Operation Condor

For other uses of Operation Condor, please see Operation Condor (disambiguation)

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Operation Condor (Spanish:Operación Cóndor) was a campaign of assassination and intelligence-gathering, dubbed counter-terrorism, conducted jointly by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay in the mid-1970s. In november 1975, leaders of the secret police of those countries meet together, with Manuel Contreras, chief of the DINA, in Santiago de Chile, creating the plan Condor.

Related Topics:
Spanish - Assassination - Counter-terrorism - Argentina - Bolivia - Brazil - Chile - Paraguay - Uruguay - Manuel Contreras - DINA

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Brazil did not sign the agreement until June 1976, refusing to engage in actions out of Latin America.

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The right-wing military governments of these countries, led by dictators such as Videla, Pinochet and Stroessner agreed to cooperate in sending teams into other countries, including France, Portugal and the United States to locate, observe and assassinate political opponents.

Related Topics:
Right-wing - Videla - Pinochet - Stroessner - France - Portugal - United States

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The communication was made through an enormous quantity of telex messages.

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They also exchanged torture techniques, like near drowning and playing the sound recordings of victims who were being tortured to their family. Many people disappeared and were killed without trial. Their targets were leftist guerrillas but many are thought to be political opponents, family and other innocent people. The infamous "death flights" were also widely used, in order to make the corpses, and therefore evidence, disappear. Chilean judge Juan Guzman would eventually create permanent sequestration crime, which is imprescriptible and un-amnistiable, in order to be able to sue chilean militaries who were benefiting from a 1978 autoamnisty decree-law. Since the people had disappeared, he argued that the sequestration continued and never stopped, which made it possible for justice to be rendered.

Related Topics:
Torture - Drowning - Disappear - Guerrillas - Juan Guzman - Permanent sequestration

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It has been alleged that Operation Condor was given at least tacit approval by the United States, due to fear of violent Marxist revolution in the region. It appears that Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon administration, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well-aware of the Condor plan. CIA documents show that the CIA had close contact with members of the Chilean secret police, DINA, and its chief Manuel Contreras. Some have alleged that the CIA's one-time payment to Contreras is proof that the U.S. approved of Operation Condor and military repression within Chile. The CIA's official documents state that at one time, some members of the intelligence community recommended making Contreras into a paid contact because of his closeness to junta Chairman General Pinochet; the plan was rejected based on Contreras' poor human rights track record, but the single payment was made due to miscommunication. http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/chile/index.html#10

Related Topics:
United States - Marxist - Henry Kissinger - Secretary of State - Nixon - Southern Cone - DINA - Manuel Contreras - Junta - Pinochet

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In 22 December 1992, in Paraguay, José Fernandez, a judge looking for files on a political prisoners in a police offices in the suburbs of Asuncion (Lambaré) found what would be known as the horror files, which revealed a large part of "operation Condor". Those "horror archives" counted 50 000 persons murdered, 30 000 "disappeared" (aka "desaparecidos" - in Chile, jurisprudence would be made concerning "permanent sequestration", which render possible to turn around the law granting auto-amnesty to the army for the period between 1973 and 1978), and 400 000 incarcerated people. The horror files also revealed that Colombia, Peru and Venezuela had being cooperating with operation Condor, even though they weren't at secret November 1975 meeting in Santiago de Chile 1. In Venezuela, the DISIP (secret services), of which Luis Posada Carriles, after being a CIA agent, worked for, as well as columbian secret services, in particular, cooperated in these events. Luis Posada Carriles had blown out a Cubana aviacion plane in 1976, having links with anti-castro cubans in Florida NYTimes ibid. He recently ask USA for nationality, in order not to be extradited to Venezuela.

Related Topics:
José Fernandez - Lambaré - DISIP - Luis Posada Carriles

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