photo: wikipedia
New information is coming to light on a tragic episode in South American history. A new book is being published about information on "Operation Condor", the rendition, torture and systematic killing of political dissidents in Argentina during the period of the military junta.
Tens of thousands of political dissidents were hunted down, kidnapped and rendered to secret prisons in Argentina during the 1970s. The operation, which caused the death of thousands of people from different countries, was known to the United States.
The new information does not shed new light in the U.S. tacit acquiescence of the rendition program, indeed such involvement was known and highlighted in books and movies. What was lacking so far, was hard evidence highlighting the U.S.'s failure to stop the operation. That is because all the countries involved took great precautions to hide and destroy any paper trails that their operation might have created.
The Argentine junta hunted down the dissidents in places as far away as Europe and the United States.
The operation was led by Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, who tried to destroy the socialists movements that were taking hold throughout south America that were inimical to him and all the other military governments in Latin America.
After decades of stalling and silence, a human rights trial has begun in Argentina to try and bring to justice those responsible for the atrocities and to shed light in what and how many crimes were committed during the course of Operation Condor.
However, a commission to establish the extent of the United States' knowledge or involvement of the operation has not been requested.
New declassified documents department have been released after their withholding term expired and are now available to the public.
In these documents, the C.I.A. and the US State appear to have knowledge of the operation since the beginning stages. One of the documents read that the US knew that Intelligence officials from several South American states were constructing a data bank that would be computerized and that would be called Operation Condor.
In other documents, the then Secretary of State H. Kissinger was reported to have told his ambassadors in the countries that were participating in the operation not to discuss or question the occurrence of torture and assassinations during that period.
In fact the operation concealed its work by releasing statements such as one received by the CIA that read "the Operation planned to engage in executive action outside the territory of the member countries against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing abroad." Which was its attempt at legalizing the suppression of dissident voices and activity in Latin America.
At least 80,000 were believed to have been killed during Operation Condor.
Source : Al Jazeera 3.7.13
No comments:
Post a Comment