Henry Kissinger

Henry Alfred Kissinger (born May 27, 1923 as Heinz Alfred Kissinger) is a German-born American diplomat and statesman. He served as National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State in the Nixon administration, continuing in the latter position after Gerald Ford became President in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

Legal problems

In the first years of the new millennium, Kissinger became dogged by legal problems stemming from actions he took while in government. These ranged from requests from judges simply wishing to question him about atrocities which occurred while he was in office to suits charging him with complicity in human rights violations. There are now many countries in Europe and South America to where Kissinger avoids travel due to vulnerability to legal action. He is known to take legal advice before traveling anywhere.

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On 31 May 2001, French Judge Roger Le Loire had a summons served on Kissinger at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where Kissinger was staying. The judge wanted Kissinger to answer questions about the death of French citizens under the Pinochet regime and about his knowledge of Operation Condor. Rather than appear before the magistrate the next day, Kissinger fled Paris that same evening and directed all inquiries to the US State Department.

Related Topics:
31 May - 2001 - Paris - Operation Condor

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http://www.parisiana.com/article.php3?id_article=41

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http://english.pravda.ru/usa/2001/08/21/13023.html

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In July 2001, the highest court of Chile granted investigating judge Juan Guzman the right to question Kissinger about the 1973 killing of the American journalist Charles Horman, whose execution by forces loyal to General Augusto Pinochet was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing. The judge?s questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but went unanswered. Representative Cynthia McKinney later wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for help in persuading Kissinger to take the stand. The Chilean courts later announced that if they continued to meet with no response to their requests for co-operation, they would seek Kissinger's extradition. Sergio Corvalan, a lawyer involved in the case, said: "Kissinger has never answered to justice and he had an important role in the coup in Chile and an influence in the Chilean military government."

Related Topics:
Charles Horman - 1982 - Costa-Gavras - Missing - Cynthia McKinney - Colin Powell

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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0706-02.htm

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In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory 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.

Related Topics:
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty - Operation Condor

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http://hrw.org/wr2k2/americas1.html

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On 10 September 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, accusing Kissinger of arranging his 1970 murder for opposing a military coup. The suit asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. The prosecution case is based solely on U.S. government declassified documents. Schneider?s two sons are suing Kissinger and CIA director Richard Helms for $3 million.

Related Topics:
10 September - 2001 - Richard Helms

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http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074678

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/29/1019441343996.html

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http://www.tni.org/pin-watch/watch37.htm

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On 11 September 2001, the 28th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, and several other US, Chilean, and Argentine officials for their role in Operation Condor. The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean. Several international organizations also joined the suit as plaintiffs, including the US National Lawyer?s Guild, the American Association of Jurists, and the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchu Foundation. Kissinger and the others were charged with being intellectual or material authors or accomplices to crimes against humanity, war crimes, violations of international treaties, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, and torture.

Related Topics:
11 September - 2001 - Augusto Pinochet - Hugo Banzer - Jorge Rafael Videla - Alfredo Stroessner

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In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in São Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity from judicial action.

Related Topics:
Brazil - São Paulo

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In 2002, during a brief visit of his to the UK, a petition for Kissinger's arrest was filed in the High Court in London, citing the destruction of civilian populations and the environment in Indochina during the years 1969 to 1975. According to media reports, the High Court ruled in such a manner as to leave room for a further application. At the same time, supported by judges in France, the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who engaged in a failed attempt to get Pinochet extradited from the United Kingdom for questioning, also requested Interpol to detain Kissinger for questioning during his visit. British authorities refused his request.

Related Topics:
Baltasar Garzón - United Kingdom - Interpol

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Activists from the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours, accusing him of supporting Indonesia's 1975 bloody occupation of the former Portuguese colony East Timor. A subsequent human rights commission proposed that the UN itself set up a war crimes tribunal. ETAN as argued that the tribunal to extend back to the original invasion and could become a tool to find out what actually happened, and a mechanism for trying Kissinger. "I believe a criminal case can be made against him," says John Miller, a spokesman for the group. "One country invaded another. He aided and abetted genocide. He provided a political go-ahead and was instrumental in continuing the flow of U.S. weapons."

