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108-569: The alliance was targeted by Pinochet's Operation Condor in 1975. In 1976, JCR established a counterintelligence unit run by the MIR and based in Stockholm , to monitor Operation Condor activities in Northern Europe. The JCR alliance was supported and organized by the government of Cuba , which also provided training, weapons, and shelter to the guerrillas. This South American history -related article

216-705: A RENAMO rebel faction who assassinated Orlando Christina, the group's secretary general in April 1983. The suspects were first flown to the Caprivi strip where they were tried by the RENAMO war council, and shot. Their bodies were then wrapped in tarps, weighted, and dropped over the Atlantic, with a false flight plan drawn up. During the Mobutu era, an unknown number of people were extrajudicially executed by being dropped from helicopters into

324-895: A "Special team" operated in Argentina, whose members were drawn from the Argentina Army Intelligence Service and the State Secretariat for Information. The Argentine SIDE cooperated with the Chilean DINA in numerous cases of desaparecidos . They assassinated Chilean General Carlos Prats , former Uruguayan MPs Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz , as well as the ex-president of Bolivia, Juan José Torres , in Buenos Aires. The SIDE also assisted Bolivian general Luis García Meza Tejada 's Cocaine Coup in Bolivia, with

432-493: A 1978 book that the organization of the first meetings between Argentinian and Uruguayan security officials, concerning the watching (and subsequent disappearance or assassination) of political refugees in these countries, can be attributed to coordination by the CIA, and that the CIA also acted as an intermediary in meetings between Argentinian, Brazilian, and Uruguayan death squads . The National Security Archive reported, "Founded by

540-458: A Briefing Memorandum from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research . The briefing concluded that evidence supported Argentina's state security forces taking part in extrajudicial killings. However, there was not sufficient evidence to show that other South American governments (Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) were running a targeted assassination program. "There

648-642: A U.S. High Commission for Germany (HICOG) letter to New York Senator Jacob Javits. The letter established that "Barbie was arrested by the United States Occupation Forces in Germany and his wartime activities were investigated. He was released when the results of this investigation proved inconclusive...From 1948 to 1951 Barbie was, as were many other Germans, an informant for the United States Occupation forces." Once in Bolivia, Barbie adopted

756-852: A head in 1978 when both nations fell out over their maritime frontiers in the Beagle Channel Operation . The dictatorships and their intelligence services were responsible for tens of thousands of killed and missing people in the period between 1975 and 1985. Analyzing the political repression in the region during that decade, Brazilian journalist Nilson Mariano estimates the number of killed and missing people as 2,000 in Paraguay; 3,196 in Chile; 297 in Uruguay; 366 in Brazil; and 30,000 in Argentina. Estimates of numbers of killed and disappeared by member countries during

864-710: A long tried "regional approach" to pacifying "subversion", came to fruition in early 1974 when "security officials from all of the member countries, except Brazil, agreed to establish liaison channels and to facilitate the movement of security officers on government business from one country to the other." One of Condor's "initial aims" was the "exchange of information on the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta (RCJ), an organization...of terrorist groups from Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay" whose "representatives" in Europe were "believed to have been involved in

972-493: A picnic to Builico") a.k.a. being dumped in the Sarei River ravine near Builico, and dipanggil ke Quelicai ("called to Quelicai"). One of the most prominent victims was Venâncio Gomes da Silva, a former FRETILIN central committee member. According to Amnesty International, on July 14, 1980, he was put on a helicopter and flown south-east in the direction of Remexio; the helicopter returned without him 15 minutes later. During

1080-574: A retired colonel from the Chilean army, be extradited, as they were accused of also being involved in the murder. Chilean appeals court judge Nibaldo Segura refused extradition in July 2005 on the grounds that they had already been prosecuted in Chile. On 5 March 2013, twenty-five former high-ranking military officers from Argentina and Uruguay went on trial in Buenos Aires, charged with conspiracy to "kidnap, disappear, torture and kill" 171 political opponents during

1188-492: A sentence of 20 years in jail. Fourteen of the remaining 16 defendants got eight to 25 years. Two were found not guilty. Luz Palmás Zaldúa, a lawyer representing victims' families, contends that "this ruling is important because it is the first time the existence of Operation Condor has been proved in court. It is also the first time that former members of Condor have been sentenced for forming part of this criminal organization." In 2009, Bolivian president Evo Morales discovered

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1296-636: A stupor, loaded into aircraft, stripped, and dropped into the Río de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean. According to the testimony of Adolfo Scilingo , a former Argentine naval officer convicted in Spain in 2005 for crimes against humanity under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction , there were 180–200 death flights during 1977 and 1978. Scilingo confessed to participating in two such flights, during which 13 and 17 people were killed, respectively. Scilingo estimated that

