations. While Peru had no representatives at the secret November 1975 meeting in Santiago de Chile, there is evidence of its involvement. For instance, as late as June 1980, Peru was known to have collaborated with Argentine agents of 601 Intelligence Battalion in the kidnapping, torture and "disappearance" of a group of
Montoneros Montoneros ( es, link=no, Movimiento Peronista Montonero-MPM) was an Argentine left-wing Peronist guerrilla organization, active throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The name is an allusion to the 19th-century cavalry militias called Montone ...
living in exile in
Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...
. Brazil signed the agreement later (June 1976), but refused to engage in actions outside Latin America. Mexico, along with Costa Rica, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Sweden, received many people fleeing as refugees from the terror regimes. The third phase of Operation Condor included plans to assassinate and take other measures against opponents of the military dictatorships in other countries, such as France, Portugal, the United States, Italy and Mexico. These plans were carried out in cases such as the
assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt in the United States. An undetermined number of foreigners were also arrested and tortured, including citizens of Spain, the UK, France and the United States. Operation Condor officially ended when Argentina ousted the military dictatorship in 1983 (following its defeat in the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial ...
) and restored democracy.


Neoliberal economic policies

During this period of
neoliberal Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent f ...
policies, the level of debt contracted illegally by the military dictatorships reached higher levels. In Argentina, the economic policy of José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, Minister of Economy of the dictatorship, implemented from 2 April 1976, marks the beginning of a process of destruction of the productive apparatus and increase of debt with the
IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glob ...
. Short-term
financial speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many s ...
flourished, while chronic
tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...
and budget deficits remained high. Frequent wage freeze decrees continued to depress living standards generally, and income inequality increased. During Martínez de Hoz's tenure, Argentina's foreign debt increased fourfold, and disparities between the upper and lower classes became much more pronounced.Lewis, Paul.''The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism''. University of North Carolina Press, 1990. The period ended in a tenfold devaluation and one of the worst financial crises in Argentine history. In ''Your Money or your Life'', historian and political scientist Éric Toussaint writes:


Notable cases and prosecutions


Argentina

The civic-military dictatorship of Argentina existed from 1976 to 1983 by the military juntas under Operation Condor. The Argentine
SIDE Side or Sides may refer to: Geometry * Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape) * Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape) Places * Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece * Side (Caria), a town of a ...
cooperated with the Chilean DINA in numerous cases of ''desaparecidos''. They assassinated Chilean General Carlos Prats, former Uruguayan MPs
Zelmar Michelini Zelmar Raúl Michelini Guarch (20 May 1924 – 20 May 1976) was a Uruguayan reporter and politician, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976 as part of Operation Condor. Career Zelmar Michelini was member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1954 to 1958 ...
and
Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz (1934, Montevideo – May 20, 1976, Buenos Aires) was a Uruguayan political figure, who died by assassination in the framework of Operation Condor. He was married to Matilde Rodriguez Larreta and had five children: Marcos, ...
, as well as the ex-president of Bolivia, Juan José Torres, in Buenos Aires. The SIDE also assisted Bolivian general Luis García Meza Tejada's ''Cocaine Coup'' in Bolivia, with the help of the Italian
Gladio Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during ...
operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie (see also
Operation Charly Operation Charly ( es, Operación Charly, links=no), was allegedly the code-name given to a program during the 1970s and 1980s undertaken by the junta in Argentina with the objective of providing military and counterinsurgency assistance to righ ...
). Recently, since the opening of confidential archives, it has been discovered that there were operative units composed of Italians, used at ESMA for the repression of groups of Italian Montoneros. This unit called "Shadow Group" was led by
Gaetano Saya Gaetano Saya (born 24 April 1956) is a former Italian politician and military leader. Saya was captured by the military police on his return from a mission in Iraqi Kurdistan, on 13 February 2017 and released on 4 May 2017. He is now the lead ...
at the time Officer of the Italian stay behind next -
Operation Gladio Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine " stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies durin ...
. In April 1977, the ''
Madres de la Plaza de Mayo The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla, with the goal of finding the ''desaparecidos'', initially, an ...
'', a group of mothers whose children had disappeared, started demonstrating each Thursday in front of the '' Casa Rosada'' on the plaza. They were seeking to learn the location and fates of their children. The disappearance in December 1977 of two French nuns and several founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo gained international attention. Authorities later identified their remains among the bodies washed up on beaches in December 1977 south of Buenos Aires, victims of
death flights Death flights ( es, vuelos de la muerte, links=no) are a form of extrajudicial killing practiced by military forces in possession of aircraft: victims are dropped to their death from airplanes or helicopters into oceans, large rivers or even mount ...
. Other members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continued the struggle for
justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
in the ensuing decades. After democracy was restored in Argentina in 1983, the government set up the National Commission for Forced Disappearances (CONADEP), led by writer Ernesto Sabato. It collected testimony from hundreds of witnesses about victims of the regime and known abuses, documenting hundreds of secret prisons and
detention centers A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...
, and identifying leaders of the torture and death squads. Two years later, the '' Juicio a las Juntas'' (Trial of the Juntas) largely succeeded in proving the crimes of the top officers of the various ''juntas'' that had formed the self-styled
National Reorganization Process The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United St ...
. Most of the top officers put on trial were convicted and sentenced to
life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
, including Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Raúl Agosti,
Rubén Graffigna Omar Domingo Rubens Graffigna (April 2, 1926 – December 9, 2019) was an Argentine Air Force officer who served in the second military junta of the National Reorganization Process dictatorship. Along with Santiago Omar Riveros, he was one of th ...
,
Leopoldo Galtieri Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (; 15 July 1926 12 January 2003) was an Argentine general and politician of Italian descent who served as President of Argentina from December 1981 to June 1982. Galtieri ruled as a military dictator during the Na ...
, Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo. Under pressure from the military following these trials, Raúl Alfonsín's government passed two
amnesty law An Amnesty law is any legislative, constitutional or executive arrangement that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for the crimes that they committed. More speci ...
s protecting military officers involved in human rights abuses: the 1986 '' Ley de Punto Final'' (''law of closure'') and the 1987 ''
Ley de Obediencia Debida The Law of Due Obedience ( es, Ley de obediencia debida) was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (which started with a coup d'état in 1976 and ...
'' (''law of due obedience)'', ending prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. In 1989–1990, President
Carlos Menem Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. He ...
pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
ed the leaders of the ''junta'' who were serving sentences in what he said was an attempt at healing and reconciliation. In the late 1990s, due to attacks on American nationals in Argentina and revelations about CIA funding of the Argentine military, and after an explicit 1990 Congressional prohibition, U.S. President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
ordered the declassification of thousands of State Department documents related to U.S.-Argentine activities going back to 1954. These documents revealed U.S. complicity in the Dirty War and Operation Condor. Following continuous protests by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights groups, in 2003 the Argentine Congress, counting on President Nestor Kirchner and the ruling majority on both chambers full support, repealed the amnesty laws. The Argentine Supreme Court under separate review declared them unconstitutional in June 2005. The court's ruling enabled the government to renew the prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. DINA civil agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, who was prosecuted in Argentina for
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
in 2004, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of General Prats. It has been claimed that suspected Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie was involved in the murder as well. He and fellow extremist
Vincenzo Vinciguerra Vincenzo Vinciguerra (born 3 January 1949) is an Italian neo-fascist activist, a former member of the ''Avanguardia Nazionale'' ("National Vanguard") and '' Ordine Nuovo'' ("New Order"). He is currently serving a life-sentence for the murder of thr ...
testified in Rome in December 1995 before federal judge
María Servini de Cubría Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 *Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...
that DINA agents Clavel and
Michael Townley Michael Vernon Townley (born December 5, 1942, in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American-born former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the secret police of Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet. In 1978, Townley pled guilty t ...
were directly involved in this assassination. In 2003, Judge Servini de Cubría requested that Mariana Callejas (Michael Townley's wife) and Cristoph Willikie, a retired colonel from the Chilean army, be extradited, as they were accused of also being involved in the murder. Chilean appeals court judge Nibaldo Segura refused extradition in July 2005 on the grounds that they had already been prosecuted in Chile. On 5 March 2013, twenty-five former high-ranking military officers from Argentina and Uruguay went on trial in Buenos Aires, charged with conspiracy to "kidnap, disappear, torture and kill" 171 political opponents during the 1970s and 1980s. Among the defendants are former Argentine "presidents"
Jorge Videla Jorge Rafael Videla (; ; 2 August 1925 – 17 May 2013) was an Argentine military officer and dictator, Commander in Chief of the Army, member of the Military Junta, and ''de facto'' President of Argentina from 29 March 1976 to 29 March 198 ...
and
Reynaldo Bignone Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone (21 January 1928 – 7 March 2018) was an Argentine general who served as President of Argentina from 1 July 1982, to 10 December 1983. In 2010, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the kidnappi ...
, from the period of '' El Proceso.'' Prosecutors are basing their case in part on U.S. documents declassified in the 1990s and later, and obtained by the non-governmental organization, the
National Security Archive The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The N ...
, based at
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...
in Washington, DC. On 27 May 2016, fifteen ex-military officials were found guilty. Reynaldo Bignone received a sentence of 20 years in jail. Fourteen of the remaining 16 defendants got eight to 25 years. Two were found not guilty. Luz Palmás Zaldúa, a lawyer representing victims' families, contends that "this ruling is important because it is the first time the existence of Operation Condor has been proved in court. It is also the first time that former members of Condor have been sentenced for forming part of this criminal organisation."


