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from the archives:


Operation Condor explained

Latin America: the 30 years’ dirty war


by Pierre Abramovici, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), August
2001


A Mexican judge has ruled that an exiled Argentinian torturer must be
extradited to stand trial in Spain; a Buenos Aires court has waived
military immunity against criminal charges. And evidence mounts of
decades of war by Latin American dictatorships, with the connivance of
the United States, against leftwing dissidents.

For the Common Defense ! was a quasi-documentary short in MGM’s Crime
Does Not Pay series. It was made in 1942 and featured a mysterious
"Senor Castillo of the Chilean intelligence service", who assured
filmgoers that Chile was playing its part alongside the western
democracies in the fight against the dictatorships and foreign agents
that threatened the country. In the ruthless struggle, the main
weapon, he said, was cooperation between police forces throughout
North and South America.

The film was inspired by the FBI and designed as an attack on Nazi
spies in Latin America and a demonstration of cooperation between
police and intelligence services on a continental scale. There, in the
middle of the second world war, are the seeds of Operation Condor, a
continental campaign of repression waged by Latin American
dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s against the new enemy -
"international communism".

The ramifications of Operation Condor were first revealed in December
1992 by several tonnes of documents from the Stroessner dictatorship,
soon dubbed the "archives of terror", discovered in a police station
in Lambare, 15 miles from the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion. The tale
they told was confirmed in detail by CIA documents declassified last
November.

The United States had begun warning South American military commanders
about the dangers of communism at the Inter-American Conference on the
Problems of War and Peace, held at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City
in February 1945. Bilateral agreements on mutual military assistance
followed in 1951. They covered the supply of US arms and funding to
Latin American countries, the secondment of US military advisers, and
the training of Latin American officers in the US and at the US army’s
School of the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone.

The move towards "continental defence against communism" was speeded
by the victory of Castro’s revolution in 1959. The following year
General Theodore F Bogart, US Southern Command supremo, invited his
Latin American colleagues to a "friendly meeting" at his base in the
Canal Zone to discuss problems of common interest. The outcome was an
annual Conference of American Armies (CAA), first held at Fort Amador
in Panama. In 1964 it was transferred to West Point, and from 1965 it
met every two years. The West Point venue, a secretive meeting place
symptomatic of cold war paranoia, was the heart of the future
Operation Condor.

Sharing intelligence

Apart from "international communism", a convenient catchphrase for all
political opponents, Latin American military commanders were obsessed
with links between their intelligence services. At its second meeting,
the CAA called for the creation of a standing committee in the Panama
Canal Zone to exchange information and intelligence (1). In response,
a continent-wide communication network was established and top-secret
bilateral intelligence meetings were held between Argentina and
Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, Paraguay and
Bolivia, and others.

Files made available by those countries were circulated through a
network of military attachés known as Agremil. Most were supplied by
military intelligence services (G-2), but others came from security
police or shadier bodies like the Organismo Coordinador de Operaciones
Antisubversivas (Ocoa), a Uruguayan death squad that carried out
interrogations, torture and executions, mainly in Argentina (2).

At the CAA’s 10th meeting, held in Caracas on 3 September 1973,
General Breno Borges Fortes, commander-in-chief of the Brazilian army,
agreed that the struggle against communism was exclusively a matter
for the armed forces of the individual countries. As far as collective
action was concerned, "the only effective methods are the exchange of
experience and information, plus technical assistance when
requested" (3). On this basis, the CAA decided to "strengthen
information exchange in order to counter terrorism and control
subversive elements in each country" (4).

From the time of Juan Domingo Peron’s return to power in 1973 to the
1976 putsch, when most of South America was gradually coming under the
thumb of military regimes on the Brazilian model, Argentina lived
through a curious transition period. Its police and armed forces
stepped up repression and authorised the establishment of death squads
like the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA). But, at the same
time, it was the only country in the Southern Cone in which thousands
of mainly Chilean and Uruguayan victims of political and social
repression were able to take refuge.

In March 1974 Chilean, Uruguayan and Bolivian police leaders met with
the deputy chief of the Argentinian federal police, Alberto Villar
(joint founder of the AAA), to investigate ways of working together to
destroy what they saw as the hotbed of subversion constituted by the
presence of thousands of foreign political refugees in Argentina. The
Chilean representative, a general of the carabinieri (military
police), proposed that a police officer or member of the armed forces
be accredited to every embassy as a security agent in order to
coordinate operations with the police and security authorities of each
country. He also called for the creation of "an intelligence centre
where we can obtain information on individual Marxists and ...
exchange programmes and information about politicians. In addition,"
he argued, "we must be able to move freely across the frontiers
between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina and operate in all three
countries without an official warrant" (5).

