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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 02:53 PM
Original message
Brazil: Dictatorship torture to be investigated
Brazil: Dictatorship torture to be investigated
12/13/2009, 11:09 a.m. EST
The Associated Press

(AP) — RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's government plans to create a truth commission to investigate torture used by military dictatorships of the past, the nation' human rights minister said Sunday. Paulo de Tarso Vanucchi told the Web portal UOL Noticias that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will propose a law creating the commission later this month.

Unlike Argentina and Chile, Brazil never prosecuted members of the armed forces for human rights abuses committed during its 1964-85 dictatorship. An amnesty law pardoned both civilians and the military for crimes committed under the dictatorship. But a lawsuit now before Brazil's Supreme Court argues that torture is not covered by the amnesty.

A government study last year concluded that 475 people were killed or disappeared at the hands of security forces during the military regime.

Silva, then a fiery union leader who stood up to the government, was briefly imprisoned under the dictatorship. His chief of staff and chosen successor to run for president next year, Dilma Rousseff, was a guerrilla leader who was imprisoned and tortured.

More:
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-19/1260729892269660.xml&storylist=international
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 03:05 PM
Response to Original message
1. Released documents reveal Brazil’s crucial role in 1973 Chilean coup
Edited on Sun Dec-13-09 03:10 PM by Judi Lynn
Monday, August 17th 2009 - 3:35 am UTC

Released documents reveal Brazil’s crucial role in 1973 Chilean coup

Former Brazilian dictator Emilio Garrastazú Médici and ex US president Richard Nixon agreed on the need to oust Chilean peer Salvador Allende and Cuba’s Fidel Castro during a meeting at the White house in 1971, when then advisor Henry Kissinger wrote the minutes, according to declassified documents published Sunday.

http://www.mercopress.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/article/203a121be6eabe37c557f5ddd0abda8b.jpg

HenHenry Kissinger, was named
“unofficial” direct contact between
then President Nixon and Brazilian
dictator Emilio Garrastazú Medici.

General Garrastazú Medici said Brazil was working towards the overthrow of President Allende during the meeting at the Oval Office on December 9, 1971, according to a report published Sunday the Folha do Sao Paulo based on a batch of records concerning US-Brazil collaboration in opposing left-leaning governments in Latin America in the early 1970s, posted Saturday on the National Security Archive website.

Nixon asked Garrastazú Medici (1969/1974) if the Chilean military were prepared to collaborate in the overthrow of the Socialist democratically elected Allende. The Brazilian general replied that Allende would be ousted for the same reasons that led to the coup against constitutional president Joao Goulart back in 1964.

The Goulart family has a demand against the US government for their complicity in the coup which established in Brazil a military dictatorship that lasted unit 1984. According to the children and Goulart’s wife, in 1964 US Ambassador Lincoln Gordon and military attaché Vernon Walters participated actively in the ousting of the constitutional president.

Goulart took refuge in neighbouring Uruguay and was later allegedly poisoned in Argentina, in 1976, when informal talks for a return to civilian rule in Brazil had begun with some of the less radical military.

More:
http://en.mercopress.com/2009/08/17/released-documents-reveal-brazils-crucial-role-in-1973-chilean-coup

On edit, adding photo:
http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Nixon-M%C3%A9dici.gif

Presidents Emilio G. Medici (left)
and Richard Nixon, December 1971
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 03:48 PM
Response to Original message
2. The US planted a torturer in Brazil a LONG time ago: Dan Mitrione:
Quick Mitrione bio:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/JFKmitrione.gif

Daniel Mitrione was born in Italy on 4th August, 1920. The family emigrated to the United States and in 1945 Mitrione became a police officer in Richmond, Indiana.

Mitrione joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1959. The following year he was assigned to the State Department's International Cooperation Administration. He was then sent to South America to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." His speciality was in teaching the police how to torture political prisoners without killing them.

According to A.J. Langguth of the New York Times, Mitrione was working for the CIA via the International Development's Office of Public Safety (OPS). We know he was in several foreign countries but between 1960 and 1967 he spent a lot of time in Brazil and was involved in trying to undermine the left-wing president João Goulart, who had taken power after President Juscelino Kubitschek resigned from office in 1961.

João Goulart was a wealthy landowner who was opposed to communism. However, he was in favour of the redistribution of wealth in Brazil. As minister of labour he had increased the minimum wage by 100%. Colonel Vernon Walters, the US military attaché in Brazil, described Goulart as “basically a good man with a guilty conscience for being rich.”

The CIA began to make plans for overthrowing Goulart. A psychological warfare program approved by Henry Kissinger, at the request of telecom giant ITT during his chair of the 40 Committee, sent U.S. PSYOPS disinformation teams to spread fabricated rumors concerning Goulart. John McCloy was asked to set up a channel of communication between the CIA and Jack W. Burford, one of the senior executives of the Hanna Mining Company. In February, 1964, McCloy went to Brazil to hold secret negotiations with Goulart. However, Goulart rejected the deal offered by Hanna Mining.

The following month Lyndon B. Johnson gave the go-ahead for the overthrow of João Goulart (Operation Brother Sam). Colonel Vernon Walters arranged for General Castello Branco to lead the coup. A US naval-carrier task force was ordered to station itself off the Brazilian coast. As it happens, the Brazilian generals did not need the help of the task force. Goulart’s forces were unwilling to defend the democratically elected government and he was forced to go into exile. This action ended democracy in Brazil for more than twenty years. According to David Kaiser (American Tragedy) this event marks the change in the foreign policy developed by John F. Kennedy. Once again, Johnson showed that his policy was to support non-democratic but anti-communist, military dictatorships, and that he had fully abandoned Kennedy’s neutralization policy.

