The Condor Years (54 page)

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Authors: John Dinges

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226
  
Jaccard case:
Records of the Chilean Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación; Buenos Aires 8399, November 9, 1977 (Dinges FOIA Release); and memo “Update on Stoulman [sic] Disappearances,” Buenos Aires, July 11, 1979 (Argentina Project). The Chilean commission, in confidential files, concluded that DINA agents were probably present in Buenos Aires for the operation, and that Jaccard was taken clandestinely to Chile, where he was executed. The other Chileans were: Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, in charge of Chilean Communist Party finances in Buenos Aires; Héctor Velásquez Mardones, CP member based in Argentina; Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce, CP member and newspaper vendor in Santiago; Hernán Soto Gálvez, identified by the CNVR as the “financial liaison” between Argentina and Chile. Five of the Argentines were members of CP Solidarity committee sheltering the Chileans: Marcos Leder, Mauricio Leder, his son; Mario Clark, Sergio Clark, his son; Rodolfo Sanchez Cabot, Mardones’s employer. The other four were kidnapped at CP headquarters in Buenos Aires: Luis Cervera Novo, Ricardo Isidro Gomez, Carmen Candelaria Roman, and Juan Cesareo Arano. A journalistic investigation of this case was carried out in July 2000 by reporter Lila Pastoriza of
Pagina 12
newspaper.

227
  
Campiglia capture:
U.S. Embassy, Buenos Aires, memorandum, Regional Security Officer James Blystone, April 7, 1980; U.S. Embassy, Buenos Aires, memorandum, Political officer Townsend Friedman, August 21, 1980 (Argentina Project). The other leader captured with Campiglia in Rio was Mónica Susana Pinus de
Binstock. Lorenzo Ismael Viñas was captured in Uruguayana, near the southern border. TEI members captured elsewhere and disappeared in connection with the same operation were: Julio César Genoud, Verónica María Cabilla, Jorge Óscar Benítez, Angel Servando Benítez, Lía Mariana Ercilia Guangiroli, Angel Carbajal, Matilde Adela Rodríguez de Carbajal, Raúl Milberg, Ernesto Emilio Ferre Cardozo, Miriam Antonio Fuerichs, Marta Elina Libenson, Angel Horacio García Pérez, and Ricardo Marcos Zucker.

228
  
Peru operation:
There are more than a dozen U.S. documents on the Peru incident in the Argentina Project collection. The documents indicate that this was one of the rare instances in which U.S. officials tried to use their diplomatic clout, although late in the game and to no avail, to save the victims of an ongoing human rights crime. Other documents used in my reconstruction of the incident include: Memorandum, Townsend Friedman, August 18, 1980; Memorandum, Townsend Friedman, August 19, 1980, “The Case of the Missing Montoneros;” Memorandum, Townsend Friedman, August 21, 1980, no subject (reports on missions abroad to kill Firmenich); Memorandum, James Blystone, “Meeting with Argentine Intelligence Service,” June 19; Lima 6226, July 11, 1980, “The Case of the Missing Montoneros”; INR Report, June 25, 1980, “Attempted Repatriation of Montoneros Apparently Foiled”; Geneva 10812, August 8, 1980, “Body of Argentine Exile Discovered in Madrid”; Buenos Aires 5962, July 24, 1980, “Argentine citizens Missing in Peru” (Castro’s meeting with Galtieri); Lima 5932, July 3, 1980, “Amnesty International Reportedly Claims 3 Killed in Peru”; Lima 5570, June 20, 1980, “GOP Explains Montonero Deportations, Criticism Continues” (Argentina Project). Further details can be found in CONADEP file 1048, Noemí Esther Gianotti de Molfino. For a gripping account of the Peru operation, based on Peruvian military sources, see Ricardo Uceda,
Muerte en el pentagonito: los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano
(Planeta 2004), pp. 346–370.

229
  
Goulart investigation:
See Enrique Foch Diaz,
Joao Goulart: El Crimen Perfecto
(Arca, 2001). A Brazilian congressional investigation of Goulart’s death was launched in 2000 as a result of new information about Operation Condor.

229
  
Frei death:
His daughter, Carmen Frei, now a prominent political figure, said, “We want to have an official investigation opened here in Chile because we have very well founded doubts that there may have been the hands of third persons involved in the death of my father.”
El Mostrador
, March 28, 2001.

235
  
Arancibia case:
The case is identified, according to court documents, as
“Causa numero 949, Arancibia Clavel y otros por infracción arts 223 y 224 bis del Codigo Penal, que tramitara ante el Juzgado Nacional en lo Criminal y Correccional Federal numero 5, Secretaria Numero 9.”
González said she did not remember the judge’s name, but other documents list the judge as Dr. Ramon Montoya and his secretary as Dr. Juan A. Piaggio.

