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Operation Condor Was No Mystery to Washington
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[A few recent articles from an excellent IPS series on the infamous
Operation Condor, some of whose criminals are finally seeing justice.
The whole series is available here: "Dictatorships Meet Justice,
Decades on" at
http://ipsnews.net/new_focus/dictatorships_latam/index.asp
IPS - Jan 12, 2008
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40770
RIGHTS-LATIN AMERICA:
~Operation Condor Was No Mystery to Washington
By ngel P!ez
LIMA, Jan 12 (IPS) - The intelligence services of Peru and Argentina
kept Washington informed in real time about a 1980 joint clandestine
operation in which four alleged members of Argentinas Montoneros
guerrilla movement were "disappeared," according to documents
declassified in the United States.
The incident forms part of the case opened in December by Italian Judge
Luisianna Figliola, who issued arrest warrants for those responsible
for this and other actions carried out in the framework of Operation
Condor, a coordinated plan among the military governments that ruled
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s
and 1980s, aimed at tracking down, capturing, torturing and eliminating
left-wing opponents.
Townsend B. Friedman, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos
Aires, revealed in a secret Aug. 19, 1980 memo to Claus Ruser, the
ambassadors number two man, details about the operation involving the
supposed Montoneros in Lima, and the fatal outcome.
In that memo, which has now been declassified thanks to the efforts of
the National Security Archive, an independent Washington-based
non-governmental research institute, Friedman told his superior that an
Argentine intelligence official had provided them with details of the
Lima operation on Jun. 16, 1980.
The date is key: the joint action by the Batalln 601, a special
Argentine army intelligence unit, and Perus Army Intelligence Service
(SIE) was recorded four days earlier, and the purported Montoneros were
turned over by Peruvian agents on Jun. 17 to Bolivian military
personnel, in the presence of agents from Argentina.
The documents show that the U.S. government was fully aware of what was
happening, at the time it was occurring, and that it knew ahead of time
that the alleged Montoneros would be killed.
"A member of an Argentine intelligence service who has been quite
reliable in these matters told the (U.S.) Embassy that the four
individuals were apprehended in Peru, that they were still being held
there but that they would be expelled to Bolivia from where they would
be handed over to Argentina; once in Argentina they would be
interrogated and then disappeared," Friedman reported to Ruser.
The capture in Lima and forced disappearance of Noem Gianetti de
Molfino, a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Argentine human
rights group, Mara In(c)s Raverta and Julio C(c)sar Ramrez was planned by
Batalln 601 after the seizure in Argentina of Federico Fras, who was
going to take part in Lima in a meeting with high-level members of the
Montoneros, the armed branch of the leftist wing of Argentinas
Peronist party.
After he was brutally tortured, Fras was taken by his captors to Peru,
where he had agreed to tell them the names and addresses of supposed
guerrillas, according to the testimony of a former Peruvian agent who
took part in the operation, which appears in the book "Muerte en el
Pentagonito" (Death in the Little Pentagon: The Secret Killing Fields
of the Peruvian Army) by journalist Ricardo Uceda.
According to the declassified Aug. 19, 1980 memo, the U.S. ambassador
to Argentina at the time, Harry W. Shlaudeman, spoke of the case of the
supposed "Montoneros" with General Pedro Richter, at the time prime
minister, minister of war and commander of the Peruvian army.
"Peruvian Prime Minister Richter Prada told Ambassador Shlaudeman in
July (1980, a month after the kidnappings) that the Argentines had been
expelled to Bolivia and that he believed the Bolivians had probably
handed them over to the Argentines," Friedman told Ruser.
"In addition, (Richter) revealed to Ambassador Shlaudeman that he had
been in personal touch with Argentine Army Commander (Leopoldo
Fortunato) Galtieri on the matter.
"Galtieri had informed Richter that there could be ~an interesting
development in the case early the week of July 14. Richter suggested
to Ambassador Shlaudeman that Galtieris comment might foreshadow a
live appearance of the three Montoneros who the Peruvians claimed they
handed over to the Bolivians," the memo adds.
