Operation Condor will be prosecuted

Operation Condor - South America's Gladio...

by Larisa Alexandrovna 26 Dec 07

Italy is demanding the arrest of 140 members of Operation Condor, which was a secret assassination team created by six governments in South America during the 1970s. These neo-fascists, right wing terrorists targeted left leaning opponents of the military dictatorships in South America as well as peace activists and even religious leaders who dare question the torture tactics of the various governments. Condor was put together in order to make sure that no one got out alive. If a target escaped one country, they would be hunted down in any of the remaining five should they go there. Here is the basic summary of the news out of Italy:

"Under Operation Condor, six governments worked together from the 1970s to hunt down and kill left-wing opponents. Italian authorities have been looking into the plot since the late 1990s. The investigation followed complaints by relatives of South American citizens of Italian origin who had disappeared. A judge issued the arrest warrants on Monday, following a request from state prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo.

Citizens of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru are on the list.

Mr Troccoli, who was arrested at the home in Salerno in which he has lived for several years, will be transferred to a jail in Rome to face questioning on 26 or 27 December, Efe reported.

Exiles hunted

Among the other names on the list are the former Argentine military leader Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentine former naval chief admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, and ex-Uruguayan junta leader Jorge Maria Bordaberry.

Those named face charges ranging from lesser crimes to kidnappings and multiple murders.

Under Operation Condor - thought to have been launched in 1975 and running into the 1980s - the six military governments agreed to co-operate in sending teams into other countries to track, monitor and kill their political opponents.

As a result, many left-wing opponents of military regimes in the region who had fled to neighbouring countries found themselves hunted down in exile."

Anyone notice what is missing from this article and in general, all articles about this story? Let me help you.

"Henry Kissinger continues to cast a deep, lingering shadow over the violent middle decades of the Cold War years. From 1969 to 1977, his smug baritone dominated U.S. foreign policy, guiding many of the more dubious alliances formed with less-than-democratically minded governments. It should come as no surprise, then, as John Dinges makes clear in his book "The Condor Years," that Kissinger played a role in the unflinching brutality that was known as Operation Condor.

Led by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Condor was a highly organized anti-terrorist, anti-communist military intelligence operation carried out by six "Southern Cone" countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil), roughly between 1973 and 1980. During that time, anywhere from 15, 000 to 30,000 people were tortured or murdered by the group, all in the name of keeping communist forces from gaining a foothold in South America -- and keeping corrupt military dictatorships in power.

There are more than 200 international warrants for the arrest of military officials who took part in Condor, but the U.S. government has remained mum on the issue. Kissinger has refused to testify in criminal proceedings related to Condor, and Dinges says that there is ample evidence of "cooperation, liaison, acquiescence, and even complicity" between the United States and Condor."