Brazil

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ordered the release of some military files concerning Operation Condor in 2000. There are documents that prove that, on that year
attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Giancarlo Capaldo, an Italian magistrate, investigated the "disappearances" of Italian nationals in Latin America, likely due to actions of Argentine, Paraguayan, Chilean and Brazilian military personnel who tortured and murdered Italian citizens during the military dictatorships in Latin America. In the case of Brazilians accused of
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...
,
kidnapping In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
and
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
, there was a list with the names of eleven Brazilians in addition to many high-ranking military personnel from other countries involved in the operation. In the words of the Magistrate, on 26 October, 2000, "(...) I can neither confirm nor deny because until December Argentine, Brazilian, Paraguayan and Chilean militaries ilitary personnelwill be subject to criminal trial..." According to the official statement, the Italian government, it was unclear whether the government would prosecute the accused military officers or not, , nobody in Brazil had been convicted of human rights violations for actions committed under the 21 years of military dictatorship because of the
Amnesty Law An Amnesty law is any legislative, constitutional or executive arrangement that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for the crimes that they committed. More speci ...
has secured both governamental officials and leftist guerrillas over their crimes.


Kidnapping of Uruguayans

The Condor Operation expanded its clandestine repression from Uruguay to Brazil in November 1978, in an event later known as ''"o Sequestro dos Uruguaios,"'' or "the Kidnapping of the Uruguayans." With the consent of the Brazilian military regime, senior officers of the Uruguayan army secretly crossed the border and entered
Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the twelfth most populous city in the country and the center of Brazil's fif ...
, capital of the State of
Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is border ...
. There they kidnapped Universindo Rodriguez and Lilian Celiberti, an activist Uruguayan couple of the political opposition, along with her two children, Camilo and Francesca, five and three years old. The illegal operation failed because two Brazilian journalists, reporter Luiz Cláudio Cunha and photographer João Baptista Scalco from ''
Veja Veja may refer to : Places * Veja, a town in Lazio, central Italy; now Vejano comune * Veja, a village in Stănița Commune, Neamț County, Romania * Veja River, Romania * Veja State, a former princely state in present Gujarat, western India Pe ...
'' magazine, had been warned by an anonymous phone call that the Uruguayan couple had been "disappeared." To check on the information, the two journalists went to the given address: an apartment in Porto Alegre. When they arrived, the journalists were at first taken to be other political opposition members by the armed men who had arrested Celiberti, and they were arrested in turn. Universindo Rodriguez and the children had already been clandestinely taken to Uruguay. When their identities were made clear, the journalists had exposed the secret operation by their presence. It was suspended. The exposure of the operation is believed to have prevented the murder of the couple and their two young children, as the news of the political kidnapping of Uruguayan nationals in Brazil made headlines in the Brazilian press. It became an international scandal. The military governments of both Brazil and Uruguay were embarrassed. A few days later, officials arranged for the Celibertis' children to be taken to their maternal grandparents in Montevideo. After Rodriguez and Celiberti were imprisoned and tortured in Brazil, they were taken to military prisons in Uruguay, and detained for the next five years. When democracy was restored in Uruguay in 1984, the couple were released. They confirmed all the published details of their kidnapping. In 1980, Brazilian courts convicted two inspectors of DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order, an official police branch in charge of the political repression during the military regime) for having arrested the journalists in Lilian's apartment in Porto Alegre. They were João Augusto da Rosa and Orandir Portassi Lucas. The reporters and the Uruguayans had identified them as taking part in the kidnapping. This event confirmed the direct involvement of the Brazilian government in the Condor Operation. In 1991, Governor Pedro Simon arranged for the state of
Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is border ...
to officially recognize the kidnapping of the Uruguayans and gave them financial compensation. The democratic government of President
Luis Alberto Lacalle Luis Alberto Lacalle de Herrera, GCMG (; ''Lacalle'' locally or ; born 13 July 1941), is a Uruguayan politician and lawyer who served as President of Uruguay from 1990 to 1995. Background His mother, María Hortensia de Herrera de Lacalle, ...
in Uruguay was inspired to do the same a year later. Police officer Pedro Seelig, the head of the DOPS at the time of the kidnapping, was identified by the Uruguayan couple as the man in charge of the operation in Porto Alegre. While Seelig stood trial in Brazil, Universindo and Lílian remained in prison in Uruguay and were prevented from testifying. The Brazilian policeman was acquitted for lack of evidence. Lilian and Universindo's later testimony revealed that four officers of the secret Uruguayan Counter-information Division;– two majors and two captains;– took part in the operation with the consent of Brazilian authorities. Captain Glauco Yanonne, was personally responsible for torturing Universindo Rodriquez in the DOPS headquarters in Porto Alegre. Although Universindo and Lilian identified the Uruguayan military men who had arrested and tortured them, not one was prosecuted in Montevideo. The Law of Immunity, passed in 1986, provided amnesty to Uruguayan citizens who had committed acts of political repression and human rights abuses under the dictatorship. The 1979 Esso Prize, regarded as the most important prize of the Brazilian press, was awarded to Cunha and Scalco for their investigative journalism of the case. Hugo Cores, a former Uruguayan political prisoner, was the one who had called Cunha in warning. In 1993, he said to the Brazilian press:
All the Uruguayans kidnapped abroad, around 180 people, are missing to this day. The only ones who managed to survive are Lilian, her children, and Universindo.


Alleged assassination of João Goulart

After being overthrown,
João Goulart João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...
was the first Brazilian president to die in exile. He died of an alleged heart attack in his sleep in Mercedes, Argentina, on 6 December 1976. Because an
autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...
was never performed, the true cause of his death remains unknown. On 26 April 2000, former governor of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul Leonel Brizola, Goulart's brother-in-law, alleged that former presidents Goulart and
Juscelino Kubitschek Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (; 12 September 1902 – 22 August 1976), also known by his initials JK, was a prominent Brazilian politician who served as the 21st president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His term was marked by economic prosp ...
(who died in a car accident) were assassinated as part of Operation Condor. He asked for investigations to be opened into their deaths. On 27 January 2008, the newspaper '' Folha de S.Paulo'' printed a story with a statement from Mario Neira Barreiro, a former intelligence service member under Uruguay's dictatorship. Barreiro said that Goulart was poisoned, confirming Brizola's allegations. Barreiro also said that the order to assassinate Goulart came from
Sérgio Paranhos Fleury Sérgio Fernando Paranhos Fleury (19 May 1933 – 1 May 1979) was a Brazilian police deputy during the Brazilian military dictatorship. He was chief of ''DOPS'', the Brazilian "", that had a major role during the years of the Brazilian military g ...
, head of the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social (Department of Political and Social Order) and the
licence to kill ''Licence to Kill'' is a 1989 spy film, the sixteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. It sees Bond suspended from MI6 as he pursu ...
came from president
Ernesto Geisel Ernesto Beckmann Geisel (, ; 3 August 1907 – 12 September 1996) was a Brazilian Army officer and politician, who was President of Brazil from 1974 to 1979, during the Brazilian military regime. Early life and family Ernesto Geisel was born ...
. In July 2008, a special commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul, Goulart's home state, concluded that "the evidence that Jango oulartwas willfully assassinated, with knowledge of the Geisel government, is strong." In March 2009, the magazine '' CartaCapital'' published previously unreleased documents of the National Information Service created by an undercover agent who was present at Goulart's properties in Uruguay. This revelation reinforces the theory that the former president was poisoned. The Goulart family has not yet identified who could be the "B Agent," as he is referred to in the documents. The agent acted as a close friend to Goulart, and described in detail an argument during the former president's 56th birthday party with his son because of a fight between two employees. As a result of the story, the Human Rights Commission of the
Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
decided to investigate Goulart's death. Later, ''CartaCapital'' published an interview with Goulart's widow, Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart, revealing documents from the Uruguayan government detailing her complaints that her family had been monitored. The Uruguayan government was monitoring Goulart's travel, his business, and his political activities. These files were from 1965, a year after the coup in Brazil, and suggest that he could have been deliberately attacked. The Movement for Justice and Human Rights and the President João Goulart Institute have requested a document referring to the Uruguayan Interior Ministry saying that "serious and responsible Brazilian sources" talked about an "alleged plot against the former Brazilian president."


