The Condor Years (45 page)

Argentine military documents declassified as part of trials of Junta leaders in 1980s, including: Roberto Viola,
Anexo 1 (Inteligencia) A la Directiva de Comandante General del Ejército Nro 404/75 (Lucha Contra la Subversion
), October 28, 1975; Jorge Videla,
Directiva del Comandante General de Ejército Nro 404/75 (Lucha contra la Subversión
), October 28, 1975; and Apendice 1 (
Síntesis de su origen y evolución. Doctrina—OPM PRT-ERP y JCR) al Anexo 1 (Inteligencia) a la Directiva del Comandante General del Ejército Nro 404/75 (Lucha contra la subversión
), October 28, 1975. These documents are archived at the CELS offices in Buenos Aires.

Paraguay Archive. A room full of documents from Paraguayan police intelligence units was discovered by a Paraguayan judge in 1992 and made available to the public. The collection, known in Paraguay as the Archive of Terror, contains approximately 600,000 pages and is housed on the eighth floor of the Palace of Justice in Asunción. References include document title (if available), date, and number of microfilm. There is no consistent catalog of the documents to date. The author has copies of approximately 3,000 pages of documents selected from the archive.

Dinges FOIA Releases. U.S. government documents released in response to requests by the author under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I received approximately 2,000 pages of documents from the State, CIA, DIA, and FBI that had not been included in the Chile and Argentina declassification projects.

Chile Declassification Project. Starting in 1999, the U.S. government in response to an executive order by President Clinton released 24,000 previously secret documents, including 18,000 from the State Department, 2,200 from the CIA, and the rest from the Pentagon and other government agencies.

Primera Reunión de Trabajo de Inteligencia Nacional.
Santiago, October 29, 1975 (Paraguay Archive 22:0155–0165).

Acta de Clausura de la primera reunión interamericana de inteligencia nacional.
November 28, 1975. Among documents obtained by
La Nación
newspaper, Santiago. Chilean Foreign Ministry documents.

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS

Argentina: Nunca Mas: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared
(New York, 1986). The Spanish edition of the same name was published in 1984.

Chile: Corporacion Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación,
Informe Sobre Calificación
de Victimas de Violaciones de Derechos Humanos y de la Violencia Politica
(Santiago, 1996).

Chile:
Informe de la Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación:
Tomos 1, 2, 3 (Santiago, 1996). The report was first issued in 1991.

Uruguay: Raul Olivera,
El Contexto Represivo
, of PIT/CNT. This electronic document consists of a seventy-five page chronology with hyperlinks to the transcriptions of testimonies of almost one hundred witnesses.

Uruguay:
Uruguay Nunca Mas: Informe Sobre la Violación a los Derechos Humanos
1972–1985 (Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay, 1989).

JUDICIAL INVESTIGATIONS

Spanish case against Pinochet:
Procesamiento
(Indictment), December 12, 1998.
Sumario Terrorismo y Genocidio, “Operativo Cóndor,”
Juzgado Central de Instrucción Numero Cinco, Audiencia Nacional, Madrid. This document, 239 pages long, is the statement of the indictment against Pinochet and a summary of principal evidence.

Leighton Investigation. Testimonies to Judge Giovanni Salvi in the Leighton investigation, Tribunale di Roma. Those used in this investigation include: Stefano Delle Chiaie, Vincenzo Venciguerra, Aldo Stefano Tisei, Cristoph Willeke, Mariana Inés Callejas Honores, Alejandra Damiani, Marcia Alejandra Merino Vega, Luz Arce Sandoval, Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Bernhard, Wolff H. Von Arnswaldt, Enrique Arancibia Clavel, Marcia Merino, Mario Ernesto Jahn Barbera, and Carlos Labarca.

Prats Investigation. Sentencing document, thirty-five pages, was filed September 25, 1995, and contains summaries of evidence.

Prats Investigation.
Autos de procesamiento: Introducción y Pruebas
, June 26, 2001. “Indictment: Introduction and Evidence” against Chilean and Argentine officers for murder of Carlos Prats, issued in case investigated by Judge Maria Servini de Cubria. This 35,000-word document summarizes testimony of scores of witnesses interviewed by Servini.