The "interesting development" came to light on Jul. 21, 1980, when the
murdered body of Gianetti de Molfino, one of the women kidnapped in
Lima, was found in a hotel in Madrid. Nothing was ever heard of again
about Raverta, Ramrez or Fras. The general, who is now dead, became
the head of Argentinas military junta in November of the following
year.
Shlaudeman had close ties with the Peruvian dictatorship of General
Francisco Morales Bermdez (1975-1980), as confirmed by the
declassified documents. When the alleged Montoneros were abducted in
Lima, he was already in Buenos Aires.
The path followed by Shlaudemans career is particularly interesting.
He was U.S. State Department Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile from 1969
to 1973, during which time the coup detat that overthrew socialist
president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), ushering in a 17-year
dictatorship, was being planned.
He then served as State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Inter-American Affairs, from 1973 to 1975, under President Richard
Nixon; in 1977 he was appointed ambassador to Peru; and in 1980 he
became ambassador to Argentina, a post he held until 1983, when
democracy was restored in that country.
In 1992, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George
Bush, the current U.S. presidents father.
The June 1980 operation in Lima was neither the first nor the only one
carried out as the result of coordination between the de facto military
regimes of Peru and Argentina -- something that Shlaudeman was clearly
aware of.
According to another declassified secret document, dated Jul. 11, 1977,
Shlaudeman reported the Apr. 12, 1977 kidnapping of Argentine citizen
Carlos Alberto Maguid, who had been granted political asylum in Peru,
to then U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
Shlaudeman told Vance that a United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) official, Lone Hogel, had informed him that Maguid had
been seized by members of the Peruvian military in coordination with
agents from Argentina.
The Peruvian government, "in the persons of the minister of the
Interior (General Luis Cisneros Vizquerra) and the son of president
Morales Bermdez, has denied that any agency of the (government) was
responsible for his disappearance," Shlaudeman wrote, before stating
that Hogel had accurate information on the case.
"Hogel said that it was her personal opinion, based on anonymous but
apparently well-documented letters, that Maguid was arrested by the
Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN)," perhaps at the urging of the
Argentine government, and that he was being held somewhere in Peru,
Shlaudeman wrote to Vance.
The cases of Maguid, as well as those of Gianetti de Molfino, Raverta,
Ramrez and Fras, were not isolated ones, but formed part of a
coordinated strategy by the military intelligence services of the South
American dictatorships. This is made clear by a joint Jun. 25, 1980
report by the U.S. embassies in Argentina and Peru, drafted a week
after the kidnapping of Gianetti de Molfino and the others in Lima.
"This incident is not unique. In recent years there have been several
similar cases that attest to a high degree of cooperation among the
intelligence and security agencies of the southern South American
countries and to their tendency to resort to illegal means in treating
suspected subversives," says the document.
Nevertheless, U.S. authorities continue to deny that they were aware of
the coordinated criminal activities committed under Operation Condor.
In 2005, J. Patrice McSherry, a political science professor at Long
Island University in New York, published a revealing document in her
book "Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin
America".
The document was a declassified memo by James Blystone, a former
regional security officer (RSO) in the U.S. embassy in Argentina, in
which he reported to his superiors that an Argentine intelligence
source had informed him of the kidnapping of four "Montoneros" in Lima,
and had told him that they would be "disappeared."
"Clearly, the RSO (Blystone) had been briefed on a top-secret Condor
operation involving the intelligence services of three separate
countries (Argentina, Bolivia and Peru); he was accepted as a trusted
member of Condor's inner circle," wrote McSherry.
Blystone wasted no time responding. In January 2006, he published his
version of the events in the "Foreign Service Journal", in an article
titled "The Domino Effect of Improper Declassification".
"During the time that I was in Argentina (1978-1980)]I stumbled onto
the fact that the Argentine security services were carrying out some
operations in neighbouring countries. But I do not recall ever hearing
the term ~Operation Condor used, either there (Buenos Aires) or in
Santiago, by any of my contacts or embassy colleagues," the former
foreign service officer wrote.
But Blystone could have asked Shlaudeman, who was perfectly well
informed of Operation Condor, as shown, for example, by an Aug. 30,
1976 report he sent from Chile to then secretary of state Henry
Kissinger on the characteristics and scope of the coordination between
intelligence and security agencies in the Southern Cone region.