Chile

When Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998 in response to Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón's request for his
extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...
to Spain, additional information concerning Condor was revealed. One of the lawyers seeking his extradition said there had been an attempt to assassinate
Carlos Altamirano Carlos Altamirano Orrego (December 18, 1922 – May 19, 2019) was a Chilean lawyer and socialist politician. Altamirano was the General Secretary of the Chilean Socialist Party (PS) between 1971 and 1979. Before that, he was deputy from 1 ...
, leader of the Chilean Socialist Party. He said that Pinochet met Italian neofascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie during Franco's funeral in Madrid in 1975 and arranged to have Altamirano murdered. The plan failed. Chilean judge Juan Guzmán Tapia eventually established a precedent concerning the crime of "permanent kidnapping": since the bodies of victims kidnapped and presumably murdered could not be found, he deemed that the kidnapping was thought to continue, rather than to have occurred so long ago that the perpetrators were protected by an amnesty decreed in 1978 or by the Chilean statute of limitations. In November 2015 the Chilean government acknowledged that
Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
might have been murdered by members of Pinochet's regime.


General Carlos Prats

General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert were killed by a car bomb on 30 September 1974, in Buenos Aires, where they lived in exile. The Chilean DINA has been held responsible. In Chile, Judge Alejandro Solís terminated the prosecution of Pinochet in January 2005 after the Chilean Supreme court rejected his demand to revoke Pinochet's immunity from prosecution (as chief of state). The leaders of DINA, including chief Manuel Contreras, ex-chief of operations and retired general Raúl Itturiaga Neuman, his brother Roger Itturiaga, and ex-brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and José Zara, were charged in Chile with this assassination. DINA agent
Enrique Arancibia Clavel Enrique Arancibia Clavel (13 October 1944 – 28 April 2011) was a Chilean DINA security service agent who assassinated General Carlos Prats and his wife in 1974. General Prats, who had been commander-in-chief of the armed forces during th ...
has been convicted in Argentina for the murder.


Bernardo Leighton

Bernardo Leighton Bernardo Leighton Guzmán (August 16, 1909, Negrete, Bío Bío Province – January 26, 1995, Santiago) was a Chilean Christian Democratic Party politician and lawyer. He served as minister of state under three presidents over a 36-year ca ...
and his wife were severely injured by a failed assassination attempt on 6 Oct. 1975, after settling in exile in Italy. The pistol attack left Bernardo Leighton seriously injured and his wife, Anita Fresno permanently disabled. According to declassified documents in the
National Security Archive The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The N ...
and Italian attorney general Giovanni Salvi, who led the prosecution of former DINA head Manuel Contreras, Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Michael Townley and
Virgilio Paz Romero Virgilio Pablo Paz Romero (born November 20, 1951) is a Cuban exile and militant who was involved in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. Paz Romero was one of two people accused of detonating a ...
in Madrid in 1975 to plan the murder of Bernardo Leighton with the help of Franco's secret police. In 1999, the secretary of the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
(NSC), Glyn T. Davies, declared that the declassified documents established the responsibility of Pinochet government in carrying out the assassination of Bernardo Leighton, as well as Orlando Letelier and General Carlos Prats. a failed assassination attempt on 6 October 1975.


Orlando Letelier

In December 2004, Francisco Letelier, the son of Orlando Letelier, wrote in an OpEd column in the ''Los Angeles Times'' that his father's assassination was part of Operation Condor, which he described as "an intelligence-sharing network used by six South American dictators of that era to eliminate dissidents." Michael Townley has accused Pinochet of being responsible for Letelier's death. Townley confessed that he had hired five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to booby-trap Letelier's car. According to
Jean-Guy Allard Jean-Guy Allard (1948 – August 16, 2016) was a Canadian journalist, who worked as an editor and reporter for ''Le Journal de Montréal'' and '' Le Journal de Québec'' from 1971 to 2000.Jean-Guy Allard and Eva Golinger (2009)La Agresión Perman ...
, after consultations with the terrorist organization
CORU The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations ( es, Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas, CORU) was a militant group responsible for a number of terrorist activities directed at the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. It ...
's leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll. According to the ''
Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.Cubana Flight 455 Cubana may refer to: * a woman born in Cuba * Cubana de Aviación, an airline of Cuba * Cubana, West Virginia Cubana is an unincorporated community in Randolph County, West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atl ...
bombing.


Caso Quemados

In July 1986, photographer Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri was burned alive and
Carmen Gloria Quintana Carmen Gloria Quintana Arancibia (born 3 October 1967) is a Chilean woman who suffered severe burns in an incident where she and other young people were detained by an army patrol during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of Augusto ...
suffered serious burns during a street protests against Pinochet. The two's case became known as ''Caso Quemados'' ("The Burned Case") and the case received attention in the United States because Rojas had fled to the US after the 1973 coup. A document by the United States State Department highlights that the Chilean army deliberately set both Rojas and Quintana on fire. Pinochet, on the other hand, accused both Rojas and Quintana of being terrorists who were set ablaze by their own Molotov cocktails. According to National Security Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh, Pinochet's reaction to the attack and death of Rojas "contributed to Reagan’s decision to withdraw support for the regime and press for a return to civilian rule."


Operación Silencio

Operación Silencio (''Operation Silence'') was a Chilean operation to impede investigations by Chilean judges by removing witnesses from the country. It started about a year before the "terror archives" were found in Paraguay. In April 1991, Arturo Sanhueza Ross, linked to the murder of MIR leader Jecar Neghme in 1989, left the country. According to the '' Rettig Report,'' Jecar Neghme's death had been carried out by Chilean intelligence agents. In September 1991, Carlos Herrera Jiménez, who killed trade-unionist Tucapel Jiménez, left by plane. In October 1991,
Eugenio Berríos Eugenio Berríos Sagredo (November 14, 1947 – November 15, 1992) was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA). Berríos was charged with carrying out '' Proyecto Andrea'' in which Pinochet ordered ...
, a chemist who had worked with DINA agent Michael Townley, was escorted from Chile to Uruguay by Operation Condor agents in order to avoid testifying in the Letelier case. He used Argentinian, Uruguayan, Paraguayan and Brazilian passports, raising concerns that Operation Condor was not dead. Berríos was found dead in El Pinar, near
Montevideo Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...
(Uruguay), in 1995. His body had been so mutilated as to make identification by appearance impossible. In January 2005, Michael Townley, who now lives in the U.S. under the witness protection program, acknowledged links between Chile, DINA, and the detention and torture center Colonia Dignidad.Redireccionando
Cooperativa.cl. Retrieved on 2014-05-24.
The center was established in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, who was arrested in March 2005 in Buenos Aires and convicted on charges of child rape. Townley informed Interpol about Colonia Dignidad and the Army's Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory. This last laboratory would have replaced the old DINA laboratory on Via Naranja de lo Curro street, where Townley worked with the chemical assassin Eugenio Berríos. The toxin that allegedly killed Christian-Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva may have been made in this new lab in Colonia Dignidad, according to the judge investigating the case. In 2013, a Brazilian-Uruguayan-Argentinian collaborative documentary, ''Dossiê Jango'', implicated the same lab in the alleged poisoning of
João Goulart João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...
, Brazil's deposed president.


U.S. Congressman Edward Koch

In February 2004, reporter
John Dinges John Dinges (December 8, 1941) is an American journalist. He was special correspondent for ''Time'', ''Washington Post'' and ABC Radio in Chile. With a group of Chilean journalists, he cofounded the Chilean magazine '' APSI''. He is the Godfrey L ...
published ''The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents''. He revealed that Uruguayan military officials threatened to assassinate U.S. Congressman Edward Koch (later Mayor of New York City) in mid-1976. In late July 1976, the CIA station chief in Montevideo had received information about it. Based on learning that the men were drinking at the time, he recommended that the CIA take no action. The Uruguayan officers included Colonel José Fons, who was at the November 1975 secret meeting in Santiago, Chile; and Major José Nino Gavazzo, who headed a team of intelligence officers working in Argentina in 1976 and was responsible for the death of more than 100 Uruguayans. Interviewed in the early 21st century by Dinges, Koch said that George H. W. Bush, then CIA director, informed him in October 1976 that "his sponsorship of legislation to cut off U.S. military assistance to Uruguay on human rights grounds had provoked secret police officials to 'put a contract out for you'."John Dinges, ''The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents'' In mid-October 1976, Koch wrote to the Justice Department asking for FBI protection, but none was provided. (This was more than two months after the meeting and after Orlando Letelier's murder in Washington.) In late 1976, Colonel Fons and Major Gavazzo were assigned to prominent diplomatic posts in Washington, D.C. The State Department forced the Uruguayan government to withdraw their appointments, with the public explanation that "Fons and Gavazzo could be the objects of unpleasant publicity." Koch learned about the connections between the threats and the post appointments only in 2001.