1404-612: A total of 60,000 documents, weighing 4 tons and comprising 593,000 microfilmed pages. Southern Cone Operation Condor resulted in up to 50,000 killed; 30,000 "disappeared"; and 400,000 arrested and imprisoned. Some of these countries have relied on evidence in the archives to prosecute former military officers. A higher number of 90,000 killed has been put forth by La Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos (FEDEFAM). According to these archives, other countries, such as Peru, cooperated by providing intelligence information in response to requests from

1512-591: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about an organization in South America is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a South American political party is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about the Cold War is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Operation Condor Operation Condor ( Portuguese : Operação Condor ; Spanish : Operación Cóndor )

1620-501: Is highly disputed. Some estimates are that at least 60,000 deaths can be attributed to Condor, with up to 30,000 of these in Argentina. This collaboration had a devastating impact on countries like Argentina, where Condor exacerbated existing political violence and contributed to the " Dirty War " that left an estimated 30,000 people dead or disappeared. Others estimate the toll at 50,000 killed, 30,000 disappeared, and 400,000 imprisoned. A Paraguayan investigative commission, relying on

1728-462: Is no evidence to support a contention that Southern Cone governments are cooperating in some sort of international "Murder Inc." aimed at leftist political exiles resident in one of their countries." However, in Argentina, "assassinations are the work of right-wingers, some of whom are security personnel. Argentine President Videla probably does not condone or encourage what is happening, but neither does he appear capable of stopping it." This conclusion

1836-681: The 21 years of military dictatorship because of the Amnesty Law has secured both governmental officials and leftist guerrillas over their crimes. The Condor Operation expanded its clandestine repression from Uruguay to Brazil in November 1978, in an event later known as "o Sequestro dos Uruguaios", or "the Kidnapping of the Uruguayans." With the consent of the Brazilian military regime, senior officers of

1944-555: The Algerian War by French paratroopers of the 10th Parachute Division under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers (1957) . After it was discovered that corpses sometimes resurfaced after being disposed in this manner, the executioners began attaching concrete blocks to their victims' feet. These victims came to be known as "Bigeard's shrimp" ( crevettes Bigeard ), after one of the paratrooper commanders, Marcel Bigeard . During

2052-912: The Archives of Terror , among other sources, allowed for the identification of 20,090 victims, including 59 who were extrajudicially executed and 336 who were forcibly dissappeared. According to a database by Francesca Lessa of the University of Oxford, at least 805 cases of transnational human rights violations resulting from Operation Condor have been identified, including 382 cases of illegal detentions and torture and 367 murders and disappearances. American political scientist J. Patrice McSherry estimated between 400 and 500 killed in cross border operations. He further stated that of those who "had gone into exile" and were "kidnapped, tortured and killed in allied countries or illegally transferred to their home countries to be executed ... hundreds, or thousands, of such persons –

2160-718: The Argentine Armed Forces and former student of the French , developed the concept of Operation Condor. Based on the governments' perception of threats, officially the targets were armed groups (such as the MIR , the Montoneros or the ERP , the Tupamaros , etc.), but the governments broadened their attacks against all kinds of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by

2268-729: The Argentine Federal Police and co-founder of the Triple A death squad, to implement cooperation guidelines. Their goal was to destroy the "subversive" threat represented by the presence of thousands of political exiles in Argentina. In August 1974, the corpses of Bolivian refugees were found in garbage dumps in Buenos Aires. In 2007, McSherry also confirmed the abduction and torture during this period of Chilean and Uruguayan refugees who were living in Buenos Aires, based on newly declassified CIA documents dated June 1976. On 25 November 1975, General Augusto Pinochet's 60th birthday, leaders of

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2376-505: The Argentine Navy conducted the flights every Wednesday for two years, 1977 and 1978, killing 1,500 to 2,000 people. Victims were sometimes made to dance for joy in celebration of the freedom they were told awaited them. In an earlier 1996 interview, Scilingo said, "They were played lively music and made to dance for joy, because they were going to be transferred to the south. ... After that, they were told they had to be vaccinated due to

2484-628: The Bougainville conflict which was fought in 1988–1998, the Papua New Guinea Defence Force used the death flight method to dispose of the bodies of tortured rebels who died in Bougainville region . Some among the disposed victims were found out to be still alive when their bodies were disposed. By the late 1970s, the South African apartheid government started implementing death flight executions of rebel group fighters. To do this,

2592-687: The Falklands War ) and restored democracy. Disunity was also shown when Chile provided some military support to the U.K. during the Falklands War as well. The civic-military dictatorship of Argentina existed from 1976 to 1983 by the military juntas under Operation Condor. Within this period, the Intelligence Service of the United States reported "Chile as being the Center of its operation.” Whereas

2700-502: The Lambaré suburb of Asunción to look for files on a former political prisoner. They found what became known as the "Archives of Terror" (Portuguese: Arquivos do Terror ), documenting the fates of thousands of Latin American political prisoners, who were secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The archives held

