Dirty Wars and Democracy

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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(CNN) — June 22, 2009.

Uruguay has paid $42 million (973 million pesos) in compensation during the past three years to more than 3,000 former political prisoners and those who fled the country or hid from authorities, the state-run news agency said Monday.

The government paid out more than $15.5 million (359 million pesos) in 2007, $19.6 million (454 million pesos) in 2008 and $6.9 million (160 million pesos) in the first four months of this year, the Ultimas Noticias official news agency said.

The payments are being made to about 3,200 Uruguayans imprisoned between February 9, 1973, and February 29, 1985, when a military dictatorship held power, the news agency said.

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 Latinamericanist – 31 May 2009

It is very difficult to tackle the demons of past conflicts, as is the case with looking back at Guatemala’s civil war. Yet that hasn’t stopped some activists and scientists from uncovering the mass graves of Guatemala’s dead and trying to bring some form of justice to so many victims:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/I-7LpSWSUKA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Por Jacmel Cuevas P, especial para CIPER

A casi cuatro meses de conmemorarse 36 años de la muerte del destacado folclorista chileno, el tesón de su viuda Joan Turner y de sus hijas, logró que la investigación judicial llegara al punto que se creía imposible: individualizar al grupo de oficiales y conscriptos que perpetraron el asesinato. Las confesiones de los involucrados, entre ellos un conscripto que participó en forma directa en el crimen, permiten conocer las estremecedoras últimas horas de vida de Víctor Jara: un subteniente jugó a la ruleta rusa con él hasta que le descerrajó un tiro en su cabeza. Después ordenaron acribillarlo en un camarín de un subterráneo del Estadio Chile. También revelamos la historia nunca antes contada de cómo se rescató su cuerpo desde la Morgue. Junto al artista, fueron acribilladas otras 15 personas, entre los que se encontraba el ex Director de Prisiones, Litre Quiroga. Los detalles del homicidio fueron recabados en la presente investigación de Ciper.

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Written by By Kate Doyle and Jesse Franzblau; Monday, 23 March 2009: Upside Down World

Source: The National Security Archive

Declassified documents show U.S. Embassy knew that Guatemalan security forces were behind wave of abductions of students and labor leaders. National Security Archive calls for release of military files and investigation into intellectual authors of the 1984 abduction of Fernando García and other disappearances.

Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today [March 17,2008] is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. The documents show that García’s capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.

Guatemalan authorities made the first arrest ever in the long-dormant kidnapping case when they detained Héctor Roderico Ramírez Ríos, a senior police officer in Quezaltenango, on March 5th and retired policeman Abraham Lancerio Gómez on March 6th as a result of an investigation into García’s abduction by Guatemala’s Human Rights Prosecutor (Procurador de Derechos Humanos—PDH). Arrest warrants have been issued for two more suspects, Hugo Rolando Gómez Osorio and Alfonso Guillermo de León Marroquín. The two are former officers with the notorious Special Operations Brigade (BROE) of the National Police, a unit linked to death squad activities during the 1980s by human rights groups. Read the rest of this entry »

The Latinamericanist.com – March 24, 2009

Another dimension has been added to the troublesome aspect of adoptions in Guatemala when the government revealed yesterday that civil war orphans had been placed up for adoption.

According to the government investigation, there has been at least one confirmed case of two children illegally put up for adoption after their parents were killed in Guatemala’s civil war. Evidence suggests that hundreds of other orphans from the country’s 36-year war were put up for adoption and were likely taken in by U.S. families said the director of the government’s Peace Archive, Marco Tulio Alvarez.

Alvarez added that the final report is expected to be revealed by next month. Yet what they uncovered was reminiscent of “Dirty War” orphans illegally adopted in Argentina:

“In the analysis carried out, patterns of activity can be established that show the ease with which the adoption procedures were handled to hide the violation of rights of Guatemalan children through forced disappearance,” he said.

Alvarez did not rule out that members of Guatemala’s police and armed forces could be implicated in the selling of the children.

He said that during the civil war, the children of people “disappeared” by the security forces were sent to government-run orphanages, and that some of those youngsters were then sold to adoptive parents.

“In these cases, many human rights of the children were violated” and all the indications found so far “make one think that the business was very profitable”, Alvarez said.

Guatemala had been one of the main sources for adoption by U.S. parents for many years with nearly 5000 kids adopted in 2006. Yet the State Department put a halt to Guatemalan adoptions last September citing the lack of “regulations and infrastructure necessary to meet its obligations under the convention.”

Online Sources- AP, thandian.com, BBC News, Washington Times

National Security Archive, March 9, 2009 (posted in Upsidedownworld.org)

In a break in one of Guatemala’s most notorious human rights crimes, a Guatemalan police officer has been arrested in connection with the abduction and disappearance 25 years ago of labor activist Edgar Fernando Garcma. The arrest yesterday of Hictor Roderico Rammrez Rmos is the result of an investigation of Garcma’s case by Guatemala’s Human Rights Prosecutor using records found recently among the massive archives of the former National Police.

Garcma was kidnapped by police agents in Guatemala City on February 18, 1984, during a wave of government repression targeting the left. He was never seen again. The policy of terror used by the Guatemalan security forces to intimidate and destroy perceived “subversives” during the country’s 36-year civil conflict resulted in the disappearance of an estimated 45,000 civilians and the death of some 200,000, according to the Historical Clarification Commission in 1999.
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El Diario / La Prensa
March 9, 2009

El abogado Javier Gómez en declaraciones a la radio Cooperativa dijo que enviará una carta a la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos mediante correo electrónico.

“Estamos impulsando esta carta ante la falla de las instancias judiciales de nuestro país”, dijo el abogado de Contreras.

“Los derechos humanos no es monopolio de ningún sector político ni de un país, nos benefician a todos por el hecho de ser persona, y entre esas personas está Manuel Contreras”, señaló el abogado.

Dijo que también demandará la inmediata liberación de su cliente desde el penal Cordillera, exclusivo para violadores de los derechos humanos, y que se le aplique la medida cautelar de arresto domiciliario.

“No se han respetado las garantías básicas que da la Convención Interamericana de Derechos Humanos para toda persona que se somete a juicio”, declaró el abogado.

Contreras, 79 años, creó y encabezó la Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, DINA, la policía represiva de la dictadura de Pinochet, tras el derrocamiento del presidente socialista Salvador Allende en 1973.

A la DINA y a su sucesora, la Central Nacional de Inteligencia, CNI, se le atribuyen las peores violaciones a los derechos humanos bajo el régimen militar y el mayor número de detenidos desaparecidos.

Contreras está condenado a cerca de 300 años de cárcel entre las sentencias definitivas y por confirmar. Ingresó al penal Cordillera cuando cumplía arresto domiciliario, luego que la Corte Suprema confirmó su sentencia a 12 años por su responsabilidad en la desaparición de un joven comunista.

Antes cumplió una sentencia de 7 años de presidio por el asesinato en Washington del ex canciller socialista chileno Orlando Letelier.

Mireya García, dirigente de la Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos, calificó la acción de Contreras y su abogado como “incalificable”.

“Me parece una burla y una nueva agresión para las víctimas”, afirmó.

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – Feb. 26, 2009 — President Alvaro Colom Wednesday formally apologized to the victims of the country’s 1960-1996 civil war, 10 years after a UN-sponsored report came out on the atrocities largely committed by the military.

“As president of the republic, head of government and commander in chief of the army I ask for your forgiveness, because the system was at fault,” Colom said at a ceremony on National Dignification Day commemorating the estimated 200,000 civil war victims.

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