Paraguay

The United States backed Alfredo Stroessner's anti-communist military dictatorship and played a "critical supporting role" in the domestic affairs of Stroessner's Paraguay. For instance, U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thierry was sent to help local workmen build a detention and interrogation center named "La Technica" as part of Operation Condor. La Technica was also a well known torture centre. Stroessner's secret police, headed by Pastor Coronel, bathed their captives in tubs of human vomit and excrement and shocked them in the rectum with electric cattle prods. They dismembered the Communist party secretary, , alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone. Stroessner demanded the tapes of detainees screaming in pain to be played to their family members. In a report to Kissinger, Harry Shlaudeman described Paraguay's militaristic state as a "nineteenth-century military regime that looks good on the cartoon page." Shlaudeman's judgments adopted a tone of paternalism, but was correct in noting that Paraguay's "backwardness" was leading it toward the fate of its neighbors. Although the United States viewed conflict from a global and ideological perspective, many decolonized nations defined national security threats in terms of neighboring nations and longstanding ethnic or regional feuds. Shlaudeman notes the incredible resilience that Paraguay showed against the superior military might of its neighbors during the Chaco War. From the perspective of the government in Paraguay, the victory against its neighbors over the course of several decades justified the lack of development in the nation. The report further states that the political traditions in Paraguay were anything but democratic. This reality, combined with a fear of leftist dissent in neighboring nations, led the government to focus on the containment of political opposition instead of on the development of its economic and political institutions. An ideological fear of its neighbors compelled them to protect its sovereignty. Therefore, the fight against radical, leftist movements within and without the country motivated many policymakers to act in the interest of security. In 2020, French writer
Pablo Daniel Magee Pablo Daniel Magee (born April 22, 1985) is a French Swiss author, investigative journalist, screenwriter and playwright. Early life and education His father is the Swiss painter, sculptor and filmmaker Patrice Stellest. His mother is a poe ...
published the book ''Opération Condor'' prefaced by
Costa Gavras Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and s ...
. The book follows the life of Paraguayan victim of the Condor Operation Martín Almada.


Peruvian case

The Peruvian legislator
Javier Diez Canseco Javier Diez Canseco Cisneros (March 24, 1948 – May 4, 2013) was a Peruvian politician and member of the Peruvian Congress representing the Socialist Party of Peru (PS), of which he was a founding member and also served as its Party President ...
declared that he and twelve compatriots of his own (Justiniano Apaza Ordóñez, Hugo Blanco, Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, Valentín Pacho, Ricardo Letts, César Lévano, Ricardo Napurí, José Luis Alvarado Bravo, Alfonso Baella Tuesta, Guillermo Faura Gaig, José Arce Larco and Humberto Damonte), all opponents of the dictatorship of Francisco Morales Bermúdez, were expatriated and handed over in 1978, after being kidnapped in Peru, to the Argentine armed forces in the city of Jujuy. He also stated that there is declassified documentation of the CIA and cable information disseminated by
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
, which account for the links of the Morales Bermúdez government with Operation Condor.


Uruguay

As per usual with
Southern Cone The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
1970s dictatorships, Juan María Bordaberry proclaimed himself a dictator and banned the rest of political parties. The ''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...
'' government spanned from 1973 to 1985, in which period a considerable number of people were murdered, tortured, illegally detained and imprisoned, kidnapped and forced into disappearance, in the purported defence against
subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms ...
. Prior to the 1973 coup d'état, the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
had acted as a consultant to the
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...
agencies in the country. Dan Mitrione, the best-known example of such cooperation, had trained civilian police in counterinsurgency at the School of the Americas in
Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
, known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation after 2000.


Mexico

In the 1960s and 1970s, Mexico was persuaded to be part of both Operation Intercept and Operation Condor, developed between 1975 and 1978, with the pretext to fight against the cultivation of
opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which ...
and marijuana in the "
Golden Triangle Golden Triangle may refer to: Places Asia * Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia), named for its opium production * Golden Triangle (Yangtze), China, named for its rapid economic development * Golden Triangle (India), comprising the popular tourist ...
", particularly in
Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities and ...
. The operation, commanded by General José Hernández Toledo, was a flop with no major drug lord captures, however reported many abuses and repression in rural zones. Mexico had its own, denominated "Operacion Condor", which was interweaved with the Mexican Dirty War during the same era, in which the military was documented to "disappear", kill, rape and torture several rural people (including social activists and political opponents) they supposedly linked to the Illegal drug trade there, especially in the state of
Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities and ...
.


Other cases

Edgardo Enríquez, Chilean leader of the MIR, "disappeared" in Argentina, as did the MIR leader Jorge Fuentes. Alexei Jaccard and Ricardo Ramírez were "disappeared," and a support network to the Communist party was dismantled in Argentina in 1977. Cases of repression in the country against German, Spanish, Peruvian, and Jewish people were also reported. The assassinations of former Bolivian president Juan José Torres and former Uruguayan deputies Héctor Gutiérrez and Zelmar Michelini in Buenos Aires in 1976 were also part of Condor. The DINA contacted Croatian terrorists (i.e. Ustashe émigrés and descendants), Italian neofascists and the Shah's
SAVAK SAVAK ( fa, ساواک, abbreviation for ''Sâzemân-e Ettelâ'ât va Amniat-e Kešvar'', ) was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service in Iran during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty. SAVAK operated from 1957 until prim ...
to locate and assassinate dissidents in exile. According to reports in 2006, resulting from trials of top officials in Argentina, Operation Condor was at its peak in 1976 when Chilean exiles in Argentina were threatened; many went underground or into exile again in other countries. Chilean General Carlos Prats had been assassinated by DINA in Buenos Aires in 1974, with the help of former CIA agent Michael Townley. Cuban diplomats were assassinated in Buenos Aires in the ''Automotores Orletti'' torture center, one of the 300 clandestine prisons of the dictatorship. These centers were managed by the ''Grupo de Tareas 18'', headed by former police officer and intelligence agent
Aníbal Gordon Aníbal Gordon (died 13 September 1987) was an Argentine suspected of being a leader of the Triple A death squad, active in 1973–1976 against leftist Peronistas during the period of rule by the Peróns. He served as an agent of the SIDE intelli ...
, earlier convicted of armed robbery, who reported directly to General Commandant of the
SIDE Side or Sides may refer to: Geometry * Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape) * Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape) Places * Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece * Side (Caria), a town of a ...
, Otto Paladino."Automotores Orletti el taller asesino del Cóndor"
, ''
Juventud Rebelde The ''Juventud Rebelde'' ( en, Rebel Youth) is a Cuban newspaper of the Young Communist League. Overview On October 21, 1965 Fidel Castro described the newspaper as "a paper devoted mainly to youth, with things of interest to young people, but t ...
'', 3 January 2006 (mirrored on '' El Correo.eu.org'')
''Automotores Orletti'' was the main base of foreign intelligence services involved in Operation Condor. José Luis Bertazzo, a survivor of kidnapping and torture who was detained there for two months, identified Chilean, Uruguayan, Paraguayan and Bolivian nationals held as prisoners and who were interrogated by agents from their own countries. The 19-year-old daughter-in-law of poet Juan Gelman was tortured here along with her husband, before being transported to a Montevideo prison. There she delivered a baby which was immediately stolen by Uruguayan military officers and placed for illegal adoption with friends of the regime. Decades later, President Jorge Batlle ordered an investigation and finally,
Macarena Gelman María Macarena Gelman García (born 1 November 1976, in Montevideo) is an Uruguayan activist and politician. Biography Born in captivity to an Argentine mother, María Claudia García Irureta Goyena, her father was Marcelo Ariel Gelman Schuber ...
was found and recovered her identity. According to Dinges' book ''Los años del Cóndor'' (The Years of the Condor), Chilean MIR prisoners in the Orletti center told José Luis Bertazzo that they had seen two Cuban diplomats, 22-year-old Jesús Cejas Arias and 26-year-old Crescencio Galañega, tortured by Gordon's group. They were interrogated by a man who had travelled from Miami to interrogate them. The Cuban nationals had been responsible for protection of Cuban ambassador to Argentina, Emilio Aragonés. They were kidnapped on 9 August 1976, at the corner of calle Arribeños and Virrey del Pino, by 40 armed SIDE agents, who blocked the street with their
Ford Falcon Ford Falcon is an automobile nameplate applied to several vehicles worldwide. * Ford Falcon (North America), an automobile produced by Ford from 1960 to 1970. * Ford Falcon (Argentina), a car built by Ford Argentina from 1962 until 1991. * For ...
s. (These were the car models used by the security forces during the dictatorship.) According to Dinges, the FBI and the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
were informed of their arrest. He quotes a cable sent from Buenos Aires by FBI agent Robert Scherrer on 22 September 1976, in which he mentioned that Michael Townley, later convicted for the assassination of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., had taken part in the interrogations of the two Cubans. On 22 December 1999, the former head of the DINA confirmed to Argentine federal judge María Servini de Cubría in Santiago de Chile that Michael Townley and Cuban Guillermo Novo Sampoll were present in the Orletti center. They had travelled from Chile to Argentina on 11 August 1976 and "cooperated in the torture and assassination of the two Cuban diplomats." Luis Posada Carriles, an anti- Castro Cuban terrorist, boasted in his autobiography, ''Los Caminos Del Guerrero'' (The Roads of the Warrior), of the murder of the two young men.