2808-536: The Malagasy Uprising of 1947, hundreds of Malagasy in Mananjary were killed, including 18 women and a group of prisoners thrown from aircraft. During its occupation of East Timor , Indonesian forces are alleged to have thrown suspected guerrillas and independence supporters from helicopters, many into lake Tasitolu, just west of the capital Dili . Other locations where detainees were thrown from aircraft include

2916-566: The Valech Commission . The Argentine " Dirty War ", for example, which resulted in approximately 30,000 victims according to most estimates, kidnapped, tortured and killed many trade-unionists, relatives of activists, social activists such as founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo , nuns, university professors, etc. From 1976 onwards, the Chilean DINA and its Argentine counterpart, SIDE , were

3024-414: The "Revolutionary Coordinating Committee" in their own countries and in Europe. Shlaudeman expressed concern that the "siege mentality" that permeated the members of Operation Condor could lead to a larger chasm between the military and civilian institutions in the region. He was also fearful that this could lead to increasing isolation of these countries from developed Western nations. He believed that there

3132-512: The "disappearances" of Italian nationals in Latin America, likely due to actions of Argentine, Paraguayan, Chilean and Brazilian military personnel who tortured and murdered Italian citizens during the military dictatorships in Latin America. In the case of Brazilians accused of murder , kidnapping and torture , there was a list with the names of eleven Brazilians in addition to many high-ranking military personnel from other countries involved in

3240-526: The "entire OPR-33 infrastructure in Argentina." As part of the effort to carry out effective mechanisms to locate, identify, haunt, and assassinate their victims, the member countries proposed the establishment of some secret team of special agents. The member countries never mind endorsing forgery and criminality as they agreed to provide "false documentation" as cover for their special agent, who themselves were either "individuals from one member nation or of patrons from various member nations." Apparently, such

3348-466: The "horror chambers" underneath Bolivia's Department of the Interior. Contractors excavated the basement and uncovered blocked hallways to discover cells "where around 2,000 political prisoners were held and tortured during the 1971-1978 military rule under General Hugo Banzer ." Deputy Interior Minister Marcos Farfan described his own time in the prison, where he was placed in a flooded cell, electrified from

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3456-582: The 1947 Malagasy Uprising in Madagascar and the 1957 Battle of Algiers , and by the junta dictatorship during the Argentine Dirty War between 1976 and 1983. During the Bougainville conflict , PNGDF helicopters were used to dispose of corpses of detainees that had died under torture, and in some cases, still-living victims. During the 1976–1983 Argentine Dirty War , many thousands of people disappeared , clandestinely kidnapped by groups acting for

3564-603: The 1970s and 1980s. Among the defendants are former Argentine "presidents" Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone , from the period of El Proceso . Prosecutors are basing their case in part on U.S. documents declassified in the 1990s and later, and obtained by the non-governmental organization, the National Security Archive , based at George Washington University in Washington, DC. On 27 May 2016, fifteen ex-military officials were found guilty. Reynaldo Bignone received

3672-527: The Argentinean Economy Ministry. The plane was flown back to Argentina and is now on display at the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos in Buenos Aires. A five-year trial (nicknamed the " ESMA mega-trial" or "Death Flights trial") of 54 former Argentine officials accused of running death flights and other crimes against humanity ( lesa humanidad ) heard 830 witnesses and investigated

3780-624: The Celibertis' children to be taken to their maternal grandparents in Montevideo. After Rodriguez and Celiberti were imprisoned and tortured in Brazil, they were taken to military prisons in Uruguay, and detained for the next five years. When democracy was restored in Uruguay in 1984, the couple were released. They confirmed all the published details of their kidnapping. In 1980, Brazilian courts convicted two inspectors of DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order, an official police branch in charge of

3888-663: The Colombian authorities to being responsible for the deaths of 6,000 individuals. Meanwhile, in 2003, Italian photographer Giancarlo Ceraudo had become intrigued by the death flights and, with the assistance of the investigative journalist Miriam Lewin , began looking for the aircraft that had been used. Lewin was a survivor of the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) , which was one of the dictatorship's most notorious detention, torture and extermination centres. They believed that PNA - Argentina Naval Prefecture Short SC.7 Skyvans were among

3996-549: The Conference of American Armies to deal with perceived threats in South America from political dissidents. A declassified CIA document dated 23 June 1976 explains that "in early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia met in Buenos Aires to prepare coordinated actions against subversive targets." According to the CIA, Operation Condor was a cooperative mission enabled by Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. The cooperation between

4104-620: The Dirty War and Operation Condor. Following continuous protests by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights groups, in 2003 the Argentine Congress, counting on President Nestor Kirchner and the ruling majority on both chambers full support, repealed the amnesty laws. The Argentine Supreme Court under separate review declared them unconstitutional in June 2005. The court's ruling enabled

4212-697: The Italian stay behind next – Operation Gladio . In April 1977, the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo , a group of mothers whose children had disappeared, started demonstrating each Thursday in front of the Casa Rosada on the plaza. They were seeking to learn the location and fates of their children. The disappearance in December 1977 of two French nuns and several founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo gained international attention. Authorities later identified their remains among

