Pinochet purges arrests ordered

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 00:30 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 01:30 UK
Pinochet purges arrests ordered

A Chilean judge has issued arrest warrants for 129 people for allegedly helping to purge critics of former ruler General Augusto Pinochet.

The suspects - the largest group so far to face arrest warrants - all worked for the secret police agency, Dina.

They are accused of taking part in killings and disappearances of dozens of leftists and opposition activists.

Since Gen Pinochet left power in 1990, arrests of his agents have been frequent - often dividing opinion.

BBC Americas analyst Emilio San Pedro says it is the largest number of arrest warrants ever issued in connection with human rights abuses in Chile.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8232996.stm

[izquierdista]

1. Maybe here?

Maybe in another 19 years, some judge here will issue arrest warrants for Bushies? I'll be holding my breath -- not.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Chile seeks arrests for alleged human rights violations

Chile seeks arrests for alleged human rights violations
updated 9 minutes ago

SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) -- Arrest warrants for more than 120 former soldiers and agents of Chile's National Intelligence Directorate were issued Tuesday for alleged human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, CNN Chile reported.

The scale of the order by Judge Victor Montiglio makes this the largest human rights prosecution case in Chile's history.

The Pinochet dictatorship ruled from 1973-1990, after which Chile returned to civilian rule under a democratically elected government. Government investigations conducted after Pinochet left power say nearly 2,300 people disappeared during the dictatorship and another 30,000 were tortured.

At least 51 of the warrants were in connection with a disinformation campaign in the 1970s known as Operation Colombo that historians say was aimed at hiding human rights abuses. Other warrants were linked to Operation Condor, which involved a network of secret police agencies in the region that targeted political opponents in the mid- and late-1970s, and a plot against communist leaders known as the Calle Conferencia case.

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/01/chile.dirty.war/index.html

[Cleita]

3. To bad they can't issue an arrest warrant for Henry Kissinger, the

architect behind the assassination of Salvadore Allende and installer into office of Augusto Pinochet.

[dipsydoodle]

5. Same thoughts here

x(

[DCKit]

11. They COULD, but I hear that old fuck never leaves the U.S.. n/t

[burrowowl]

17. AMEN!

Kissinger should be in PRISON!

[tularetom]

4. So it actually can be done

I hope some of our elected democrats are learning from this.

[troubledamerican]

6. 30 YEARS after the fact

I applaud the effort. The main point might be to solidify legal precedent. Better late than never, but it's awfully late.

[Solly Mack]

7. K&R

[OutNow]

8. Umm, Don't Equate Bush to Pinochet

As evil as Bush is, please don't equate what General Pinochet and his regime did to people to Bush's actions. Getting penned down in "First Amendment Zones" is one thing, being picked up by the secret police and thrown into the ocean from a helicopter is another. There are several good books available that describe what happened in Chile. They are horrific.

[Cleita]

9. What we Bush/Cheney did to Iraqi and Afghani prisoners of war

isn't much better than what happened in Chile. I understand that many of Blackwater mercenaries were recruited from the ranks of that same military that tortured under Pinochet in Chile. Just because he didn't do it to most USA citizens, doesn't make him any less evil. However, look at what they did to Padilla under his orders.

[OutNow]

13. Degrees of Evil?

I can't argue with you that Bush / Cheney, etc. violated U.S. law and treaties and should be tried for war crimes. They should. The point I was trying to make was that Pinochet and his coup makers overthrew the elected government and tortured and killed thousands of Chileans - their own countrymen.

My problem is when people start saying - Bush is as bad as Pinochet, Bush is as bad as Hitler, etc. without understanding what that means.

To reach Pinochet's level of evil, Bush, after he stole the election in 2000, would have declared the Democratic Party illegal, shut down newspapers that traditionally supported Democrats, murdered Al Gore and other top Democrats, imprisoned and tortured union leaders and elected officials, declared martial law, shut down the Supreme Court, closed the universities, and so on.

[Cleita]

14. One tortured detainee is not a degree of evil. It is evil. There is no

quantifying it and we know more than one detainee was tortured. We don't even know the extent yet that went on. Remember most Germans in Nazi Germany, who weren't Jews, Rom or Slavs often didn't know the extent of what was happening, only that some of their neighbors were disappearing. Bush/Cheney used all the classic methods that the German Nazis used to subdue the populace, namely fear, propaganda and lies. Our mainstream news outlets are still spewing neo-con propaganda and Republican politicians can't stop lying about how only they can protect us from attack. Dan Savage said on television last night that they are trying to get Obama killed with all their lies and their scared lemming followers. Pinochet also used the same Nazi methods, he did it faster because Chile is a smaller, more homogenous country. We don't know how many suspicious deaths of politicians during the Bush years were accidents either. Crashing airplanes and committing suicide by jumping off of tall buildings seems to have been the assassination of choice. Let's face it, it was years before the full extent of Pinochets atrocities were known too. We are slowly getting the truth too, but I think you will find that all kinds of crap was going on behind closed doors.

[cascadiance]

10. So how many Blackwater mercenaries have arrest warrants out for them now...

Given that Jeremy Scahill says that Blackwater had hired quite a few of Pinochet's former soldiers...

Will Holder fight any attempts to extradite them if they're living here now?

[jeff30997]

12. Yeah !

Totally agree.:thumbsup:

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. Wow! At last.

[WhiteTara]

16. Thanks for keeping us updated about the news in

South America. You are truly a treasure trove of information. THanks Judi Lynn.

[rabs]

18. Bachelet's government also has a new program to identify victims of the DINA

The government, in conjunction with the Committee of the Disappeared and the Committee of the Politically Executed during the Pinochet era has begun a drive for relatives to donate samples of blood for DNA comparison with still unidentified remains that have been uncovered in recent years.

http://www.sml.cl/proyectos/vive/home.html