236
  
Operation Colombo:
The author, with correspondent Rudolf Rauch, published one of the first investigative reports on the scheme, in
Time
, August 18, 1975. The article
summed up the arrangement: “A working relationship would well serve the mutual interests of DINA and the AAA. DINA has a long list of names for which it needs bodies and the AAA has bodies for which it needs names.” I expanded on the story in a two-part series in
National Catholic Reporter
, October 3 and 10, 1975. See also Mónica González,
La Nación
, July 5, 1990, “Descubiertos los archivos de la DINA en Buenos Aires.”

236
  
Chilean plebiscite:
U.S. intelligence had firsthand reports of the coup plans and the dramatic actions by Air Force Commander Fernando Mattei to force him to back down. DIA, Top Secret, Chile: Government Contingency Plan, October 4, 1988; and DIA, Chilean Junta Meeting the Night of the Plebiscite, January 1, 1989 (Chile Project). See Peter Kornbluh,
The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability
(New York: The New Press, 2003), 426–32, for a more detailed account of these events based on U.S. documents.

237
  
Plot against Stroessner:
Interviews with survivors of the group Dimas Piris da Motta and Luis Alberto Wagner. Piris da Motta and Wagner’s group was called
Ejército Popular Revolucionario
(also identified in some intelligence documents as Ejercito Paraguayo Revolucionario). Goiburú was the leader of a left-leaning faction of Stroessner’s party called MOPOCO—Movimiento Popular Colorado. Goiburú and Piris Da Mota are mentioned in an intelligence report on the plot presented in a joint Brazil-Paraguay meeting of security forces, held May 3–6, 1976. See
“IV Conferencia bilateral de inteligencia entre los ejercitos de Paraguay y Brasil,”
undated 78:1674–86 (Paraguay Archive). Asuncion 4932, November 29, 1974, and CIA, Dec. 4, 1974 (Dinges FOIA) indicate it was ERP, on behalf of the JCR, that provided explosives for the bomb. Da Motta’s recollection is that Montoneros provided the explosives.

238
  
Almada arrest:
Interview with Martín Almada, September 7, 2001.

238
  
Almada’s quest:
In Panama, Almada wrote a book about his prison experience, which he updated in 1993 with an account of the discovery of the archive: Martín Almada,
Paraguay: la carcel olvidada, el pais exiliado
(Panama 1978, Asunción 1993).

239
  
Scene at Lambaré:
Interviews with Martín Almada, Francisco de Vargas, and José Augustín Fernández.

241
  
Paraguay Archive:
The discovery of the archive went virtually unreported in the mainstream U.S. press until after General Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998. Three books using the documents merit mention: Alfredo Boccia Paz, Myrian Angélica González, and Rosa Palau Aguilar,
Es mi informe: Los archivos secretos de la policia de Stroessner
(Asunción-CDE, 1994); Stella Calloni,
Los Años del Lobo: Operación Condor
(Buenos Aires, 1999); and Alfredo Boccia Paz, Miguel H. López, Antonio V. Pecci, and Gloria Giménez Guanes,
En los sotanos de los generales: Los documentos ocultos del operativo Condor
(Asunción, 2002).

241
  
Italians in Chile:
See John Dinges, “Chile’s Global Hit Men,”
The Nation
, June 2, 1979; and John Dinges, “Anatomia di un’Anonima omicidi,”
La Repúbblica
, May 25, 1979. Patricia Mayorga,
El cóndor negro: El atentado a Bernardo Leighton
(Aguilar
2003), credits the author’s revelation of the Italians’ presence in Chile as the breakthrough that led to the initiation of Salvi’s judicial investigation.

242
  
Salvi at SIDE headquarters:
Interview with Salvi, January 2001. He said the papers had been returned to SIDE by the federal court. Later they were placed again under the custody of the Argentine federal court.

243
  
Paris case victims:
George Klein, Chile, September 11, 1973; Alfonso Chanfreau, July 3, 1974, Chile; Etienne Pesle, September 19, 1973, Temuco, Chile; Jean Yves Claudet Fernández, November 1, 1975, Buenos Aires; Marcel Rene Amiel, February 9, 1977, Mendoza, Argentina.

244
  
Rome case victims:
The victims listed in the Rome case, with date and place of capture:

Daniel Alvaro Banfi Baranzano, September 13, 1974, Buenos Aires; Gerardo Francisco Gatti Antuña, June 9, 1976, Buenos Aires; Maria Emilia Islas Gatti de Zaffaroni, September 27, 1976, Buenos Aires; Armando Bernardo Arnone Hernández, October 1, 1976, Buenos Aires; Juan Pablo Recagno Ibarburu, October 23, 1976, Buenos Aires; Dora Marta Landi Gil, March 29, 1977, Alejandro José Logoluso, March 29, 1977, Asunción; Andrés Humberto Domingo Bellizzi Bellizzi, April 19, 1977, Buenos Aires; Héctor Giordano Cortazzo, June 7–9, 1978, Buenos Aires; Horacio Domingo Campiglia Pedamonti, March 12, 1980, Rio de Janeiro; and Lorenzo Ismael Viñas Gigli, July 26, 1980, Uruguayana, Brazil. Landi, Logoluso, Campiglia, and Viñas are Argentine citizens; the rest are Uruguayan. Banfi and Bellizzi were arrested in separate operations in Argentina.