4320-558: The Office of Special Investigations, concluded in a 1983 memorandum that "officers of the United States government were directly responsible for protecting a person wanted by the government of France on criminal charges and in arranging his escape from the law." President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ordered the release of some military files concerning Operation Condor in 2000. There are documents that prove that, on that year attorney general Giancarlo Capaldo, an Italian magistrate, investigated

4428-515: The PLO in Israel. In a report later that month dated August 30, sent to Kissinger, Shlaudeman expresses repeated concern that assassinations' could seriously damage these countries international reputation, which were U.S. allies. In this memo to Kissinger, Shlaudeman says: "What we are trying to head off is a series of international murders that could do serious damage to the international status and reputation of

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4536-526: The Pinochet regime in November 1975, Operation Condor was the codename for a formal Southern Cone collaboration that included transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance and assassination, according to the National Security Archive's documentary evidence from U.S., Paraguayan, Argentine, and Chilean files." Under this codename mission, several people were killed. As

4644-532: The Southern Cone", underscored one "aspect of the program involving Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina envisages illegal operations outside Latin America against exiled terrorists, particularly in Europe." "The military-controlled governments of the Southern Cone", the document read, "all consider themselves targets of international Marxism." The document highlighted Condor's fundamental characteristic, constituting as part of

4752-460: The United States, Italy and Mexico. These plans were carried out in cases such as the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt in the United States. An undetermined number of foreigners were also arrested and tortured, including citizens of Spain, the UK, France and the United States. Condor officially ended when Argentina ousted the military dictatorship in 1983 (following its defeat in

4860-626: The Uruguayan army secretly crossed the border and entered Porto Alegre , capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul . There they kidnapped Universindo Rodriguez and Lilián Celiberti , an activist Uruguayan couple of the political opposition, along with her two children, Camilo and Francesca, five and three years old. The illegal operation failed because two Brazilian journalists, reporter Luiz Cláudio Cunha and photographer João Baptista Scalco from Veja magazine, had been warned by an anonymous phone call that

4968-509: The Uruguayan couple had been "disappeared." To check on the information, the two journalists went to the given address: an apartment in Porto Alegre. When they arrived, the journalists were at first taken to be other political opposition members by the armed men who had arrested Celiberti, and they were arrested in turn. Universindo Rodriguez and the children had already been clandestinely taken to Uruguay. When their identities were made clear,

5076-426: The Uruguayan military men who had arrested and tortured them, not one was prosecuted in Montevideo. The Law of Immunity, passed in 1986, provided amnesty to Uruguayan citizens who had committed acts of political repression and human rights abuses under the dictatorship. The 1979 Esso Prize, regarded as the most important prize of the Brazilian press, was awarded to Cunha and Scalco for their investigative journalism of

5184-484: The agreement later (June 1976), but refused to engage in actions outside Latin America. Mexico, along with Costa Rica, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Sweden, received many people fleeing as refugees from the terror regimes. The third phase of Operation Condor included plans to assassinate and take other measures against opponents of the military dictatorships in other countries, such as France, Portugal,

5292-489: The aircraft and also provided all its flight logs, among which was one covering the period of the death flights. A three-hour flight entry on 14 December 1977 led to the identification and 2017 conviction of pilots, Mario Daniel Arrú and Alejando Domingo D’Agostino for the murder of eight women and four men. A third crew member Enrique José de Saint Georges, was charged but died of natural causes while awaiting trial. The victims had been tortured, sedated prior to being loaded on

5400-416: The aircraft and their clothing was removed by members of the crew. In the air the Skyvan's ramp door was opened and the captives were pushed out to fall thousands of feet to their death in the South Atlantic. Meanwhile, GB Airlink had sold PA-51 to Win Aviation, headquartered in DeKalb, Illinois. In early 2023 it was announced that the company's owner, Andri Wiese, had agreed to allow it to be purchased by

5508-436: The aircraft that had participated in the death flights. By this time, the PNA had lost two Skyvans in the Falklands War , and had sold the remaining three. In 2010 Ceraudo and Lewin eventually tracked down one of these remaining Skyvan aircraft (serial number 'PA-51') to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where it was owned by GB Airlink, whose then owner allowed a Miami-based Argentinian sports journalist acting on their behalf to visit

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5616-405: The assassinations in Paris of the Bolivian ambassador to France last May and an Uruguayan military attache in 1974." The CIA report noted that the fundamental mission of Condor was the liquidation of "top-level terrorist leaders" as well as non-terrorist targets including "Uruguayan opposition politician Wilson Ferreira, if he should travel to Europe, and some leaders of Amnesty International." Condor