Prominent victims

* Martín Almada, educator in Paraguay, arrested in 1974 and tortured for three years *
Víctor Olea Alegría Víctor Olea Alegría (born 17 June 1950) was a member (''militante'') of Chile's Partido Socialista. Olea lived in Santiago, Chile. He was detained by “ security agents” on 11 September 1974, and became one of the "detenidos desaparecidos". M ...
, member of the
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of ...
, arrested on 11 September 1974 and "disappeared" (Manuel Contreras, head of DINA, was convicted in 2002 for this crime) * William Beausire, businessman with dual British-Chilean nationality, abducted in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974, taken to the
Villa Grimaldi Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...
torture center in Chile and "disappeared". * Volodia Teitelboim, member of the Communist Party of Chile, targeted for murder in Mexico with Carlos Altamirano in Mexico in 1976 * Juan José Torres, former socialist president of Bolivia, was kidnapped and assassinated by right-wing death squads in June 1976. * "Disappearance" of two Cuban diplomats in Argentina, Crecencio Galañega Hernández and Jesús Cejas Arias, who transited through Orletti detention center in Buenos Aires (9 August 1976 – see '' Lista de centros clandestinos de detención (Argentina)''); both were questioned by the SIDE and the DINA, with the knowledge of the FBI and the CIA * Andrés Pascal Allende, nephew of Salvador Allende and secretary general of the MIR, escaped an assassination attempt in Costa Rica in March 1976 *
Carmelo Soria Carmelo Soria (Madrid, 5 November 1921 – Santiago de Chile, 16 July 1976) was a Spanish-Chilean United Nations diplomat. A member of the CEPAL (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) in the 1970s, he was assassi ...
, Spanish diplomat, civil servant of the
CEPAL The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as ECLAC, UNECLAC or in Spanish and Portuguese CEPAL, is a United Nations regional commission to encourage economic cooperation. ECLAC includes 46 member States (2 ...
(a UN organization), assassinated on 21 July 1976 * Jorge Zaffaroni and María Emilia Islas, possible members of the Tupamaros, "disappeared" in Buenos Aires on 29 September 1976, kidnapped by the Batallón de Inteligencia 601, who transferred them to the Uruguayan OCOAS (''Organismo Coordinador de Operaciones Anti-Subversivas'') * Dagmar Hagelin, 17-year-old Swedish national kidnapped in 1977 and shot in the back by
Alfredo Astiz Alfredo Ignacio Astiz (born 8 November 1951) is an Argentine former military commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla during the Proceso de Reorg ...
as she tried to escape; later "disappeared" * Poet Juan Gelman's son and daughter-in-law – imprisoned; their baby, born in prison, was taken by the Uruguayan military and illegally placed for adoption by a regime ally


U.S. involvement

The United States documentation shows that the United States provided key organizational, financial and technical assistance to the operation into the 1980s. In a United States Department of State briefing for Henry Kissinger, then the Secretary of State, dated 3 August 1976 written by Harry Shlaudeman and entitled the "Third World War and South America," the long-term dangers of a right-wing bloc and their initial policy recommendations were considered. The briefing was a summary of Southern Cone security forces. It stated that the operation was an effort of six countries in the southern cone of Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to win the "Third-World-War" by wiping out "subversion" through transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance and assassination. The report opens by considering the cohesiveness felt by the six nations of the Southern Cone. It was the assumption of the Shlaudeman's briefing that the countries in the Southern Cone perceived themselves as "the last bastion of Christian civilization" and thus they consider the efforts against communism as justified as the "Israeli actions against Palestinian terrorists". Shlaudeman warns Kissinger that in the long term the "Third World War" would put those six countries in an ambiguous position because they are trapped on either side by "international Marxism and its terrorist exponents," and on the other by "the hostility of uncomprehending industrial democracies misled by the Marxist propaganda." The report recommended that U.S. policy towards Operation Condor should emphasize the differences between the five countries at every opportunity, to depoliticize human rights, to oppose rhetorical exaggerations of the "Third-World-War" type, and bring the potential bloc-members back-into our cognitive universe through systematic exchanges. Based on 1976 CIA documents stated that from 1960 to the early 1970s, the plans were developed among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies to deal with political dissidents in South America. A declassified CIA document dated 23 June 1976, explains that "in early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia met in Buenos Aires to prepare coordinated actions against subversive targets." US officials were aware of what was going on. Additionally, as of a September 1976, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that US intelligence services were quite aware of the infrastructure and goals of Operation Condor. They realized that "Operation Condor" was the code name given for intelligence collection on "leftists", Communists, Peronists or Marxists in the Southern Cone Area. The intelligence services were aware that it was security cooperation among several South American countries' intelligence services (such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia) with Chile as the epicenter of the operation. The DIA noted that Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile were already fervently conducting operations, mainly in Argentina, against leftist targets. Members of SIDE were also operating with Uruguayan military Intelligence officers in an operation carried out against the Uruguayan terrorist organization, the OPR-33. The report also noted that a large volume of U.S. currency was seized during the combined operation. The third point of the report demonstrates the United States' understanding of Operation Condor's more nefarious operations. The report notes, "the formation of special teams from member countries who are to carry out operations to include assassinations against terrorist or supporters of terrorist organizations." The report also highlighted the fact that these special teams were intelligence service agents rather than military personnel, however these teams did operate in structures reminiscent of U.S. special forces teams. The State Department briefing for Kissinger mentioned awareness of Operation Condor's plans to conduct possible operations in France and Portugal - a matter that would be prove to be extremely controversial later in Condor's history. The US government sponsored and collaborated with DINA (Directorate of National Intelligence), as well as other intelligence organizations forming the nucleus of Condor. CIA documents show that the agency had close contact with members of the Chilean secret police, DINA, and its chief Manuel Contreras. Contreras was retained as a paid CIA contact until 1977, even as his involvement in the Letelier-Moffit assassination was being revealed. The Paraguayan Archives include official requests to track suspects to and from the U.S. Embassy, the CIA, and FBI. The CIA provided lists of suspects and other intelligence information to the military states. In 1975 the FBI searched in the US for individuals wanted by DINA. In a February 1976 telecom from the embassy in Buenos Aires to the State Department, intelligence noted the United States possessed awareness of the coming Argentinian coup. The ambassador wrote that the Chief of the North American desk of the Foreign Ministry revealed that he had been asked by the "Military Planning Group" to prepare a report and recommendations for how the "future military government can avoid or minimize the sort of problems the Chilean and Uruguayan governments are having with the US over human rights issue." The Chief also specifically stated that "they" (whether he is referring to the CIA or the future military government in Argentina, or both) will face resistance if they were to begin assassinating and executing individuals. This being true, the ambassador explains the military coup will "intend to carry forward an all-out war on the terrorists and that some executions would therefore probably be necessary." This signals that the US also was aware of the planning of human rights violations before they occurred and did not step in to prevent them, despite being entangled in the region's politics already. The last comment confirms this: "It is encouraging to note that the Argentine military are aware of the problem and are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine Relations." Regarding the ongoing human rights abuses by the Argentine junta, professor Ruth Blakeley writes that Kissinger "explicitly expressed his support for the repression of political opponents." On 5 October 1976
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
met with Argentina's Foreign Minister and said: Ultimately, the démarche was never delivered. Kornbluh and Dinges suggest that the decision not to send Kissinger's order was due to Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman's sending a cable to his deputy in D.C which states "you can simply instruct the Ambassadors to take no further action, noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme." McSherry adds, "According to .S. Ambassador to Paraguay RobertWhite, instructions from a secretary of state cannot be ignored unless there is a countermanding order received via a secret (CIA) backchannel." Patricia M. Derian, the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1977 to 1981, said of Kissinger's role in giving the green light to the junta's repression: "It sickened me that with an imperial wave of his hand, an American could sentence people to death." During the Carter administration, Kissinger congratulated the Argentine military for "wiping out terrorism", and visited the country as a guest of Jorge Videla during the 1978 World Cup. US diplomats feared that this would hinder the Carter Administration's efforts to end the killings by the Argentine junta.