There is also the Oct. 8, 1976 declassified briefing from Shlaudeman to
Kissinger in which he reports on a meeting with Colonel Manuel
Contreras, the powerful chief of the now dissolved National Directorate
of Intelligence (DINA) -- the Chilean dictatorships secret police --
and the true head of Operation Condor.
"As expected, Contreras denied that Operation Condor has any other
purpose than the exchange of intelligence," says the cable.
But the U.S. government knew that Contreras was lying. "Operation
Condor" had already taken off on its death flight. (END/2008)
***
IPS - Jan 8, 2008
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40714
PERU: Operation Condor Tentacles Stretched Even Farther
By ngel P!ez
LIMA, Jan 8 (IPS) - Legal investigations in Italy and declassified U.S.
government documents prove that Peru was also involved in Operation
Condor, created by the military regimes ruling South America in the
1970s and 1980s to cooperate in the elimination of dissidents.
Declassified U.S. State Department documents confirm that former
Peruvian dictator Francisco Morales Bermdez (1975-1980) approved the
capture in Lima of four alleged members of the Montoneros, the armed
wing of the Peronist movement in Argentina, in an operation carried out
jointly by members of the Batalln 601, a special Argentine army
intelligence unit, and Perus Army Intelligence Service (SIE).
In late December, Italian Judge Luisianna Figliolia in Rome issued
arrest warrants for 140 people from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, to try them in connection with the forced
disappearance of 25 Italian citizens, carried out within the framework
of Operation Condor. One of those under investigation is Morales
Bermdez.
Two of the four Montoneros seized in Lima held Italian citizenship.
"I assume my political responsibility" for that detention, Morales
Bermdez said when he heard the news. But he denied that Peru formed
part of Operation Condor, a covert strategy that entailed information
sharing and joint operations between the intelligence services of
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to kidnap,
murder and ''disappear'' leftists and other alleged "subversives."
The sentences of up to 25 years handed down on Dec. 18 by a court in
Argentina against eight senior Batalln 601 officers were partly based
on secret U.S. State Department files that were declassified by the
Washington-based non-governmental National Security Archive.
The documents show that Peru effectively took part in Operation Condor.
Batalln 601 agents travelled to Lima in June 1980, one month before
Morales Bermdez handed over power to elected president Fernando
Belande.
In coordination with Peruvian agents, the members of the Argentine
intelligence unit were tracking down a group of alleged Montoneros
guerrillas who were reportedly planning an important meeting in Lima.
Award-winning U.S. investigative journalist John Dinges, author of the
2004 book "The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought
Terrorism to Three Continents", brought to light another document
providing information on Perus participation.
The memorandum, dated Apr. 14, 1978 and signed by the head of Chiles
National Intelligence Centre (CNI), Colonel Jernimo Pantoja, shows
coordination with Perus military intelligence service as part of
Operation Condor.
"The Peruvians definitely formed part of Operation Condor. The military
deny it, but according to the evidence I found, they did participate,"
Dinges told this IPS correspondent earlier.
According to Morales Bermdez and his former prime minister Pedro
Richter, who is also wanted by Judge Figliolia, Peru could not have
formed part of that plan because during that period there was great
tension with the government of Chile, the country that headed Operation
Condor.
But "that is not a valid argument because there were also problems
between Argentina and Chile, and between Bolivia and Paraguay, and they
conducted joint operations nonetheless," said Dinges.
In the journalists view, "Perus participation makes sense because
Morales Bermdez, after abandoning the reformist policies of
left-leaning General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), wanted a more
traditional military government, which meant the reestablishment of
ties with other military regimes, like those of Chile and Argentina.
And that is what happened."
The Batalln 601 operation in Lima was carried out Jun. 9-15, 1980. It
was made possible by the capture in Argentina of Federico Fras, who,
after suffering extensive torture, agreed to cooperate with Argentine
intelligence agents.
They transferred him to Lima after he revealed that a meeting of
high-ranking Montoneros, headed by guerrilla leader Roberto Perda,
would be held in that city.
As a result of the operation, Noem Gianetti de Molfino, a member of
the Argentine human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mara
In(c)s Raverta and Julio C(c)sar Ramrez were seized in Lima.