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Observers note that in many cases, Kissinger is not being sought as a defendant; he is wanted first and foremost as a witness, but his refusal to cooperate, they claim, suggests he has something to hide. Kissinger's position is complicated by the fact that documents declassified by the State Department have contradicted his own statements. A declassified verbatim conversation between Kissinger and General Suharto on the day of the invasion of East Timor in 1975 reveals Kissinger giving approval to the proposed annexation, and also promising to keep a flow of weapons coming to Indonesia. Declassified records also indicate, for example, that Kissinger had urged the apartheid regime in South Africa to intervene in Angola before a single Cuban soldier had landed, which contradicts earlier statements by him.

Related Topics:
South Africa - Angola - Cuba

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/29/1019441343996.html?oneclick=true

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http://www.bushwatch.com/kissinger.htm

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Recently declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive also show that Kissinger did not raise objections to the practices of the dictatorial Argentine military junta; the junta was exercising total authority over combatting active Marxist guerrilla groups such as the Montoneros and ERP. It is known to have "disappeared" approximately 10,000 to 30,000 Argentines, many believed to be nonviolent dissidents, and tortured thousands more at documented secret detention centers. However, the junta's restrictions on free speech were somewhat relaxed by new Chairman General Leopoldo Galtieri in 1981.http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB104/index.htm

Related Topics:
National Security Archive - Argentine - Montoneros - ERP - Disappeared - Torture - Detention - Leopoldo Galtieri

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In a meeting described in the National Security Archive documents, Secretary Kissinger told Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti:

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:"Let me say, as a friend, that I have noticed that military governments are not always the most effective in dealing with these problems. ...So after a while, many people who don't understand the situation begin to oppose the military and the problem is compounded. The Chileans, for example, have not succeeded in getting across their initial problem and are increasingly isolated. You will have to make an international effort to have your problems understood. Otherwise, you, too, will come under increasing attack. If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures."

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He also assured Guzzetti that the U.S. would not cause the junta any "unnecessary difficulties" and urged them to complete their mission and get back to normal procedures before Congress reconvened and had a chance to consider sanctions.

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Criminal accusations of Christopher Hitchens

The February and March 2001 issues of Harper's Magazine featured a two-part series of articles by British journalist Christopher Hitchens in which he charged Kissinger with war crimes (the articles were later published as a book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, ISBN 1859846319). Hitchens' charges were extensively reported on and sparked widespread discussion. In these pieces, Hitchens charged Kissinger with conspiracy to commit murder and war crimes. He argues that (1) on at least one occasion, Henry Kissinger conspired to commit murder, and (2) on numerous other occasions, Kissinger was the primary force behind certain acts that could quite plausibly be considered war crimes.

Related Topics:
Harper's Magazine - Christopher Hitchens - War crimes - Conspiracy - Murder

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Hitchens' primary charges against Kissinger include:

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• In illegal talks with representatives of the South Vietnamese government in 1968, Kissinger advised them to pull out of the Paris Peace Talks, as they would get a better deal under an incoming Nixon administration.
• As United States National Security Advisor to President Nixon, he directed the first phase of the illegal and secret U.S. bombings in Cambodia (1969-1975), and is thus complicit in the resulting 200,000 casualties.
• As Nixon's National Security Advisor, he gave support to General Roberto Viaux's 1970 coup plot in Chile to prevent incoming President Salvador Allende's inauguration. The coup failed with the botched kidnapping attempt on constitutionalist Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider, who ended up dead at the hands of the coup-plotters. Hitchens thus implicates Kissinger in Schneider's murder.
• As Nixon's National Security Advisor, he did not object to West Pakistan's genocide against Bengalis in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the third Indo-Pakistani War because Pakistan was a Cold War ally.
• As Nixon's secretary of state, he supported the Chilean military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet following a 1973 coup, despite his involvement in human rights abuses directed towards suspected Marxists and political opponents.
• As Nixon's Secretary of State, he was complicit in the anti-Communist Greek military junta's backing of an attempted Greek Cypriot coup attempt in Cyprus in 1974. The failed plot provoked Turkey to occupy the northern 40% of the island, which it still controls to this day. It also led to the downfall of the Greek junta.
• As Ford's Secretary of State, he supported continued U.S. arms sales to Indonesia while it was annexing East Timor in 1975, and is thus complicit in the Army's subsequent mass atrocities against the East Timorese.

