Dirty Wars and Democracy

In Chile, “moment has come” for ex-soldiers to reveal secrets of Pinochet dictatorship

By EVA VERGARA, The Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile

Hundreds of former military draftees rallying outside Chile’s presidential palace were asked Sunday to come forward and reveal crimes they committed and witnessed during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

The draftees have long feared that if they name names and reveal where bodies are buried, they will face prosecution by the courts or retaliation by those who ordered them to torture and kill.

But now the information they once promised to carry to their graves has become both a heavy psychological burden and a bargaining chip. By offering confessions, some of these now-aging men believe they can improve their chances of getting government pensions and mental health care.

“Perhaps today is the day when the moment has come, for us to describe what we saw and what we suffered inside the military bases, the things that we witnessed and that we did,” said Fernando Mellado, who leads the Santiago chapter of the Former Soldiers of 1973.

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Latin American Herald (Caracas), Oct. 17, 2009

SANTIAGO – The Chilean government said it will invoke a controversial Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law to prosecute acts of violence in the southern region of Araucania, where armed Mapuche Indian militants have set two trucks on fire over the past 48 hours.

“We’ve taken the decision to invoke the Anti-Terrorist Law to prosecute these groups of people who only want to cause disorder, commit crimes and stir up trouble in a region that wants a peaceful path” to resolving land disputes, Deputy Interior Minister Patricio Rosende said.

“We’re not going to allow or tolerate actions of this type again by these groups,” Rosende said, referring to the protesters’ burning of two trucks and other acts of violence in recent days.

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NPR, September 2, 2009:

Listen to the Story

A judge in Chile has issued arrest warrants for more than 100 former security officials. They are accused of the worst killings and other human rights violations during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. Peter Kornbluh, director of the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archives in Washington, talks with Ari Shapiro about the crimes committed during the so-called “dirty war.”

Por J. Escalante / J. Rebolledo / La Nación (Chile), 2 septiembre 2009

Entre los encartados hay al menos 60 nuevos ex agentes que hasta ahora no habían caído en las redes de la justicia por delitos de lesa humanidad. Del total de procesados, todos en retiro, 50 son del Ejército y el resto de la FACh, Armada, Investigaciones y Carabineros.

El más masivo procesamiento en la historia de los juicios por violaciones de los derechos humanos, dictó ayer el juez Víctor Montiglio en contra de 120 ex agentes, todos de la DINA.

Entre los encausados hay cerca de 60 nuevos ex represores que hasta ahora no habían sido procesados en algún juicio por delitos de lesa humanidad cometidos durante la dictadura.

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Pascale Bonnefoy, Global Post.com, Sept. 1, 2009, 19:45 ET

A Chilean judge ordered today the arrest and indictment of more than 120 former intelligence agents from the Pinochet dictatorship under charges of crimes against humanity in three major operations that took place in the 1970s.

Judge Victor Montiglio’s decision marked the first massive indictment for human rights crimes here since the courts began serious efforts in 2000 to investigate human rights violations during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

The crimes include the disappearance of the entire Communist party leadership in 1976, in a case known as “calle Conferencia,” in reference to the street where they were abducted, and an operation known as “Colombo,” in which 119 opponents were made to disappear in 1975. This was a scandalous case — the regime, with the cooperation of its counterparts in Argentina and Brazil, mounted a cover-up operation by fabricating newspapers in those countries listing the names of the victims as having been killed in political infighting within their own organizations.

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Hugh O’Shaughnessy, The Independent on Sunday, August 23, 2009

British authorities and the financial sector are linked for the first time to the late Chilean dictator’s £1bn fortune. Hugh O’Shaughnessy reports

Pascale Bonnefoy – GlobalPost.com

A sister’s quest to find out what happened to the only U.S. citizen who disappeared during Chile’s military dictatorship.

SANTIAGO — On his death bed in a Santiago prison hospital, the 88-year-old German child molester, weapons trafficker, torturer and sect leader Paul Schafer still refuses to say what happened to the only U.S. citizen who disappeared during Chile’s military dictatorship.

Boris Weisfeiler, a 43-year-old Russian-born mathematics professor at Pennsylvania State University, was last seen in January 1985 during a hiking trip in a remote area in the Andean foothills, 250 miles south of the Chilean capital and near a secretive German settlement called “Colonia Dignidad.”

Two months later, a far from thorough police inquiry determined that Weisfeiler had drowned trying to cross a river, and no more questions were asked. Almost a quarter of a century later, the only sure thing about Weisfeiler’s disappearance is that it was no accidental drowning.

Documents declassified in 2000 told an entirely different story from the official line, leading Weisfeiler’s sister Olga to open a judicial investigation. But it has been dragging on for nine years, with no visible progress. She came to Chile this July for the eighth time.

The secret memos and reports revealed not only negligence and inaction by the U.S. government to determine his whereabouts at the time, but evidence indicating that her brother may have been abducted by the military and handed over to Colonia Dignidad under the suspicion he was either a Russian or Jewish “spy.” A still unidentified U.S. Embassy source using the alias “Daniel,” spoke of seeing Boris living in “animal-like conditions” in Colonia at least two years later.

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Folha de São Paulo, domingo, 16 de agosto de 2009

FABIANO MAISONNAVE, DE CARACAS

Documento dos EUA revela que, em reunião com americano dois anos antes do golpe, brasileiro disse “estar trabalhando” para derrubar chileno

Relato da conversa mostra que foram tratados também temas como a instabilidade boliviana, a volta de Cuba à OEA e o Tratado de Itaipu

Em conversa com o colega americano Richard Nixon, o presidente Emílio Médici afirmou que “estava trabalhando” para derrubar o governo do socialista chileno Salvador Allende, revelam documentos liberados pelo Departamento de Estado dos EUA e compilados pelo instituto de pesquisa não governamental Arquivo Nacional de Segurança, aos quais a Folha teve acesso.

O encontro ocorreu no Salão Oval da Casa Branca, às 10h de 9 de dezembro de 1971. Do lado brasileiro, só Médici estava presente, deixando o Itamaraty de fora. Sem falar inglês, precisou da ajuda do general Vernon Walters, que tinha forte ligação com o Brasil -era o adido militar americano no golpe de 1964.

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Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2009

By Andrew Zajac

Nixon’s offer in 1971 to help undermine Allende’s government came after Brazil’s president said his military officers were working with counterparts in Chile, a newly declassified document says.

Reporting from Washington – President Nixon’s determination to eliminate the socialist government of Salvador Allende led him to offer financial support to efforts by the Brazilian military to undermine the Chilean leader, according to a newly declassified summary of a White House meeting between Nixon and the president of Brazil.

“The president said that it was very important that Brazil and the United States work closely in this field. . . . If money were required or other discreet aid, we might be able to make it available,” stated the synopsis of Nixon’s December 1971 conversation with President Emilio Medici.

The offer of U.S. help came after Medici told Nixon that Brazilian military officers were working with counterparts in Chile and that he thought Chilean armed forces were capable of overthrowing Allende.

The Chilean leader died during a U.S.-backed overthrow of his elected government in September 1973.

The summary was among a batch of records concerning U.S.-Brazil collaboration in opposing left-leaning governments in Latin America in the early 1970s posted Saturday on the National Security Archive website.

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