244
  
Prats indictments:
Also included in the indictment were Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, Raul’s civilian brother, and José Zara Holger, also of the Exterior Department.

244
  
Chile is profoundly different:
Statement July 2003, FASIC (Fundacion de Ayuda Social de Iglesias Cristianas), text dated July 26, 2003, obtained from Web site,
www.fasic.org
.

245
  
Condor case defendants (titles before retirement):
Argentines:
Jorge Rafael Videla, lieutenant general, former president and member of the military junta; Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason, general, former commander of the First Corp of the military; Eduardo Albano Harguindeguy, general, former interior minister.
Chileans:
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, general, member of the military junta, president; Manuel Contreras, general, chief of Dina; Pedro Espinoza, coronel, DINA.
Paraguayans:
Alfredo Stroessner, division general, president of the Republic of Paraguay; Francisco Brítez, general, chief of police; Pastor Coronel Milcíades, head of the Department of Investigations of the Capital Police; Benito Guanes, colonel, chief of the Military Intelligence Service.
Uruguayans:
Julio Vadora, Armed Forces commander in chief; Guillermo Ramírez, colonel; José Nino Gavazzo, major; Manuel Cordero, major; Enrique Martínez, major; Jorge Silveira, capitán; Hugo Campos Hermida, police commissioner.
Bolivian:
Hugo Banzer, president.

245
  
Judge Canicoba Condor case victims:
Seventy-two Condor case victims: Agustín Goiburú Jiménez, Fausto Augusto Carrillo, Juan José Penayo, Federico Jorge Tatter, Dora Marta Landi Gill, Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, Antonio Maidana, Emilio Roa Espinosa, Alejandro José Logoluso, Gustavo Edison Insaurralde, Raúl Edgardo Borelli Cattáneo, Nelson Rodolfo Santana Scotto, José Luis Nell, Juan Alberto Filártiga Martínez, Ary Cabrera Prates, Elba Lucia Gándara Castroman, León Duarte Luján, Juan Pablo Recagno Ibarburú, Ruben Prieto González, Cecilia Susana Trías Hernández, Washington Cram González, Daniel Pedro Alfaro Vásquez, Adalberto Soba, Armando Bernardo Arnone Hernández, Rafael González Lezama, María Emilia Islas Gatti de Zaffaroni, Carlos Federico Cabezudo Pérez, Miguel Angel Moreno Malugani, Washington Domingo Queiro Uzal, Raúl Tejera, Carlos Alfredo Rodriguez Mercader, Eduardo Efraín Chizzola Cano, Jorge Zaffaroni Castilla, Ileana García Ramos de Dossetti, Edmundo Sabino Dossetti Techeira, Casimira María del Rosario Carretero Cardenas, Claudio Epelbaum, Lila Epelbaum, Mónica Sofia Grinspon de Logares, Claudio Ernesto Logares, José Hugo Méndez Donadío, Francisco Edgardo Candia Correa, Juan Pablo Errandonea Salvia, Simón Antonio Riquelo, Miguel Angel Río Casas, María Asunción Artigas Nilo de Moyano, Alfredo Moyano, Alberto Cecilio Mechoso Méndez, Horacio Domingo Campiglia, Susana Pinus de Binstock, Norberto Armando Habegger, Erasmo Suárez Balladores, Juan Carlos Jordán Vercellone, Graciela Rutila Artes, Luis Stamponi Corinaldeci, Oscar Hugo González de la Vega, Efraín Fernando Villa Isola, Edgardo Enríquez Espinosa, Miguel Ivan Orellana Castro, José Luis de la Masa Asquet, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, Carmen Angélica Delard Cabezas, José Luis Appel de la Cruz, Gloria Ximena Delard Cabezas, Cristina Magdalena Carreño Araya, Jara Angel Athanasiú, Frida Elena Laschan Mellado, Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan, Luis Enrique Elgueta Díaz, Carlos Patricio Rojas Campos, Alexis Vladimir Jaccard Siegler, María Claudia Iruretagoyena.

245
  
Condor narrative:
Court filing dated April 11, 2001, referring to John Dinges, “Los Archivos de Condor,”
La Nación
(Argentina), August 8, 1999.

245
  
Kissinger questioning:
Judge Le Loire was the first to seek to question Kissinger. His request was voluntary, and Kissinger rejected it out of hand. Canicoba’s request had the authority of the MLAT agreement and produced the only official response. Judges in Brazil and Chile have also sought to question Kissinger, to no avail. Kissinger called off a planned trip to Brazil to avoid the possibility of being served with an embarrassing subpoena while in that country.

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