Rebuttals to Hitchens' charges include:

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• Kissinger maintains that the bombings of Cambodia were not illegal, since Cambodia itself had been unable to defend its neutrality. North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong units were operating out of bases in the area, and ignoring them would have given them a free advantage in the ongoing conflict. Further, that to ignore them would make him complicit in all the U.S. and South Vietnamese deaths caused by NVA activity out of these countries.
• Regarding the coup, Kissinger, as chair of the 40 Committee overseeing foreign operations, said to Nixon on October 15, "This looks hopeless. I turned it off. Nothing could be worse than an abortive coup." Viaux's failed coup took place a full week later without direct CIA support. The Church Committee (see: Senator Frank Church), normally highly critical of the Nixon administration's foreign policy, found that the weapons used by Viaux's subordinates "were, in all probability, not those supplied by the CIA to the conspirators." http://www.aei.org/news/filter.,newsID.19385/news_detail.asp
• There was some evidence http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/ that Kissinger bore direct responsibility in the U.S.'s failure to condemn Pakistani President Yahya Khan during the crisis as seen in the Oval House conversations. He also tried to involve China in the event of a war, to threaten India from involving itself in Pakistan's internal problems. The reason for the "tilt" was that Pakistan, a cold war ally maintained friendly relations with China with whom the US wished to move closer to. Kissinger himself clarified that such policies and statements were to be viewed from the Cold War era perspective.
• There is no evidence that Kissinger supported the junta's moves in Cyprus. In his book Years of Renewal, Kissinger says of the elected President of Cyprus, "...Makarios, the proximate cause of most of Cyprus's tensions, was also the best hope for a long-term peaceful solution..." Hitchens takes the quote out of context and says that because Kissinger has described Makarios as "the proximate cause of Cyprus's tensions" he must have sought his removal.
• The policy toward Indonesia was consistent with Cold War containment policy at the time, and Kissinger feared that a FRETILIN-controlled East Timor would be a destabilizing influence in the Indonesian archipelago. U.S. arms sales to a Cold War ally were not an endorsement for mass atrocities against the East Timorese.

Documents released in late 2001 regarding East Timor revealed that Kissinger had given Suharto support for the invasion of East Timor (in which as many as 200,000 people may have died) during a visit to Indonesia in 1975, refuting his claim in a 1999 interview that he had not discussed the matter in advance and only found out about it as he was leaving the country. Although it was illegal for the arms that the US supplied to Indonesia to be used for offensive purposes, the documents revealed that Kissinger was unconcerned over the illegality of their use; his primary concern was over manipulating the public perception of what happened. "We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we return", he was quoted as saying.

Related Topics:
Suharto - Arms - Indonesia

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Kissinger has refused to respond to Hitchens's charges point by point. In a speech before the National Press Club he was asked about the charges and his response is that in the cause of world peace, serious people can have legitimate disagreements about the means. However, Kissinger claims that in attempting to create a war crimes charge, Hitchens used selective quotations and documents without taking into account the context and the situation in which those documents were written. Further, Kissinger claims that Hitchens ignores the significant advances in world peace that were taken under his tenure, such as the Anti-Ballistic Treaty, détente and arms reduction treaties with the Soviet Union, the opening to China, and the withdrawal from Vietnam. He adds that Hitchens's charges are nothing more than the politics of revenge and that they cheapen and mock the concept of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Moreover, Kissinger claims that this mockery of the concept of war crimes is an obstacle to creating the just and peaceful world that Hitchens claims to wish to create, and thus will not respond to him.

Related Topics:
National Press Club - Vietnam - Crimes against humanity

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Other critics of the war crimes charges similarly dismiss the allegations as overtly partisan, and poorly researched. Conservative commentator David Horowitz described Kissinger as a "political deus ex machina" whom members of the political Left increasingly use to explain the cause of any foreign conflict, violence, or coup during the 1970s. Supporters of Kissinger point out that Kissinger himself has detailed his own versions of the events in question in his memoirs and writings, and has fully justified his past actions.

Related Topics:
David Horowitz - Deus ex machina - Left

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Hitchens's book inspired a feature-length documentary, "The Trials of Henry Kissinger", directed by Eugene Jarecki, which also highlighted the charges against Kissinger.

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