Revealed: US-Backed Torture, Killings in Latin America

March 07, 2013 from Democracy Now!

A historic trial underway in Argentina is set to reveal new details about how Latin American countries coordinated with each other in the 1970s and '80s to eliminate political dissidents. The campaign known as "Operation Condor" involved military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. They worked together to track down, kidnap and kill people they labeled as terrorists: leftist activists, labor organizers, students, priests, journalists, guerilla fighters and their families. The campaign was launched by the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and evidence shows the CIA and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were complicit from its outset. DNow! is joined by John Dinges, author of "The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents." The book brings together interviews and declassified intelligence records to reconstruct the once-secret events.

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Operation Condor

Operation Condor was a campaign of political repression and terror involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America. The program aimed to eradicate communist or Soviet influ... Explore this topic

Augusto Pinochet

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet, was an army general and dictator of Chile from 1973 until transferring power to a democratically elected president in 1990. He was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998 and pres... Explore this topic

Henry Kissinger

Henry Alfred Kissinger is a German-born American writer, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon... Explore this topic

CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency is one of the principal intelligence-gathering agencies of the United States federal government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, with responsibility for providing national security intelli... Explore this topic

John Dinges

John Dinges was special correspondent for Time, Washington Post and ABC Radio in Chile. With a group of Chilean journalists, he cofounded the Chilean magazine APSI. Since 1996 he is associate professor and director of radio at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.... Explore this topic

Peru

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country located in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian territory was ho... Explore this topic

Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is the second largest country in both South America and the Latin America region. The country is a federation of 23 provinces and the autonomous city of Buenos Aires, its capital and largest city. It is the eighth-largest country i... Explore this topic

Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake P... Explore this topic

US Secretary of State

The Secretary of State is a senior official in the Federal Government of the United States of America heading the Department of State, principally concerned with foreign affairs and is considered to be the U.S. equivalent of a foreign minister. The Secretary of State, appointe... Explore this topic

Latin America

拉丁美洲简称拉美，通常指称美洲大片以罗曼语族语言作为官方语言或者主要语言的地区。因为罗曼语族衍生于拉丁语，拉丁美洲由而得名。关于拉丁美洲究竟由哪些国家组成存在着不同的意见。从社会政治角度说，拉丁美洲主要包括美洲西班牙语和葡萄牙语盛行的地区：墨西哥、大部分的中美洲、南美洲以及加勒比海地区。这时它是伊比利亚美洲的同义词。尽管拉丁美洲的概念是由法国皇帝拿破仑三世提出的，其它罗曼语族的语言占主导的地区，例如较多说法语的加拿大魁北克通常不被包括在拉丁美洲范畴内。现在有时，特别是在美国，拉丁美洲的这个词被用来指所有美国以南的美洲，包括像伯利兹、圭亚那、牙买... Explore this topic

Also See

Operation Condor

Augusto Pinochet

CIA

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