Chile court: US had role in 'Missing' killings

[xchrom]

Last edited Tue Jul 1, 2014, 04:42 AM - Edit history (1)

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_CHILE_US_HUMAN_RIGHTS_RULING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-01-03-52-51

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A Chilean court said U.S. military intelligence services played a key role that led to the 1973 killings of two Americans in Chile in a case that inspired the Oscar-winning film "Missing."

A court ruling released late Monday said former U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis gave information to Chilean officials about journalist Charles Horman and student Frank Teruggi that led to their arrest and execution just days after the 1973 coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power.

"The military intelligence services of the United States had a fundamental role in the creation of the murders of the two American citizens in 1973, providing Chilean military officers with the information that led to their deaths," the ruling by Judge Jorge Zepeda said.

Zepeda also upheld the decision to charge retired Chilean army Col. Pedro Espinoza with the murders, and Rafael Gonzalez, a former civilian counterintelligence agent, as an accomplice in Horman's murder. The two Chileans and Davis had been indicted in 2011.

[BootinUp]

1. Wow, only took 40 years. nt

[merrily]

2. Rec'd for visibility. If true, how awful and sad.

[villager]

3. But remember, if you're an apologist, unchecked military intelligence gathering is "harmless"

...for us citizens!

Besides, why do you love Putin!?

[xchrom]

4. +1

[BainsBane]

5. This has nothing to do with Putin

Or ridiculous digs at DUers.

[villager]

6. Which is why you stopped by to make a ridiculous dig....

...instead of commenting on the story itself?

[BainsBane]

7. I read the story because I care about Chile

and US involvement in the coup. Judy Lynn posted in earlier today. Whatever is going on in your head that makes you connect this to Putin, I can't begin to fathom.

[villager]

20. you haven't seen the Putin joke before on DU?

Never mind then.

[WinkyDink]

18. The above post was not a dig at all, let alone a "ridiculous" one.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. Xchrome please correct spelling "Chie''

More people will read this necessary part of US history.Thanks as always for the post.

[xchrom]

9. done. thanks. nt

[malaise]

10. One day the true story will be told

about the US' role in the slaughter of the left in this hemisphere

[deutsey]

11. "U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death."

That's from a State Dept. memo in 1976 (http://www.namebase.org/foia/ch04.html):

Based on what we have, we are persuaded that:

-- The GOC (government of Chile) sought Horman and felt threatened enough to order his immediate execution. The GOC might have believed this American could be killed without negative fall-out from the USG (U.S. government).

There is some circumstantial evidence to suggest:

-- U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the GOC. At worst, U.S. intelligence was aware the GOC saw Horman in a rather serious light and U.S. officials did nothing to discourage the logical outcome of GOC paranoia.

Frank Teruggi, Horman's friend who was also murdered in the coup, had been under FBI surveillance since at least 1971:

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB33/docs/doc01.pdf

Documents like these that have been released decades after the murders have strengthened my suspicions that, at the very least, Pinochet's troops had reason to believe there would be no repercussions for killing Horman and Teruggi.

Given what Naomi Klein wrote in The Shock Doctrine and the Powell memo from the early '70s, I think it goes farther than that.

I believe the Chilean coup was not an isolated incident. It was the first salvo in a rather vicious right-wing/neoliberal reaction against communist and socialist gains around the world in the '60s and '70s. Klein does a good job of linking Pinochet's coup to Milton Friedman's anti-democratic economic theories and traces how these theories underscored other violent (as well as electoral) right-wing take-overs around the world.

I think the deaths of Horman and Teruggi were intentional and part of a larger, coordinated effort to "clean the slate" of all these troublesome left-wingers.

[nolabels]

14. Yea, so do you connect the dots yet?

Clearing the way for global takeover by capitalist, and where or at what point are we at now?

[deutsey]

16. Possibly beyond the point of no return

Well, that's how I feel in my less hopeful moments.

Not sure what we can do about any of it, sometimes.

It's like: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you sick."

[nolabels]

19. To me, it all looks somewhat of a simple plot (and kind of poorly thought out)

I wouldn't fret too much even if it gets to looking more trepidatious. The bigger and faster it grows, the faster and harder it falls.

The idea of what thin ice is sometimes not is perceived till one breaks through it

On edit: syntax (which seems a more worthy foe for me to want to tackle at present )

[deutsey]

12. First segment of a good documentary on what the Pinochet regime did

[xchrom]

13. +1

[PeoViejo]

15. Don't forget Henry Kissinger's role in this affair

Chile may call for is Extradition as well.

[WinkyDink]

17. NS, S.