5724-679: The bodies washed up on beaches in December 1977 south of Buenos Aires, victims of death flights . Other members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continued the struggle for justice in the ensuing decades. In 1980, Regional Security Officer James Blystone had met with an Argentine Intelligence Source. In the declassified memo, Blystone had asked about the dissappearance for two Montoneros that had plans to travel from Mexico to Brazil to meet with other Montoneros. The Argentine Intelligence Source had explained that they had been taken and interrogated, and later contacted their Mexican and Brazilian counterparts for approval to conduct an operation to capture

5832-407: The bodies were thrown into the ocean. Secret police agent Osvaldo Romo confessed in a 1995 interview to having participated in death flights. Showing no remorse, he added, "Now, would it not be better throwing bodies into a volcano ?" In 2001, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos told the nation that during Pinochet's rule, 120 civilians had been tossed from helicopters into "the ocean, the lakes and

5940-516: The case. Hugo Cores, a former Uruguayan political prisoner, was the one who had called Cunha in warning. In 1993, he said to the Brazilian press: All the Uruguayans kidnapped abroad, around 180 people, are missing to this day. The only ones who managed to survive are Lilian, her children, and Universindo. After being overthrown, João Goulart was the first Brazilian president to die in exile. He died of an alleged heart attack in his sleep in Mercedes , Argentina, on 6 December 1976. Because an autopsy

6048-484: The countries for intelligence and security services had existed from as early as February 1974 to late May 1976 when it was formalized. Members of Condor coordinated their activities with one another, established a special network for communication, and constructed various types of training. Some of which included psychological warfare. The program was developed following a series of military coups d'états in South America: American journalist A. J. Langguth states in

6156-430: The countries involved." One month later in September, there is evidence that there was disagreement between Kissinger and the State Department over telling these nations to discontinue assassinations'. U.S. documents dated 17 April 1977, listed both Chile and Argentina as active in utilizing communications media for the purpose of broadcasting propaganda. The objective of the propaganda had two purposes. The first purpose

6264-447: The country and agree to not contact their family for months after their initial release. After democracy was restored in Argentina in 1983, the government set up the National Commission for Forced Disappearances (CONADEP), led by writer Ernesto Sabato . It collected testimony from hundreds of witnesses about victims of the regime and known abuses, documenting hundreds of secret prisons and detention centers , and identifying leaders of

6372-458: The covert operations. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet 's spy chief, Manuel Contreras , invited 50 intelligence officers from Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983. Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths directly attributable to Operation Condor

6480-473: The creation of Operation Condor, with the aim of "eliminating Marxist subversion". During the Conference of American Armies held in Caracas on 3 September 1973, Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, head of the Brazilian army, proposed to "extend the exchange of information" between various services in order to "struggle against subversion". In March 1974, representatives of the police forces of Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of

6588-465: The death flights had started before 1976, and continued until 1983. To carry out the flights, a military unit, Batallón de Aviación del Ejército 601 (Army Air Battalion 601), was set up, with a commander, sub-commander, chief of staff, and officers from five companies . Soldiers who refused to take part, as well as others who acted as airfield guards and runway cleaners, testified they had seen live people and corpses loaded onto aircraft; after taking off,

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6696-399: The death of 789 victims. A verdict was reached on 29 November 2017: 29 defendants were sentenced to life in prison, six were acquitted, and the nineteen remaining defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 25 years. Oregier Benavente, Augusto Pinochet's former personal helicopter pilot, has admitted that on numerous occasions he threw prisoners into the ocean or into

6804-414: The dictatorship. According to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons 8,961 persons disappeared between 1976 and 1983. Human rights groups in Argentina often cite a figure of 30,000 disappeared; Amnesty International estimates 20,000. Many were killed in death flights, a practice initiated by Admiral Luis María Mendía , usually after detention and torture. Typically they were drugged into

6912-548: The end of Operation Condor. J. Patrice McSherry has argued that aspects of Operation Condor fit the definition of state terrorism . Operation Condor, which took place in the context of the Cold War , had the tacit approval and material support of the United States. In 1968, U.S. General Robert W. Porter Jr. stated that: in order to facilitate the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries, we are ... endeavoring to foster inter-service and regional cooperation by assisting in

7020-414: The end of World War II. Historians writing for the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) established that the U.S. Army Intelligence Counterintelligence Corps had recruited Barbie for intelligence work in West Germany in April 1947, before facilitating his escape to South America "via a ' ratline ' operating through Italy." Barbie's cooperation with American intelligence was confirmed in

7128-403: The existence of a network of individual Southern Cone secret polices known as Red Condor . With tensions between Chile and Argentina rising and Argentina severely weakened as a result of the loss in Falklands War to the British military, the Argentine junta fell in 1983, which in turn led to more South American dictatorships falling. The fall of the Argentine junta has been regarded as marking in

7236-424: The government created a special branch of the South African Defence Force called the Delta 40. Hundreds of ANC -, PAC -, and SWAPO -affiliated activists and guerrilla fighters were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean off the Namibian coast during the height of the South African Border War . Aircraft were also used to dispose of the bodies of prisoners killed by other means beforehand; in one example, five members of