Villar promised that the Argentinian Federal Police’s Foreign Affairs
Department (DAE) would deal with foreigners that neighbouring juntas
wanted out of the way. In August 1974 the corpses of foreign,
especially Bolivian, refugees started to appear on Buenos Aires refuse
tips. On 30 September a bomb placed in Buenos Aires by a Chilean
commando group led by CIA agent (or former agent) Michael Townley
killed General Carlos Prats, commander-in-chief of the Chilean army
under the Popular Unity government, who was the spearhead of
opposition to Pinochet.

Police and military commando groups now crossed borders at will. In
March and April 1975 more than two dozen Uruguayans were arrested in
Buenos Aires by Argentinian and Uruguayan police officers, who
interrogated them jointly in Argentinian police stations. Jorge Isaac
Fuentes Alarcon, an Argentinian militant, was arrested on the
Paraguayan border by Paraguayan police. As Chile’s National Commission
on Truth and Reconciliation (the Retting commission) subsequently
established in its report of 8 February 1991 to President Patricio
Aylwin (6), he was interrogated not only by Paraguayan police and
Argentinian intelligence officers but also by officials of the US
embassy in Buenos Aires, who passed information on to Chile’s National
Intelligence Directorate (Dina).

State within a state

Meanwhile, Chile had put the finishing touches to its own system of
repression. Following the putsch of 11 September 1973, for which US
president Richard Nixon and his secretary of state Henry Kissinger
bore direct responsibility, Pinochet gave Colonel Manuel Contreras
full powers to "extirpate the cancer of communism" from the country.
Dina soon became a state within the state.

The Chilean dictatorship was particularly exercised by the presence of
large numbers of implacable opponents abroad. It had managed to kill
General Prats, but in February 1975 the anti-Castro Cubans recruited
for the purpose bungled the assassination of Carlos Altamirano and
Volodia Teitelboim, the leaders of the exiled Chilean Socialist and
Communist parties. In early April Contreras visited the Latin American
capitals in order to persuade the security services of the whole
continent to set up a special anti-exile force. On 25 August he was at
CIA headquarters in Washington, where he met Vernon Walters, deputy
director responsible for Latin America.

Two days later he had a meeting with Rafael Rivas Vasquez, assistant
director of the Venezuelan intelligence agency (Disip), in Caracas:
"He explained ... that he wanted to place agents in all Chilean
embassies abroad and that he was already training embassy officials
who were prepared to act as intelligence agents if required. He said
he had already made several successful trips to obtain the support of
Latin American intelligence services. Everything was based on
unwritten agreements" (7). According to Rivas, the Venezuelan
government ordered the Disip to reject Contreras’ overtures. It was
the only refusal. All the other countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay,
Paraguay and Bolivia) agreed.

At the same time the order was given to set up an anti-subversion
network in Europe based on Italian rightwing terrorist groups. Unable
to get at Carlos Altamirano, who was living under armed guard in the
Federal Republic of Germany, the assassins turned their attention to
Bernardo Leighton, Chile’s former vice president and a founder member
of the Christian Democratic Party. On 6 October 1975 Leighton and his
wife were attacked by a fascist hit squad in Rome. They survived the
shooting, but Mrs Leighton was left permanently paralysed. Despite
this failure, Pinochet had a meeting with Stefano Delle Chiaie, leader
of the Italian commando groups, who agreed to remain at Chile’s
disposal.

At its meeting of 19-26 October 1975 in Montevideo, the CAA gave the
go-ahead for a first "working meeting on national intelligence
services", prepared by Contreras. It took place from 25 November to 1
December in Santiago de Chile and was classified top secret.
Contreras’ main proposal was the creation of a continental database
"similar to the Interpol database in Paris, but specialising in
subversion". This was the beginning of the Chilean contribution to
Operation Condor.

According to the CIA, which claims not to have heard of Condor until
1976 (8), three of the countries involved, namely Chile, Argentina and
Uruguay, "extended cooperation on anti-subversion activities to the
assassination of high-ranking terrorists living in exile in Europe".
Although it had been accepted for years that information was to be
exchanged bilaterally, "a third, top-secret phase of Operation Condor
apparently involved training special teams from member countries for
joint operations that included the assassination of terrorists and
terrorist sympathisers. When a terrorist or sympathiser from a member
country was identified, a team would be sent to locate the target and
keep him under surveillance. Then a hit squad would be despatched. The
special teams were made up of people from one or several Condor states
who were supplied with false identity papers issued by member
countries."