Declassification and reflection

In June 1999, by order of President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
, the State Department released thousands of declassified documents revealing for the first time that the CIA and the State and Defense Departments were intimately aware of Condor. One DOD intelligence report dated 1 October 1976, noted that Latin American military officers bragged about it to their U.S. counterparts. The same report described Condor's "joint counterinsurgency operations" that aimed to "eliminate Marxist terrorist activities"; Argentina, it noted, created a special Condor team "structured much like a U.S. Special Forces Team." A summary of material declassified in 2004 states that Kornbluh and Dinges conclude that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart the Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Shlaudeman's deputy Hewson Ryan later acknowledged in an oral history interview that the State Department was "remiss" in its handling of the case. "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. ... Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know", he stated in reference to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing. "But we didn't." A CIA document described Condor as "a counter-terrorism organization" and noted that the Condor countries had a specialized telecommunications system called "CONDORTEL."CIA document dated 14 February 1978, at foia.state.gov A 1978 cable from the US ambassador to Paraguay, Robert White, to the Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance Cyrus Roberts Vance Sr. (March 27, 1917January 12, 2002) was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United States Deputy Secretary o ...
, was published on 6 March 2001 by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. The document was released in November 2000 by the
Clinton administration Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over ...
under the Chile Declassification Project. White reported a conversation with General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, who informed him that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor " eptin touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the
Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the ter ...
which cover dall of Latin America". Davalos reportedly said that the installation was "employed to co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". The US feared that the connection to Condor might be publicly revealed at a time when the assassination in the U.S.A. of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt was being investigated. White cabled Vance that "it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest." McSherry describes such cables as "another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor." In addition, an Argentine military source told a U.S. Embassy contact that the CIA was privy to Condor and had played a key role in setting up computerized links among the intelligence and operations units of the six Condor states.


Role of Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was well aware of the Condor plan and was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments, going so far as to be Jorge Videla's personal guest to the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, after his tenure as Secretary of State concluded. According to the French newspaper ''
L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...
'', the first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti- Castro groups, and the right-wing
death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are f ...
Triple A, set up in Argentina by Juan and
Isabel Perón Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
's "personal secretary"
José López Rega José López Rega (17 November 1916 – 9 June 1989) was an Argentine politician who served as Minister of Social Welfare from 1973 to 1975, first under Juan Perón and continuing under Isabel Perón, Juan Perón's third wife and presidential ...
, and Rodolfo Almirón (arrested in Spain in 2006). On 31 May 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested that a summons be served on
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
while he was staying at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. Le Loire wanted to question the statesman as a witness regarding alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor and for possible US knowledge concerning the "disappearances" of five French nationals in Chile during military rule. Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department."Henry Kissinger rattrapé au Ritz, à Paris, par les fantômes du plan Condor"
''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'', 29 May 2001
mirrored here
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 Charles Edmund Lazar Horman (May 15, 1942 – September 19, 1973) was an American journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was executed in Chile in the days following the 1973 Chilean coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, which overthr ...
. (His execution by the Chilean military after the coup was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, ''
Missing Missing or The Missing may refer to: Film * ''Missing'' (1918 film), an American silent drama directed by James Young * ''Missing'' (1982 film), an American historical drama directed by Costa-Gavras * ''Missing'' (2007 film) (''Vermist''), a Bel ...
''.) The judge's questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but were not answered."Kissinger may face extradition to Chile"
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', 12 June 2002
In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a
letter rogatory {{Short description, Formal request by a court to a foreign court for judicial assistance Letters rogatory or letters of request are a formal request from a court to a foreign court for some type of judicial assistance. The most common remedies sou ...
to the US 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. In 2002, the editors of ''The New York Times'' defended Henry Kissinger, arguing that he should be given a pass for his role in Condor and other dirty works because "the world was polarised, and fighting communism involved hard choices and messy compromises". On 16 February 2007, a request for the extradition of Kissinger was filed at the Supreme Court of Uruguay on behalf of Bernardo Arnone, a political activist who was kidnapped, tortured and disappeared by the dictatorial regime in 1976. It was discovered in 2010 that
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
canceled a warning against the international assassination of political opponents that was to be issued to some of the countries participating in Operation Condor.


"French connection"

French journalist Marie-Monique Robin found in the archives of the Quai d'Orsay, the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The enti ...
, the original document proving that a 1959 agreement between Paris and Buenos Aires set up a "permanent French military mission" of officers to Argentina who had fought in the
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
. It was located in the offices of the chief of staff of the Argentine Army. It continued until
François Mitterrand François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
was elected President of France in 1981.Argentine – "Escadrons de la mort : l'école française"
interview with Marie-Monique Robin published by RISAL, 22 October 2004 available in French & Spanish
"Los métodos de Argel se aplicaron aquí"
, '' Página/12'', 13 October 2004
She showed how
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
's government secretly collaborated with Videla's junta in Argentina and with Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile. In 1957, Argentine officers, among them Alcides Lopez Aufranc, went to Paris to attend two-year courses at the
École de Guerre École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savo ...
military school, two years before the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
, and before the rise of anti-government guerrilla movements in Argentina. "In practice", said Robin to '' Página/12'', "the arrival of the French in Argentina led to a massive extension of intelligence services and of the use of
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
as the primary weapon of anti- subversive war in the concept of modern warfare." The "annihilation decrees" signed by
Isabel Perón Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
were inspired by earlier French documents. During the Battle of Algiers, police forces were put under the authority of the French Army, and in particular of the paratroopers. They systematically used torture during interrogations and also began to "disappear" suspects, as part of a program of intimidation.
Reynaldo Bignone Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone (21 January 1928 – 7 March 2018) was an Argentine general who served as President of Argentina from 1 July 1982, to 10 December 1983. In 2010, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the kidnappi ...
, named President of the Argentinian junta in July 1982, said, "The March 1976 order of battle is a copy of the Algerian battle." On 10 September 2003, French Green Party deputies Noël Mamère, Martine Billard and Yves Cochet petitioned for a Parliamentary Commission to be established to examine the "role of France in the support of military regimes in Latin America from 1973 to 1984" before the Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Assembly, presided by Édouard Balladur. The only newspaper to report this was ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
''. Deputy Roland Blum, in charge of the commission, refused to allow Marie-Monique Robin to testify. The government's report in December 2003 was described by Robin as being in the utmost bad faith. It claimed that no agreement had ever been signed on this issue between France and Argentina. When French Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin traveled to Chile in February 2004, he claimed that there had been no cooperation between France and the military regimes. Reporter Marie-Monique Robin said to ''
L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...
'' newspaper: "The French have systematized a military technique in the urban environment which would be copied and passed to Latin American dictatorships." The methods employed during the 1957 Battle of Algiers were systematized and exported to the War School in Buenos Aires. Roger Trinquier's famous book on
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
had a very strong influence in South America. Robin said that she was shocked to learn that the French intelligence agency Direction de surveillance du territoire (DST) communicated to the DINA the names of refugees who returned to Chile (Operation Retorno), all of whom were killed. "Of course, this puts the French government in the dock, and Giscard d'Estaing, then President of the Republic. I was very shocked by the duplicity of the French diplomatic position which, at the same time received political refugees with open arms, and collaborated with the dictatorships." Marie-Monique Robin also showed ties between the French far right and Argentina since the 1930s, in particular through the Roman Catholic fundamentalist organization '' Cité catholique'' created by
Jean Ousset Jean Ousset (28 July 1914 – 20 April 1994) was a French ideologist of National Catholicism born in Porto, Portugal. He was an activist of the ''Action française'' monarchist movement in the 1930s, and personal secretary of its leader, Charles ...
, a former secretary of
Charles Maurras Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of ''Action Française'', a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parl ...
(founder of the royalist '' Action Française'' movement). ''La Cité'' published a review, ''Le Verbe'', which influenced military officers during the Algerian War, notably by justifying their use of torture. At the end of the 1950s, the ''Cité catholique'' established groups in Argentina and set up cells in the Army. It was greatly expanded during the government of General Juan Carlos Onganía, in particular in 1969. The key figure of the ''Cité catholique'' was priest Georges Grasset, who became Videla's personal confessor. He had been the spiritual guide of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a pro-French Algeria terrorist movement founded in Franquist Spain. Robin says that this Catholic fundamentalist current in the Argentine Army contributed to the importance and duration of Franco-Argentine cooperation. In Buenos Aires, Georges Grasset maintained links with Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre (; 29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991) was a French Catholic archbishop who greatly influenced modern traditional Catholicism. In 1970, he founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a community to tra ...
, founder of the
Society of St. Pius X The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) ( la, Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X; FSSPX) is an international fraternity of traditionalist Catholic priests founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a leading traditionalist voice at the Seco ...
in 1970. He was excommunicated in 1988. The Society of Pius-X has four monasteries in Argentina, the largest in La Reja. A French priest there said to Marie-Monique Robin: "to save the soul of a Communist priest, one must kill him." Luis Roldan, former Under Secretary of Religion under
Carlos Menem Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. He ...
(President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999), was presented to her by Dominique Lagneau, the priest in charge of the monastery, and described as "Mr. Cité catholique in Argentina". Bruno Genta and Juan Carlos Goyeneche represent this ideology. Argentine Admiral Luis María Mendía, who had theorized the practice of "death flights", testified in January 2007 before Argentine judges that a French intelligence "agent", Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the abduction of two French nuns, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, who were later murdered. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction. He has admitted being a former member of the OAS, and having escaped for Argentina after the March 1962 Évian Accords that ended the
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
(1954–62). Referring to Marie Monique Robin's film documentary titled ''The Death Squads – the French School'' (''Les escadrons de la mort – l'école française''), Luis María Mendía asked of the Argentine Court that former French president
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
, former French premier Pierre Messmer, former French ambassador to Buenos Aires François de la Gorce, and all officials in place in the French embassy in Buenos Aires between 1976 and 1983 be called before the court. Besides this "French connection," he has also accused former head of state
Isabel Perón Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
and former ministers
Carlos Ruckauf Carlos Federico Ruckauf (born July 10, 1944) is a Peronist politician in Argentina, member of the Justicialist Party. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from January 2002 to March 2003. He had earlier served as Vice-President of Argentina fr ...
and
Antonio Cafiero Antonio Francisco Cafiero (12 September 1922 – 13 October 2014) was an Argentine Justicialist Party politician. Cafiero held a number of important posts throughout his career, including, most notably, the governorship of Buenos Aires Province f ...
, who had signed the "anti-subversion decrees" before Videla's 1976 coup d'état. According to ESMA survivor Graciela Daleo, this tactic tries to claim that the crimes were legitimised by Isabel Perón's "anti-subversion decrees." She notes that torture is forbidden by the Argentine Constitution."Impartí órdenes que fueron cumplidas"
'' Página/12'', 2 February 2007
Alfredo Astiz Alfredo Ignacio Astiz (born 8 November 1951) is an Argentine former military commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla during the Proceso de Reorg ...
, a marine known as the "Blond Angel of Death" because of his torture, also referred to the "French connection" at his trial.