Noem Gianettis daughter Marcela Molfino and her son-in-law Guillermo
Amarilla had been forcibly disappeared in 1979.
Gianetti de Molfino, Raverta, Ramrez and Fras were then handed over
to the Bolivian military and were never again seen alive. Gianetti de
Molfinos body was found shortly afterwards in a hotel in Madrid, on
Jul. 21, 1980.
One of the declassified documents, dated Jun. 19, 1980, shows that the
Argentine-Peruvian-Bolivian operation was clearly in line with the
Operation Condor strategy.
The document was a cable sent by James Blystone, the regional security
officer (RSO) in the U.S. embassy in Argentina, to Ambassador Ral
Castro.
The memo stated that the RSO met on Jun. 16, 1980 with a member of the
Argentine intelligence services, and that during that conversation the
source said Batalln 601, with the cooperation of Peruvian military
intelligence, had seized four important members of the Montoneros
leadership in Lima.
The cable went on to say that the four Argentine citizens arrested in
Peru were to be deported to Bolivia and from there to Argentina, where
they would be interrogated and "disappeared." The source said Batalln
601 had a good record tracking down terrorists who had escaped from
their country and were preparing to return.
The operation hurt relations between the Peruvian and Argentine
dictatorships, because Noem Gianettis son Gustavo Molfino, who was
accompanying his mother, managed to escape and go public with the case.
The scandal also affected Morales Bermdez and Argentine dictator Jorge
Rafael Videla, who sought scapegoats among the Batalln 601 officers.
The internal quarrels within Battaln 601 are described in another
memo. On Aug. 21, 1980, Townsend B. Friedman, political officer at the
U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, reported to the State Department on a
secret meeting he held with a senior Argentine intelligence official.
His contact informed him of the problem triggered by the case of the
four political prisoners captured in Lima. Friedman wrote that Colonel
Luis Arias and Colonel Julio C(c)sar Bellene appeared to be trying to
blame Colonel Waldo Carmen Rold!n for the kidnappings of the Montoneros
in Peru, as a power play against Rold!n.
Arias and Rold!n were sentenced in December to 25 and 23 years in
prison, respectively, for taking part in kidnappings and murders in
1980. Colonel Bellene died on Nov. 23, a few weeks before the sentences
were handed down.
Now it is the turn of Batalln 601s partners in Peru to be held
accountable for what happened 28 years ago.
But Peruvian President Alan Garca could become an obstacle. When he
was informed of the arrest warrants issued by the Italian judge, he
announced that he backed former dictator Morales Bermdez and that he
would oppose any eventual extradition request. (END/2008)
***
IPS - Dec 5, 2007
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40354
PERU: US Gov't Document Links Garca to 1980s Death Squads
By Lucy Komisar*
NEW YORK, Dec 5 (IPS) - There is irony in the recent announcement by
Peru's President Alan Garca that he would publish the names of 1,800
"freed terrorists", so that people might recognise and report them if
they were participating in anti-state conspiracies. His list includes
people imprisoned on false charges or never convicted or sentenced.
One name that is not on the list is that of Alan Garca. However,
according to a declassified U.S. government document, Garca, during
his first administration from 1985-1990, gave instructions to terror
squads organised by his political party to assassinate suspected
leftists. Victims included trade unionists and other civil society
leaders.
The one-page document, written in late 1987, said that the party, APRA,
and top government officials were running a secret paramilitary
organisation. It said they were responsible for the attempted bombing
of the El Diario newspaper, linked to the violent Maoist guerrilla
group Sendero Luminoso, sent people to train in North Korea and may
have been involved in executions. It made it clear that it believed
that Garca was giving the orders.
For example, the report said, "Acting on Garca's instructions to
retaliate for the October 2 assassination of an APRA leader, COSEPAP [a
secret APRA branch] recently botched an attempted bombing of a pro-SL
[Sendero Luminoso] newspaper." The attempted bombing happened on Oct.
2, 1987; though the report is undated, the reference to the bombing
suggests it was written in October or November 1987.
The U.S. government document was written as a factual account, not as
speculation. It appears in the files of the National Security Council
(NSC), which advises the U.S. president on foreign policy. A reference
to the paper was discovered in the presidential library of Ronald
Reagan, U.S. president from 1981-88, and it was obtained after a
request for declassification by this reporter.