Prats Investigation.
Autos de Sentencia
, November 27, 2000. This document is 63,000 words and contains more extensive summaries of evidence.

Letelier Investigation. Contreras statement to Chilean Supreme Court in his defense against extradition to the United States, 1979. Undated transcript in author’s possession.

Letelier-Moffitt assassination investigation, Washington, D.C. Documents include January–February 1979 trial transcript, grand jury testimonies of witnesses appearing, evidence and exhibits sent to Chile to support the request for extradition, FBI “302” interview reports of Michael Townley and dozens of other sources. The “Extradition Packet” lists 157 such statements and other exhibits.

Michael Vernon Townley. Testimony in Prats case, November 9, 1999, Alexandria, Virginia, in closed session before Argentine Judge María Servini de Cubria and Justice Department official John Beasley. This testimony has never been declassified either in the United States or in Argentina.

Michael Vernon Townley. Testimony in Leighton case to Italian Judge Giovanni Salvi, Alexandria, Virginia, November 24, 1992, February 24–25, 1993, and July 9, 1993.

“Condor” Investigation, Argentina:
Procesamiento
(Indictment), in case
“Videla, Jorge Rafael y otros s/ Privación Ilegal de la Libertad Personal,”
Juzgado Nacional en lo Criminal y Correccional Federal numero 7, July 10, 2001. This is a 177-page statement of charges and summary of principal evidence. The main investigating judge is Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, assisted by his judicial secretary Oscar Aguirre.

ORAL HISTORY

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project.
Histories consulted include: Harry Shlaudeman, Hewson Ryan, Ernest Siracusa, Thomas Boyatt, George Landau, William D. Rogers, William P. Stedman, Robert W. Zimmermann.

12
  
Documents and sources:
Condor founding documents. The first, found in the Paraguay Archive, is an eleven-page agenda for the meeting, apparently distributed in advance to participants:
Primera Reunion de Trabajo de Inteligencia Nacional
, Secret, Santiago, October 29, 1975. Paraguay Archive 22:0155-0165, hereafter Condor Agenda. The second is the concluding document of the meeting:
Acta de Clausura de la primera reunión interamericana de inteligencia nacional
, November 28, 1975, hereafter Condor Acta. This document was found in the Chilean Foreign Ministry and delivered to the newspaper
La Nación
, which first wrote about the document on June 16, 1999. Thanks to editor Ascanio Carvallo for providing copies to the author.

13
  
CIA contributed information:
Contreras statement to Chilean Supreme Court in his defense against extradition to the United States on charges of assassinating Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, undated transcript, ca 1979, in author’s possession.

15
  
Chile proposed operations:
Telephone interview, Montevideo, October 2001, with retired Colonel José Fons.

15
  
Condor name:
Condor Acta. Air Force colonel’s suggestion: interview with Fons. Later CIA and FBI reports said Brazil’s military government sent a delegation but remained in observer status. Thus its representative is not listed on the final document.

19
  
Helms informed:
CIA, “Special Mandate from the President on Chile,” July 15, 1975 (Chile Declassification Project), 24,000 previously secret documents on Chile declassified by executive order of President Clinton, 1999–2000, hereafter Chile Project.

20
  
Schneider murder:
CIA Activities in Chile, a report by the CIA to Representative Maurice D. Hinchey (Democrat, NY) and to the House and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, unclassified version, September 18, 2000. The section on
Schneider relies heavily, at times in verbatim quotation, on the July 15, 1975, CIA memorandum cited in the previous note.

20
  
CIA payment to kidnappers:
Hinchey Report, 11.

23
  
Last day in La Moneda:
Interview, e-mail correspondence with Garcés.

25
  
Miravet court filing:
The charges name all those who served in the junta between 1973 and 1978: Army General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Navy Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, Air Force General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, General (Carabineros) César Mendoza Durán, Air Force General Fernando Matthei Aubel, and Carabineros General Rodolfo Stange Oelckers.