Europe

As showed in a declassified CIA document, in 1977 intelligence agencies from Britain, France and West Germany looked into using the tactics employed in Operation Condor against leftwing "subversives" in their own countries. The agencies sent representatives to the Condor organisation secretariat in Buenos Aires in September 1977 in order to discuss how to establish an "anti-subversion organization similar to Condor", where the agencies would pool their resources into a single organisation. The intention was for the agencies to act in a coordinated fashion against subversives within member countries in Europe.


Legal actions


Italy

In December 2000, the Italian Justice began the trial of eleven Brazilians, all military and police. They were accused of the disappearance of three Argentines of Italian descent. The Brazilians were active in Operation Condor. Due to the secrecy of justice, the results of the trials and the punishments of the criminals, if any, were not reported. In December
2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...
they were enacted by Italian authorities, preventive arrests of several people involved, including the deceased
João Figueiredo João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo (; 15 January 1918 – 24 December 1999) was a Brazilian military leader and politician who was the 30th president of Brazil from 1979 to 1985, the last of the military regime that ruled the country follo ...
(former president) and Octávio Aguiar de Medeiros (former head of the
SNI SNI may refer to: Science and technology * Substitution nucleophilic internal, a chemistry reaction mechanism * Swedish Standard Industrial Classification, a Swedish economic classification system * Server Name Indication, an extension to the ...
). In July 2019, in a landmark ruling, the Italian courts sentenced former Peruvian dictator Morales Bermudez to life imprisonment, together with former Prime Minister Pedro Richter Prada and General Germán Ruíz Figueroa, for the disappearance of Italian citizens.


Argentina

In Argentina, the
CONADEP National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Spanish: ', CONADEP) was an Argentine organization created by President Raúl Alfonsín on 15 December 1983, shortly after his inauguration, to investigate the fate of the ''desaparecidos'' (v ...
human rights commission of 1983, led by writer Ernesto Sabato and
René Favaloro René Gerónimo Favaloro (July 12, 1923 – July 29, 2000) was an Argentine cardiac surgeon and educator best known for his pioneering work on coronary artery bypass surgery using the great saphenous vein. Early life Favaloro was born in 19 ...
among other respected personalities, investigated human rights abuses during the dictatorship. The 1985
Trial of the Juntas The Trial of the Juntas ( es, Juicio a las Juntas) was the judicial trial of the members of the ''de facto'' military government that ruled Argentina during the dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (''el proceso''), which last ...
convicted top officers who ran the military governments for acts of state terrorism. The amnesty laws (
Ley de Obediencia Debida The Law of Due Obedience ( es, Ley de obediencia debida) was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (which started with a coup d'état in 1976 and ...
and Ley de Punto Final) of 1985–1986 stopped the trials until 2003, when the Congress repealed them, and in 2005 the Argentine Supreme Court ruled they were unconstitutional. Chilean
Enrique Arancibia Clavel Enrique Arancibia Clavel (13 October 1944 – 28 April 2011) was a Chilean DINA security service agent who assassinated General Carlos Prats and his wife in 1974. General Prats, who had been commander-in-chief of the armed forces during th ...
was convicted and sentenced in Argentina for the assassination of Carlos Prats and of his wife; in a 2011 court verdict, life terms were handed down to
Alfredo Astiz Alfredo Ignacio Astiz (born 8 November 1951) is an Argentine former military commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla during the Proceso de Reorg ...
,
Jorge Acosta Jorge Acosta (born May 29, 1964) is a Colombian-born American retired soccer forward. He spent most of his career in the lower U.S. divisions, as well as four in the Colombian first division. He also earned twelve caps with the U.S. national ...
, Antonio Pernias and Ricardo Cavallo. In 2016
Reynaldo Bignone Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone (21 January 1928 – 7 March 2018) was an Argentine general who served as President of Argentina from 1 July 1982, to 10 December 1983. In 2010, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the kidnappi ...
, Santiago Riveros, Manuel Cordero and 14 others were convicted. Most of the Junta's members are in prison for
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. Former military officers from Argentina and Uruguay went on trial in 2013 in Buenos Aires for their human rights abuses in Operation Condor. The cross-border conspiracy of dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s to "eradicate 'subversion,' a word which increasingly translated into non-violent dissent from the left and center left." These prosecutions were enabled by massive releases of formerly classified documents to the national Security Archive which were then used as evidence against the accused. "The documents are very useful in establishing a comprehensive analytical framework of what Operation Condor was," said Pablo Enrique Ouvina, the lead prosecutor in the case. Of the 171 Condor victims cited in the indictments, approximately forty-two survived and one hundred twenty others were killed and/or disappeared. "Condor was a latter day rendition, torture and assassination program," noted Carlos Osorio, who directs the Archive's Southern Cone Documentation project. "Holding these officials accountable for the multinational crimes of Condor," he said, "cannot help but set a precedent for more recent abuses of a similar nature." A Prominent victim of Operation Condor included former Bolivian president, Juan Torres, who was murdered in Buenos Aires.