The CIA claims that the operation centre for phase three was in Buenos
Aires, where a special team had been set up. Meanwhile, bilateral
meetings between the countries of the Southern Cone continued as usual
under the aegis of the CAA, and their effects were just as devastating
(9).

Many Condor meetings took place in 1976. They were often attended by
the same people who took part in CAA bilateral meetings. According to
the CIA, "although cooperation between the various intelligence and
security services had existed for some time, it was not formalised
until late May 1976 at a Condor meeting in Santiago de Chile, where
the main topic was long-term cooperation between the services of the
participating countries going well beyond the exchange of information.
The Condor member countries identified themselves by code numbers:
Condor One, Condor Two, etc.

It was a bad year for their political opponents, who had taken refuge
wherever they could. Under the pretext of attacking terrorists
committed to armed resistance, the murderers struck out at anyone,
crossing frontiers at will. Increasing numbers of political opponents
were assassinated or "disappeared". On 8 June, in the course of a
friendly chat in Santiago, Kissinger assured Pinochet that "the people
of the United States are wholeheartedly behind you ... and wish you
every success" (10).

Flying like a condor

But the scale of repression made the existence of Condor increasingly
difficult to hide. The CIA itself became a source of embarrassing
rumours as staff exchanged quips about colleagues sent abroad because
they could "fly like a condor". Finally, Contreras’ own policy of
targeted assassinations put paid to the operation. On 21 September
1976 he had Chile’s former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier,
assassinated in Washington. It was a major blunder. The US
investigators were determined to identify those responsible. The FBI’s
chief officer in Buenos Aires filed a special report on phase three of
Operation Condor, and extracts found their way into the American
press. A Congressional committee of inquiry was quickly set up. The
Chileans responded by disbanding Dina and replacing it by another
organisation. Contreras was ditched.

The newly elected US president Jimmy Carter had made human rights part
of his platform. He was not prepared to countenance Condor-type
operations. At the very least, he did not want the US involved in
them. The prevailing view is that the Carter administration pressured
the Latin American countries to close Condor down.

Representatives of all the Condor member states met in Buenos Aires on
13-15 December 1976 to discuss future plans in the light of the new
situation. The Argentinians, who had outstripped all the other
dictatorships in the ferocity of their methods since the putsch of 23
March, took matters in hand. With help from Paraguay, they sought a
more secure and discreet channel for anti-subversion operations in the
form of the Latin American Anti-Communist Federation (CAL), an
offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL).

The CAL held its third meeting in Asuncion in March 1977. It was
attended by the top brass of the dictatorships, including General
Gustavo Leigh, a member of the Chilean junta, and General Jorge
Videla, the Argentinian president, together with an assortment of
Latin America’s torturers and death squad members. Their main problems
were the US’ new strategy of re-establishing democracy in Latin
America, the spread of guerrilla movements in Central America, and the
position of whole sections of the Catholic Church that appeared to be
an integral part of the international communist movement.

A plan proposed by the Bolivians, named after the Bolivian dictator,
was adopted. Its purpose was to "eradicate" proponents of liberation
theology. Under the Banzer plan, which culminated in the assassination
of Archbishop Oscar Romero in San Salvador, hundreds of priests,
monks, nuns, lay members of religious communities and bishops were
executed,

An end to formal restraints

Taking charge of repression throughout Latin America, the Argentinians
discarded all formal restraints. The coordination of repression was
entrusted to death squads. Even though some were composed of soldiers
and policemen, this was tantamount to privatising anti-subversion
operations. At the same time bilateral intelligence meetings of
national security agencies, as well as meetings of the CAA, continued
under the aegis of the US. In 1977 the CAA met in Managua, Nicaragua,
and in 1979 in Bogota, Colombia. The Argentinians also sent several
missions to Central America to assist local armed forces and political
police. In the spring of 1979 they started anti-subversion training
courses in Buenos Aires to reduce dependence on the US war schools.
The fall of the Somoza regime in July 1979 encouraged the Latin
American dictatorships to standardise their anti-subversion methods.

The CAL’s fourth meeting, chaired by Argentinian general Suarez Mason
in Buenos Aires in September 1980, favoured the adoption of an
"Argentinian solution" throughout Latin America. From April 1980 the
US Department of Defence was aware that Chile, Argentina, Uruguay,
Paraguay and Brazil were once again pursuing the idea of an
"international anti-terrorist organisation" - Condor in a new guise.
Meanwhile, the CAL was coordinating massacres carried out by death
squads and security forces in Central America. The Agremil files
continued to circulate in the general staffs, yielding a rich harvest
of cross-border arrests, exchanges of prisoners and international
torture squads.