It has been known for years that the APRA paramilitary Rodrigo Franco
Command operated during Garca's first administration and that it
engaged in assassinations of oppositionists. It was determined by the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, after the fall of repressive
President Alberto Fujimori, that the Command was under the direction of
Garca's interior minister, Agustn Mantilla. However, there was no
assertion of direct links to Garca.
Garca in 2003 termed the existence of the Command "a fantasy". This
reporter sent him the U.S. document and asked for a response, but he
declined to comment.
Among the report's assertions:
"Peru's ruling APRA party is sponsoring secret paramilitary groups."
"The Garca administration operates a secret paramilitary organisation,
perhaps several." APRA had a branch "codenamed COSEPAP (security and
intelligence command)" that was "so compartmentalised that many APRA
officials are unaware of its existence."
COSEPAP "reportedly has agreed to send 1,000 of its members to North
Korea for training by 1989; about 300 have been there already."
"Close associates of President Garca -- APRA Senator Armando
Villanueva and Alberto Kitasono, APRA organisational secretary --
apparently direct COSEPAP."
"Garca's vice interior minister, Agustn Mantilla, supervises a secret
police force that is armed with interior ministry weapons." That has
been widely known, and was reported by the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, which investigated violations of human rights that occurred
in the 1980s and 1990s and filed its final report in August 2003.
Under a paragraph labeled "reports of executions", the report says,
"Mantilla reportedly believes that APRA needs the capability to
eliminate terrorists because of the judicial system's tendency to
release them and police reluctance to kill captured SL militants." The
last four lines of the paragraph are still classified and are blacked
out.
The document said, "Although the paramilitary units appear now to act
only against terrorists, the specter of APRA violence is unnerving
Garca's political rivals. Opposition congressmen tried to censure the
interior minister for his suspected role in the attempted kidnapping of
a leftist congressman with alleged SL ties."
It indicated that APRA members of parliament were given some
information about the paramilitary operations. It noted, "After Garca
ordered that APRA congressmen be briefed about their party's
'self-defence' units, they used APRA's legislative majority to support
the minister." And, with not a little irony, it added, "But Garca's
reputation as a human rights crusader was tarnished."
"Exactly who in the armed forces knows what about the paramilitary
squads is unclear," says the U.S. document. It explained, "The vice
interior minister claims that army intelligence assisted his
anti-terrorist squad even as the navy was investigating it."
The U.S. report's final assessment was that Garca's "vigilantism will
further weaken his standing with the military and political
opposition." The report added, referring to criticism by human rights
groups, that "Military leaders probably are delighted by Garca's loss
of the moral high ground, which lessens pressure on them to be
concerned about human rights abuses. But those perpetual coup plotters
in the military who are aware of APRA's sponsorship of paramilitary
groups must also be aware these could be used to raise the costs of any
attempted move against the regime."
At the time, in the late 1980s, the Coordinadora nacional de derechos
humanos -- the human rights groups -- were documenting the frequent
disappearances and extrajudicial executions of oppositionists. They
criticised Garca for not exercising control over the military, which
they accused of rights violations in the fight against Sendero.
However, they did not accuse Garca of collaboration in the killings.
The document was not among the U.S. government papers provided by the
George W. Bush administration to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission.
The document did not indicate the author or how the information was
obtained. But four officials who had high positions at the time in the
Latin America section of the White House's National Security Council or
the U.S. embassy in Lima told IPS that the form and style of the
document suggested that it was prepared either by the Central
Intelligence Agency or by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research. All asked for anonymity.
One said, "Obviously they had some high-ranking inside source providing
them this information." The NSC routinely received copies of such
documents, which is why it appeared in NSC files. The Reagan government
at the highest level therefore knew about the killings, but kept silent.
None of the people mentioned in the document has been charged or tried
for their crimes. Several former leaders and members of the Rodrigo
Franco Command have high-level jobs in the Garca administration.
[Lucy Komisar visited Peru during the first administration of Alan
Garca and wrote about the human rights situation there. Her articles
appear on http://thekomisarscoop.com
]
(END/2007)
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