Chile

Chilean judge Juan Guzmán, who had arraigned Pinochet at his return to Chile after his arrest in London, started prosecution of some 30 torturers, including former head of the DINA Manuel Contreras, for the disappearance of 20 Chilean victims of the Condor plan. On 3 August 2007, General
Raúl Iturriaga Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann (born 23 January 1938) is a Chilean Army general and a former deputy director of the DINA, the Chilean secret police under the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship. He was in charge of a secret detention cente ...
, former head of DINA, was captured in the Chilean city of
Viña del Mar Viña del Mar (; meaning "Vineyard of the Sea") is a List of cities in Chile, city and Communes of Chile, commune on Zona Central, Chile, central Chile's Pacific coast. Often referred to as ("The Garden City"), Viña del Mar is located within ...
on the Pacific coast.Claudia Lagos and Patrick J. McDonnel
Pinochet-era general is caught
''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'', 3 August 2007
He had previously been a fugitive from a five-year jail term, after being sentenced for the kidnapping of Luis Dagoberto San Martin, a 21-year-old opponent of Pinochet. Martín had been captured in 1974 and taken to a DINA detention center, from which he "disappeared". Iturriaga was also wanted in Argentina for the assassination of General Prats. According to French newspaper ''
L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...
,''
in most of those countries legal action against the authors of crimes of "lese-humanity" from the 1970s to 1990 owes more to flaws in the amnesty laws than to a real will of the governments in power, which, on the contrary, wave the flag of "national reconciliation". It is sad to say that two of the pillars of the Condor Operation,
Alfredo Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan army officer and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 to 3 February 1989. Stroessner led a coup d'état on 4 May 1954 with t ...
and Augusto Pinochet, never paid for their crimes and died without ever answering charges about the "disappeared" – who continue to haunt the memory of people who had been crushed by fascist brutality.
Prominent victims of Operation Condor in Chile included former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year old American Colleague Ronni Moffitt who were assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C.


Uruguay

Former Uruguayan president Juan María Bordaberry, his minister of Foreign Affairs and six military officers, responsible for the disappearance in Argentina in 1976 of opponents to the Uruguayan regime, were arrested in 2006 and placed under house arrest in 2007. In 2010, Bordaberry was convicted of violating the constitution, nine counts of "forced disappearance" and two counts of political homicide and sentenced to 30 years. Prominent Uruguayan victims of Operation Condor included two former legislators.


See also

* Dirty War (Argentina) *
Dirty War (Mexico) The Mexican Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) was the Mexican theater of the Cold War, an internal conflict from the 1960s to the 1980s between the Mexican PRI-ruled government under the presidencies of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverría and ...
*
Operation Charly Operation Charly ( es, Operación Charly, links=no), was allegedly the code-name given to a program during the 1970s and 1980s undertaken by the junta in Argentina with the objective of providing military and counterinsurgency assistance to righ ...
* Central American crisis *
Anti-communist mass killings Anti-communist mass killings are the politically motivated mass killings of communists, alleged communists, or their alleged supporters which were committed by anti-communists and political organizations or governments which opposed communism. Th ...
* United States and state terrorism * U.S. role in Guatemalan Civil War * U.S. support of Contras * U.S. role in Indonesian Communist Purge * U.S. role in Invasion of East Timor * 1981 Spanish Coup d'État Plots * 1982 Spanish Coup d'État Plots * The War on Democracy (documentary) * Domino theory * Monroe Doctrine *
Safari Club The Safari Club was a covert alliance of intelligence services formed in 1976 that ran clandestine operations around Africa at a time when the United States Congress had limited the power of the CIA after years of abuses and when Portugal was with ...
* Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (aka ''Triple A'') * SISMI (Italian secret services) *
National Security Archives The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The Nat ...
, a United States NGO which publicizes CIA documents obtained under
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...
* '' Forgotten'' * Santiago Riveros * Antonio Pernías


Detention and torture centers

* Esmeralda (BE-43) * Estadio Nacional de Chile *
Villa Baviera Colonia Dignidad ("Dignity Colony") was an isolated colony of Germans established in post- World War II Chile by emigrant Germans which became notorious for the internment, torture, and murder of dissidents during the military dictatorship of ...


Other operations and strategies related to Condor

* Operation Colombo, for which Augusto Pinochet was being tried at the time of his death *
Caravan of Death The Caravan of Death ( es, Caravana de la Muerte) was a Chilean Army death squad that, following the Chilean coup of 1973, flew by helicopters from south to north of Chile between September 30 and October 22, 1973. During this foray, members of t ...
, carried on a few weeks after the 1973 coup in Chile


Fictional references

*
Don Winslow Don Winslow (born October 31, 1953) is an American retired author best known for his award-winning and internationally bestselling crime novels, including '' Savages'', ''The Force'' and the Cartel Trilogy. Early life Winslow was born on Oct ...
's 2005 books '' The Power of the Dog'' is based on the actions and some of the consequences of Operation Condor. * Nathan Englander's novel, ''The Ministry of Special Cases'' (2007), is set in Buenos Aires in the early 1970s. Its main characters are Kaddish and Lillian, a Jewish couple whose son Pato is "disappeared" shortly after the Videla junta takes power.
''Memorias de un desaparecido / Memoirs of a Disappeared''
(1996) *In
DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
, the father of the superheroine
Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...
was a key figure in Operation Condor. *The criminal series Numb3rs episode Assassin, operation Condor becomes a main point of focus.


Notes


References and further reading

* * Blakeley, Ruth (2009).
State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South
''
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
. * Stella Calloni, ''Los años del lobo'' (The Years of the Wolf) and ''Operación Cóndor: Pacto Criminal'' (Operation Condor: Criminal Pact), La Habana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2006. * Luiz Cláudio Cunha. ''Operação Condor. O sequestro dos uruuguaios. Uma reportagem dos tempos da ditadura''. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 2008. *
John Dinges John Dinges (December 8, 1941) is an American journalist. He was special correspondent for ''Time'', ''Washington Post'' and ABC Radio in Chile. With a group of Chilean journalists, he cofounded the Chilean magazine '' APSI''. He is the Godfrey L ...
, ''The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents'' (
The New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André SchiffrinPeter Kornbluh, '' The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability'' (The New Press, 2013) * Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodríguez (eds).
When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror
''. (
University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Te ...
, 2005) * Marie-Monique Robin, ''Escadrons de la mort, l'école française'' ("Death Squads, the French School"). Book and documentary film (French, transl. in Spanish, Sudamericana, 2002). * J. Patrice McSherry,
Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America
'' ( Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) * *Nilson, Cezar Mariano; ''Operación Cóndor. Terrorismo de Estado en el cono Sur (Operation Condor in the Southern Cone)''. Buenos Aires: Lholé-Lumen, 1998. *Paredes, Alejandro
''La Operación Cóndor y la guerra fría'' (Operation Condor and the Cold War)
''Universum'' nline 2004, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 122–137. . *Gutiérrez Contreras, J.C. y Villegas Díaz, Myrna
"Derechos Humanos y Desaparecidos en Dictaduras Militares" (Human Rights and the Disappeared of the Military Dictatorships)
''KO'AGA ROÑE'ETA'', se.vii (1999) – Previamente publicado en ''Derecho penal: Implicaciones Internacionales'', Publicación del IX Congreso Universitario de Derecho Penal, Universidad de Salamanca. Edit. Colex, Madrid, Marzo de 1999 *''Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre prisión política y tortura (Report of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture)''. Santiago de Chile, Ministerio del Interior – Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura, 2005.


External links


Operation Condor
on Nizkor's website (in Spanish)
Memoriaviva
a complete list of victims, torture centers and criminals (in Spanish)
FBI file
at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

The Condor Years – How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

Ed Koch Threatened with Assassination in 1976

How Paraguay's 'Archive of Terror' put Operation Condor in focus
'' BBC'', 22 December 2012.
Operation Condor Trial Tackles Coordinated Campaign by Latin American Dictatorships to Kill Leftists
March 2013 video report by '' Democracy Now!''
Argentina begins prosecution of military-era human rights abuses
''
Christian Science Monitor Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
.'' 5 March 2013.
Fight of the Condor: uncovering South America's shame – in pictures
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
''. 7 July 2016.
The United States Declassification Project on Argentina

The CIA's Secret Global War Against the Left
''
Jacobin , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = P ...
''. 30 November 2020.
Operation Condor: All Major Missions and Events [1968–1989]
{{authority control Anti-communism Anti-communist terrorism Anti-intellectualism Anti-Marxism Antisemitism in South America History of United States expansionism Austrian School Augusto Pinochet Authoritarianism Book burnings Clandestine operations Cold War Cold War conflicts Cold War in Latin America Dictatorship Extrajudicial killings Enforced disappearances Fascism Fascism in South America Far-right politics in South America Genocides in South America Henry Kissinger History of South America Condor, Operation Human rights abuses Human rights abuses in the United States Internment camps Margaret Thatcher Milton Friedman Militarism NATO Neoconservatism Neoliberalism Neo-fascism Political and cultural purges Politicides Proxy wars Reactionary Racism in South America Ronald Reagan Sexism in South America Slavery in South America State-sponsored terrorism Totalitarianism White Terror Federal Bureau of Investigation operations Central Intelligence Agency operations 1960s in South America 1970s in South America 1980s in South America