In 1981 the CAA meeting was held in Washington, following the election
of a Republican president, Ronald Reagan. Developments took a new turn
as the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua gave fresh impetus to anti-
subversion cooperation (11). The participants decided to renew their
bilateral agreements on the exchange of information about so-called
terrorists and to set up a permanent CAA secretariat. This came into
being on 24 May 1984 in Santiago de Chile.

When Argentina returned to democracy in 1985, the Chilean military
regime was left as the last rampart against communism in South America
except for Paraguay. The Reagan administration entrusted its programme
of secret war in Central America to the CIA , the CAL and the private
sector. The CAA remained committed to an ideology of war against
international communism, except that the term now included human
rights activists as well as leftwing and clerical opponents. Judges
and journalists calling for torturers to be brought to trial were
gradually included, as were critics of corruption, in which the
military were deeply implicated..

Operation Condor as such vanished in the jungles of Central America
when the US took over the struggle against the Nicaraguan Sandanistas.
But it was the end of the cold war and the accumulation of its own
excesses that dealt it a fatal blow. Strictly speaking, it was
directed against only a few dozen or few hundred targeted victims. But
the overall toll of repression in the Southern Cone alone during the
period of its existence totalled over 50,000 murdered, 35,000
disappeared and 400,000 imprisoned.

Although torture and executions are no longer institutionalised on a
continental scale, there is no reason to believe these practices have
ceased. The crimes of the Colombian paramilitaries linked to sections
of the country’s armed forces are clear evidence to the contrary. On 8
May 2000 a report by the Committee on Hemispheric Security of the
Organisation of American States (OAS) reviewed 10 years of anti-
subversion cooperation among the various South and Central American
states. While the designated enemy is now drugs-traffickers rather
than communists and there are references to human rights, the message
is still the same.

Numerous Latin American states have concluded agreements among
themselves and with the US aimed at greater bilateral or multilateral
cooperation against terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking.
These agreements confirm the role of the armed forces in social
control.

Similarly, since the mid-1990s and under the aegis of the US, the
Latin American countries have increased their bilateral exchange
arrangements. In the intelligence field alone, dozens of arrangements
are in force, in addition to the annual conference of the intelligence
services of the armies of the OAS member states. The CAA still meets
(in Argentina in 1995 and in Ecuador in 1997). A multilateral military
conference on intelligence services, the first since the meeting set
up by Contreras in 1975, was organised by the Bolivian army on 8-10
March 1999. It was attended by representatives of Argentina, Brazil,
Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, the US (Southern Command), Uruguay and
Venezuela.

"Security in the Americas", so dear to the US, does not necessarily
give first place to democracy. It would not take much for Operation
Condor to rise from the ashes.

__________________


Notes:

1) Permanent Executive Secretariat of the Conference of American
Armies (PESCAA), Information Bulletin no. 1, Santiago, Chile, 1985

(2) See Nunca Más (never again): a report by Argentina’s National
Commission on Disappeared People, Faber in association with Index on
Censorship, London, 1986.

(3) See Diffusion de l’information sur l’Amérique Latine (DIAL), no.
125, Paris, 25 October 1973

(4) PESCAA, Information Bulletin No.1, op. cit.

(5) Stenographer’s record published by El Autentico, Buenos Aires, 10
December 1975.

(6) The full text of the report is available in English translation at
www.nd.edu/

(7) Testimony given on 29 June 1979 to a Washington court during the
trial of Orlando Letelier’s assassins.

(8) Whether this claim is true or false, the fact remains that
Contreras was a CIA informer from 1974 to 1977 and was on the agency’s
payroll until 1975 ("by mistake", the CIA claims), as revealed by a
declassified document submitted to the US Congress at its request on
19 September 2000. See El Nuevo Herald, Miami, 20 September 2000.

(9) The Argentinians alone did not rely entirely on the United States
in their "dirty war". In 1976 a French military mission was sent to
Buenos Aires to train the Argentinian armed forces in anti-subversion
operations.

(10) Declassified document quoted in El Pais, 28 February 1999

(11) On 1 December 1981 the US administration released $19m to fund
the training of an initial contingent of 500 Contras (Nicaraguan
counter-revolutionaries) by Argentinian officers.

__________________