7344-725: The government to renew the prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. DINA civil agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, who was prosecuted in Argentina for crimes against humanity in 2004, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of General Prats. It has been claimed that suspected Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie was involved in the murder as well. He and fellow extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra testified in Rome in December 1995 before federal judge María Servini de Cubría that DINA agents Clavel and Michael Townley were directly involved in this assassination. In 2003, Judge Servini de Cubría requested that Mariana Callejas (Michael Townley's wife) and Cristoph Willikie,

7452-560: The government's victims. There were also hundreds of cases of babies and children being taken from mothers in prison who had been kidnapped and later disappeared; the children were handed over in illegal adoptions to families and associates of the regime. The CIA also reported that Operation Condor countries took very well to the idea of working together, and developed their own communications network and combined training initiatives in areas such as psychological warfare. A 2016 declassified CIA report dated 9 May 1977, titled "Counterterrorism in

7560-430: The governments of Argentina , Bolivia , Chile , Paraguay , and Uruguay ; Brazil signed the agreement later on. Ecuador and Peru later joined the operation in a more peripheral role. The United States government provided planning, coordinating and training on torture. Such support was at times routed through the CIA. However, a letter which was written by renowned DINA assassin Michael Townley in 1976 noted

7668-417: The ground, needled under his fingernails, and shocked via his genitals and teeth to extract information about Che Guevara. Nazi leader Klaus Barbie was Banzer's advisor in the methods of torture. Evidence in 1999 linked these torture chambers to Operation Condor. Barbie's long-term presence in Bolivia, and his role as advisor to Hugo Banzer, can be traced back to Barbie's relationship with US intelligence at

7776-467: The help of the Italian Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie (see also Operation Charly ). Recently, since the opening of confidential archives, it has been discovered that there were operative units composed of Italians, used at ESMA for the repression of groups of Italian Montoneros. This unit called "Shadow Group" was led by Gaetano Saya at the time Officer of

7884-511: The high peaks of the Andes . Flights were also used to make bodies of already murdered dissidents disappear. One person's testimony described the procedure: corpses were put in gunny sacks ; each sack was attached to a piece of rail using wire, and a second gunny sack put around both. The sacks were carried by pickup truck to helicopters that flew them to the coast of the Valparaíso region , where

7992-459: The journalists had exposed the secret operation by their presence. It was suspended. The exposure of the operation is believed to have prevented the murder of the couple and their two young children, as the news of the political kidnapping of Uruguayan nationals in Brazil made headlines in the Brazilian press. It became an international scandal. The military governments of both Brazil and Uruguay were embarrassed. A few days later, officials arranged for

8100-463: The key Condor detention center in Argentina," and cautioned that "these figures are likely underestimates". In 2009, McSherry offered a range of "hundreds, or thousands ... murdered in Condor operations," acknowledging that "the number still has not been finally determined". On 22 December 1992, torture victim Martín Almada and José Agustín Fernández, a Paraguayan judge, visited a police station in

8208-630: The meeting, and between the period of September 24 to 27 that same year, a joint coalition from the members of the Argentina States Secretaries for Information (SIDE), and the  Uruguayan Military Intelligence Service worked to carry out an operation against the OPR-33, the Uruguay Terrorist organization in Buenos Aires. During this operation, the SIDE reported the destruction and elimination of

8316-453: The military following these trials, Raúl Alfonsín 's government passed two amnesty laws protecting military officers involved in human rights abuses: the 1986 Ley de Punto Final ( law of closure ) and the 1987 Ley de Obediencia Debida ( law of due obedience) , ending prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. In 1989–1990, President Carlos Menem pardoned the leaders of the junta who were serving sentences in what he said

8424-517: The military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Manuel Contreras , chief of DINA (the Chilean secret police), in Santiago de Chile, officially creating the Plan Condor. According to French journalist Marie-Monique Robin , author of Escadrons de la mort, l'école française (2004, Death Squads, The French School ), General Rivero, intelligence officer of

8532-450: The number still has not been finally determined – were abducted, tortured, and murdered in Condor operations." Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests, monks and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals, and suspected guerrillas such as prominent union leader Marcelo Santuray in Argentina or journalist Carlos Prats in Chile. Condor operatives participated in tactics such as death flights . Although it

8640-506: The operation members included Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. Countries who were most enthused about the course of the Operation were Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. On September 20, 1976, the Director of the Argentina Army Intelligence Service met "his Chilean counterpart in Santiago to deliberate on their next actions about the fundamental aims of the ‘condor.’”   Following

8748-428: The operation's front-line troops. The infamous " death flights ", theorized in Argentina by Luis María Mendía – and previously used during the Algerian War (1954–1962) by French forces – were widely used. Government forces took victims by plane or helicopter out to sea, dropping them to their deaths in planned disappearances. It was said that from this military bombardment that OPR-33 infrastructure located in Argentina