26
  
Garcés cites Condor:
Court document filed July 5, 1996, by Joan Garcés.

26
  
Condor cable:
John Dinges and Saul Landau,
Assassination on Embassy Row
(NY: Pantheon, 1980), 238–39. Scherrer wrote the cable one week after the assassination of Letelier. I obtained a verbatim transcription in 1979. The three-page cable was declassified in 1981.

26
  
Not a single investigation:
Miravet filing, July 1, 1996.

27
  
Investigating judges:
In most European and South American court systems, judicial investigations leading up to indictment are conducted by an investigating judge, who supervises the gathering of evidence as well as evaluates it in view of the final decision to indict the accused or dismiss the charges. In contrast, the prosecutor, or
fiscal
, is the representative of the State, and has much less power. The investigating judge has many of the powers we associate with the prosecutor in the U.S. judicial system, usually an assistant U.S. attorney, who conducts the investigation, presents the evidence to a grand jury, and has considerable flexibility in defining the severity of charges. In both of the Spanish cases, for example, the
fiscales
at various points tried to block the proceedings from going forward but were overruled by the investigating Judges Garzón and García-Castellón.

27
  
Universal jurisdiction:
See Nigel S. Rodley, “Breaking the Cycle of Impunity for Gross Violations of Human Rights: The Pinochet Case in Perspective,”
Nordic Journal of International Law
69: 11–26, 2000, for an account of the legal path connecting the Nuremberg principle to the Pinochet prosecution. For the proceedings and Spanish laws surrounding the Pinochet case, see Richard J. Wilson, “Prosecuting Pinochet: International Crimes in Spanish Domestic Law,”
Human Rights Quarterly
21 (1999), 927–79. The Spanish court laid out the basis in Spanish law for its claim of jurisdiction in a 1997 petition sent to the U.S. Justice Department: “After those serious facts were brought before the court, on July 29th, 1996 it was decided Spanish Jurisdiction exists over the defendants for the allegations of the complaint and for this Court to conduct a complete inquiry of the facts alleged in the criminal complaints. Articles 65.1. (e), 88, 21.1, and 23.4 of the Law of Judicial Power (Ley
Orgánica del Poder Judicial
) confer to the National Court of Justice jurisdiction and competence to prosecute and judge crimes of genocide or terrorism committed by Spaniards or non-Spaniards outside the territory of Spain, as
well as any other offenses that according to international treaties or conventions should be prosecuted in Spain.”

29
  
Letters rogatory:
Confidential court documents in author’s possession.

29
  
Don’t declassify:
Justice Department reticence was described by Morton Halperin, a Clinton administration official in the National Security Council, in a talk at the Latin American Studies Association meeting in Washington, September 6, 2001. Several officials and former officials described the “reversal of roles.”

29
  
Promised publicly: New York Times
, June 27, 1997. This short article was one of the rare reports in the U.S. press about the ongoing Spanish case.

30
  
Headlines on Pinochet:
“hero . . . ,”
Toronto Star
, November 6, 1997; “National Father . . . ,”
Washington Post
, December 8, 1997.

31
  
Discreet visitor:
“Pinochet in Plan for UK Arms Office,”
Financial Times
(London), November 19, 1997.

31
  
Amnesty law:
The main effect was to allow Chilean military and civilian courts to dismiss without further hearing hundreds of cases against military personnel accused of human rights crimes. The law had a single exception: the 1976 assassination in Washington of Orlando Letelier. The law also had the effect of pardoning several hundred leftists who had been sentenced by military tribunals. They were immediately expelled from their prison cells into foreign exile.

32
  
Garzón adds Pinochet:
Criminal complaint, March 30, 1998, submitted by Joan Garcés as lawyer for the Association of Families of Disappeared Prisoners of Chile.

33
  
Rumors:
“Pinochet in London Clinic,”
The Independent
(London), October 12, 1998.

33
  
Whatever measures necessary:
Joint petition submitted to Garzón and García-Castellón, dated October 13, 1998.