Military Personnel Trained by the CIA Used Napalm Against Indigenous People in Brazil
Military Personnel Trained by the CIA Used Napalm Against Indigenous People in Brazil
by Santiago Navarro F., Renata Bessi and Translated by Miriam Taylor, Truthout
November 11, 2014
Indigenous people of ethnic Pataxo struggle to return their lands. In October 2014, they closed
the highway to pressure the government. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)
TRUTHOUT--For the first time in the history of Brazil, the federal government is investigating the deaths and abuses suffered by Indigenous peoples during military dictatorship (1964-1985). The death toll may be twenty times more than previously known.
Just as in World War II and Vietnam, napalm manufactured in the US burned the bodies of hundreds of indigenous individuals in Brazil, people without an army and without weapons. The objective was to take over their lands. Indigenous peoples in this country suffered the most from the atrocities committed during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) - with the support of the United States. For the first time in Brazil's history, the National Truth Commission, created by the federal government in 2012 in order to investigate political crimes committed by the State during the military dictatorship, gives statistics showing that the number of indigenous individuals killed could be 20 times greater than was previously officially registered by leftist militants.
Unlike other crimes committed by the State during that time period, no reparations or indemnification for the acts have been offered to indigenous people; they were not even considered victims of the military regime. "From the north to the south and from the east to the west, accusations of genocide, assassination of leaders and indigenous rights defenders, slavery, massacres, poisonings in small towns, forced displacement, secret prisons for indigenous people, the bombing of towns, torture, and denigrating treatment were registered [with the State Truth Commissions]," Marcelo Zelic, vice president of the anti-torture group Never Again - SP, one of the organizations that makes up the Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission, created in order to provide documents and information to the National Truth Commission - told Truthout during an audience with the Truth Commission of San Pablo open to journalists.
Guaraní leader Timoteo Popyguá is from the El Dorado community in the state of Sao Paulo. He tells of his parents and grandparents, who lived in the municipality of the Manguerinha region in southern Brazil's Paraná state, and who were victims of the military regime. Popyguá explained to Truthout that his relatives were forcibly removed from their lands, and those who managed to stay suffered from a drastic reduction in their territories. Because these indigenous groups require "ample space" for the reproduction of their cultural life, according to him this is another form of violence that they were subjected to. "My parents were victims of abuses, chained to tree trunks. The reason was land," he says. "There must be reparations for the loss of our land and our culture."
The Commission for Amnesty - a different body that the Truth Commission - was put into place in 2001 by the Ministry of Justice with the goal of analyzing the requirements for political amnesty. Currently, their official documents count 457 victims who were either murdered or disappeared by the military. The Truth Commission determined that the total number of registered cases was 8,000 indigenous individuals, and another thousand people who belonged to political organizations who were killed between 1964 and 1985.
More:
https://intercontinentalcry.org/military-personnel-trained-by-the-cia-used-napalm-against-indigenous-people-in-brazil-25998/
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who was murdered (without being tortured) by the rebels who fought against the barbaric right-wing dictatorship. Richard M. Nixon sent people to his funeral, including his own son-in-law, and Frank Sinatra, and Jerry Lewis did a benefit for Mitrione's 8 or 9 children.
Here's Mitrone's Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mitrione
The article in the original post above had this to say about Mitrione:
[center]CIA agent Daniel A. Mitrione was sent by the United States in the 1960s to train police in Latin America. He principally worked with the police of the Brazilian dictatorship and Uruguayans in the "art" of interrogation, torture, and the repression of revolutionary social movements. Mitrione came under the Office of Public Security for the United States International Development Agency (USAID).
During his time in Brazil, Mitrione trained the military police in the state of Minas Gerais, who were responsible for building the prisons for indigenous people and for the formation of the Rural Indigenous Guard. "Marcelo Zelic found part of a film made by a German photographer, Jesko Putkamer. The clip shows a line of uniformed members of the Rural Indigenous Guard being applauded as they march by those present at the time, including military members. Two indigenous individuals hold a prisoner in a ‘pau de arara,’ (a technique used by the CIA), as evidence of the repressive techniques learned by the Indigenous Rural Guard," says the report (watch the video here).
The document also highlights the information contained in the book The Hidden Face of Terror, by AJ Lagguth, which contextualizes the origin of the presence of Dan Mitrione in Brazil and how it was related to the creation of the Rural Indigenous Guard and the Krenak Reformatory.
"In the first part of the 1960s, the US was more convinced than ever of its technical expertise - engineers, agronomists, the police - they were all holders of vital knowledge that should have been transferred to less-developed countries in the world. In Washington, Byron Engle was in charge of organizing a team capable of training police in Asia, Africa, and especially in Latin America," says the report from the National Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission. He adds, "That's where Dan Mitrione comes in. The creation of the Rural Indigenous Guard is the replica of the course that he gave to the police in Minas Gerais."
Dan Mitrione[/center]