8856-575: The operation. In the words of the Magistrate, on 26 October, 2000 , "[...] I can neither confirm nor deny because until December Argentine, Brazilian, Paraguayan and Chilean militaries [military personnel] will be subject to criminal trial..." According to an official statement by the Italian government, it was unclear whether the government would prosecute the accused military officers or not, As of November 2021 , nobody in Brazil had been convicted of human rights violations for actions committed under

8964-460: The organization of integrated command and control centers; the establishment of common operating procedures; and the conduct of joint and combined training exercises. According to American historian J. Patrice McSherry , based on formerly secret CIA documents from 1976, in the 1960s and early 1970s plans were developed among international security officials at the U.S. Army School of the Americas and

9072-533: The other Montoneros that were expecting their arrival. Once they were under custody, they had utilized fake documents to check into their hotel to impersonate their presence and not alert any other Montoneros of their capture. They were imprisoned at Campo de Mayo . It was also confirmed in this memo that if a Montonero was captured and investigated to later find that they weren't a "full fledged member or combantant" they would be allowed limited freedom and able to contact their families periodically, so long as they leave

9180-414: The period of operation are 7,000-30,000 in Argentina, 3,000-10,000 in Chile, 116–546 in Bolivia, 434–1,000 in Brazil, 200–400 in Paraguay and 123–215 in Uruguay. While many sources combine these numbers into a single death toll attributable to Operation Condor, killings directly linked to Condor's cross-border military and intelligence cooperation between South American dictatorships are only a small subset of

9288-482: The planes returned empty. On 12 March 2016, Interpol , through the National Police of Colombia , arrested Juan Carlos Francisco Bossi in the city of Medellín . Also known as El doctor , Bossi was accused of activating the death flights during the Dirty War and was wanted by Argentine authorities for taking part in death flights and forced disappearances of over 30,000 people. After his arrest, Bossi confessed to

9396-524: The political repression during the military regime) for having arrested the journalists in Lilian's apartment in Porto Alegre. They were João Augusto da Rosa and Orandir Portassi Lucas. The reporters and the Uruguayans had identified them as taking part in the kidnapping. This event confirmed the direct involvement of the Brazilian government in the Condor Operation. In 1991, Governor Pedro Simon arranged for

9504-550: The pseudonym "Klaus Altman," and lived in La Paz under the cover of working for the Gehlen Organization -affiliated MEREX A.G. company, which facilitated arms deals with anti-communist Third World governments. Barbie's identity was revealed in the early 1970s, but he was not extradited to France to stand trial for war crimes until 1983. During his trial, his relationship with US intelligence became more public. Allan Ryan, Director of

9612-468: The report stated, "Prominent victims of Condor include two former Uruguayan legislators and a former Bolivian president, Juan José Torres , murdered in Buenos Aires, a former Chilean Minister of the Interior, Bernardo Leighton , as well as former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year old American colleague, Ronni Moffitt , assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C." Cooperation among various security services had existed prior to

9720-668: The rivers of Chile". During the Violencia (1948–1958), the Colombian military had dissenters thrown from airplanes above areas under the control of guerillas. The method was allegedly used during the Guatemalan genocide . In one instance on 7 July 1975 – one month to the date after the assassination of José Luis Arenas – a contingent of uniformed army paratroopers arrived in Ixcán Grande and abducted 30 men. Death flights were used during

9828-460: The rocky mountains between Dili and Aileu, in Dili Bay, and in the sea around Jaco Island near the eastern tip of the island. Security forces developed various euphemisms to refer to these flights including mandi laut ("taking a bath in the sea") referring to the practice of weighting the bodies of suspects with rocks and dumping them from a helicopter into the sea, piknik ke Builico ("going for

9936-469: The security services of the Southern Cone nations. While Peru had no representatives at the secret November 1975 meeting in Santiago de Chile, there is evidence of its involvement. For instance, as late as June 1980, Peru was known to have collaborated with Argentine agents of 601 Intelligence Battalion in the kidnapping, torture and "disappearance" of a group of Montoneros living in exile in Lima . Brazil signed

10044-617: The state of Rio Grande do Sul to officially recognize the kidnapping of the Uruguayans and gave them financial compensation. The democratic government of President Luis Alberto Lacalle in Uruguay was inspired to do the same a year later. Police officer Pedro Seelig, the head of the DOPS at the time of the kidnapping, was identified by the Uruguayan couple as the man in charge of the operation in Porto Alegre. While Seelig stood trial in Brazil, Universindo and Lílian remained in prison in Uruguay and were prevented from testifying. The Brazilian policeman

10152-658: The torture and death squads. Two years later, the Juicio a las Juntas (Trial of the Juntas) largely succeeded in proving the crimes of the top officers of the various juntas that had formed the self-styled National Reorganization Process . Most of the top officers put on trial were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment , including Jorge Rafael Videla , Emilio Eduardo Massera , Roberto Eduardo Viola , Armando Lambruschini , Raúl Agosti , Rubén Graffigna , Leopoldo Galtieri , Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo . Under pressure from

10260-605: The total. McSherry, for example, estimated in 2002 that at least 402 individuals were killed or "disappeared" in Condor operations: "Some 132 Uruguayans (127 in Argentina, 3 in Chile, and 2 in Paraguay), 72 Bolivians (36 in Chile, 36 in Argentina), 119 Chileans, 51 Paraguayans (in Argentina), 16 Brazilians (9 in Argentina and 7 in Chile), and at least 12 Argentines in Brazil". McSherry added that "some 200 persons passed through Automotores Orletti,

10368-548: The transfer, and they were injected with Pentothal . And shortly after, they became really drowsy, and from there we loaded them onto trucks and headed off for the airfield." At the time, Scilingo said that the Argentine Navy was "still hiding what happened during the Dirty War". In May 2010, Spain extradited pilot Julio Alberto Poch to Argentina. Born in 1952, Poch had been arrested in Valencia , Spain, on September 23, 2009, and

10476-610: Was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations , coups , and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America which formally existed from 1975 to 1983. They were backed by the United States and, allegedly, France (which denies involvement), Venezuela , and Colombia , who were collaborators and financiers of

10584-486: Was acquitted for lack of evidence. Lilian and Universindo's later testimony revealed that four officers of the secret Uruguayan Counter-information Division—two majors and two captains—took part in the operation with the consent of Brazilian authorities. Captain Glauco Yanonne, was personally responsible for torturing Universindo Rodriquez in the DOPS headquarters in Porto Alegre. Although Universindo and Lilian identified

10692-486: Was also seen by the CIA to be "engaged in non-violent activities, including psychological warfare and a propaganda campaign" that utilized the reach of the media to "publicize crimes and atrocities committed by terrorists." Additionally, in an appeal to "national pride and the national conscience", Condor called for the citizenry comprising its member nations to "report anything out of the ordinary in their neighborhoods." However, Chile and Argentina relations eventually came to

10800-487: Was an attempt at healing and reconciliation. In the late 1990s, due to attacks on American nationals in Argentina and revelations about CIA funding of the Argentine military, and after an explicit 1990 Congressional prohibition, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered the declassification of thousands of State Department documents related to U.S.-Argentine activities going back to 1954. These documents revealed U.S. complicity in

10908-419: Was described by the CIA as "a cooperative effort by the intelligence/security services of several South American countries to combat terrorism and subversion", combatting guerrillas was used as a pretext for its existence, as guerrillas were not substantial enough in numbers to control territory, gain material support by any foreign power, or otherwise threaten national security. Condor's initial members were

11016-452: Was destroyed. In May 1976, members of Plan Condor met in Santiago, Chile, at which the participating countries discussed "long-range cooperation... [that] went well beyond information exchange" and were given code names. In July, the CIA gathered intelligence that members of Plan Condor had the intention of striking "against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing abroad." In June 1976, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger received

11124-437: Was justification to some of their fears, noting that Uruguayan Foreign Minister Blanco's use of the term "Third World War" seemed intended to justify harsh and sweeping "wartime" measures, and emphasizing the international and institutional aspect, thereby justifying the exercise of powers outside national borders. Yet he felt that by reacting too strongly these countries could engender a strong terrorist counter reaction similar to

11232-509: Was listed only as utilizing the local press, "Patria", as its main propaganda producer. A meeting that was to have taken place in March 1977, discussing "Psychological warfare techniques against terrorists and leftist extremists", was canceled due to the restructuring of the intelligence services of both Argentina and Paraguay. In late 1977, due to unusual storms, numerous corpses washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires, producing evidence of some of

11340-399: Was never performed, the true cause of his death remains unknown. Death flights Death flights (Spanish: vuelos de la muerte ) are a form of extrajudicial killing in which the victims are dropped to their death from airplanes or helicopters into oceans, large rivers or mountains. Death flights have been carried out in a number of internal conflicts , including by France during

11448-553: Was somewhat contradicted in a report written from Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry W. Shlaudeman to Henry Kissinger on 3 August 1976, it was reported that the military regimes in South America were coming together to join forces for security reasons. They were concerned about the spread of Marxism and the implications that this could have on their grasp on power. This new force operated in other member's countries in secrecy. Their goal: to seek and kill terrorists of

11556-418: Was to defuse/counter criticism of the governments involved by foreign media and the second was to cultivate national pride in the local populace. One propaganda piece created by Chile entitled, "Chile after Allende", was distributed amongst the governments acting under Condor. However, the document notes only that Uruguay and Argentina were the only two countries to acknowledge the agreement. Paraguay's government

11664-465: Was wanted in Argentina for his alleged participation as a pilot on the death flights. At his trial in February 2013, Poch denied that he had participated in the death flights, claiming everything he knew about them came from what he had read. After spending eight years in an Argentine jail, Poch was found not guilty by a court in Buenos Aires. In April 2015, further arrests were made. It was reported that

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