Mitrione remained in Brazil to help the new government deal with the supporters of João Goulart. According to Franco Solinas, Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 US intervention.

In 1967 Mitrione returned to the United States to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (AID), in Washington. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under the AID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety. At this time the Uruguayan government was led by the very unpopular Colorado Party. Richard Nixon and the CIA feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende.

More:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmitrione.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Assassination Attempts: Dan A. Mitrione Government Agent Part 1
About the assassination of Dan A. Mitrione a U.S. government agent, his biography and history in Uruguay.

The Victim: DAN A. MITRIONE. Mitrione was a U.S. Government agent who was dispatched to Latin America as part of the U.S. Government's attempt to maintain totalitarian puppet-allies. He supposedly advised local officials on traffic safety, but his real job was to create sophisticated police states in order to minimize the possibility of popular rebellion against dictatorial regimes.

Dan Mitrione started as a cop in Richmond, Ind., in 1945. He became police chief in 1955 and joined the FBI in 1957. In 1960, under the State Department's International Cooperation Administration (predecessor of the Agency for International Development-AID), he went to Brazil to train police there in advanced counterinsurgency techniques. During his 7 "Public Safety" years in Brazil, the use of torture against opponents of the military regime became virtually routine. In addition, the Brazilian police, many of whom were trained by Mitrione, formed a vigilante "Death Squad" which disposed of over 100 "undesirables" without arrest or trial.

Documentation of Mitrione's activities has been compiled by a wide range of investigators, from religious groups to Hollywood film makers. NARMIC, a research/action arm of the American Friends Service Committee, reported that:

. . . after training such a police force, Mitrione returned to the U.S. as a Latin America expert. In 1967 he trained foreign officers in the techniques of counterguerrilla warfare at the AID-Public Safety Police Academy in Washington, D.C. In July of 1969, Mitrione headed for South America again, this time to Uruguay for AID. He was the leader of a 4-man team of Public Safety advisors that trained 1,000 Uruguayan police in police management, patrolling, use of scientific and technical aids, antiguerrilla operations and border control. These trainees have in turn instructed an untold number of police in more outlying regions of the country.

Mitrione himself, during his year-long stay, trained personnel in transportation techniques, established a police training facility and a radio network for Montevideo police, and set up a joint operations center of communications to facilitate cooperation between the police and the army.

To accomplish what he called "Uruguay's total penetration," Mitrione designed and initiated the following measures according to Costa-Gavras and Franco Solinas, authors of State of Siege:

A network of spies and infiltrators in high schools and universities.

Hidden cameras in terminals, etc., to photograph all persons traveling to socialist countries.

An increase in the size of the city militia from 600 to 1,000 men.

New gases, new .45-caliber machine guns, an increase in the use of shotguns. Inspection of all mail and publications coming from socialist countries.

More:
http://www.trivia-library.com/a/assassination-attempts-dan-a-mitrione-government-agent-part-1.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forever Missing Part 2
Bob Norman
Published on August 11, 2005

~snip~
Daniel A. Mitrione, Sr. was never an FBI man; he was a small-town Indiana police chief who helped lead a covert war against leftist groups in Latin America.

In the late Fifties, Mitrione, Sr. was officially employed by the U.S. State Department, though the CIA was deeply involved in his work. He was first sent to Brazil and then Uruguay to teach what the State Department termed "public safety" to police. Traveling with him were his wife Henrietta and nine children, including young Dan, who was born in 1947 and basically grew up in South America, learning Spanish and idolizing his father.

But in 1970, after more than a decade in foreign lands, disaster struck the Mitrione clan. Dan, Sr. was kidnapped by the Tupamaro guerrilla group in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. As the family -- and America -- anxiously waited and watched the national news reports on the ordeal, he was held for eleven days. The group demanded the release of numerous political prisoners, but the Uruguayan government refused to negotiate. On August 10, Mitrione's bound and gagged body was discovered in the trunk of a stolen 1948 Buick convertible on a Montevideo street. He'd been shot twice in the head.

In the United States, the fallen father was hailed as a hero and martyr for freedom. President Richard Nixon sent his son-in-law, David Eisenhower; Secretary of State William Rogers; and a red, white, and blue commemorative wreath to the funeral in Mitrione's hometown of Richmond, Indiana.

"Mr. Mitrione's devoted service to the cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world will remain as an example for free men everywhere," White House spokesman Ron Ziegler announced.

Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis flew to Richmond and put on a benefit concert that raised $20,000 for the family. "I never met Richmond's son, Dan Mitrione," Sinatra said to the crowd after Lewis warmed them up. "Yet he was my brother ... as all of us in America are brothers."

What the general public didn't know was that Mitrione, Sr. had been doing far more than teaching helpful police tactics in South America. Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives claimed Mitrione had taught brutal, deadly techniques of torture in the cellar of his Montevideo home. They alleged he electrically shocked his victims' mouths and genitals, among other ghastly things. In one of the most disturbing revelations, reported by a CIA operative from Cuba named Manuel Hevia Conculluela, Mitrione was said to have practiced on beggars picked up from the capital's streets, four of whom reportedly died while serving as human guinea pigs.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2005-08-11/news/forever-missing-part-2/
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 04:35 PM
Response to Original message
3. Good!
I had just posted in another thread about the amazing political progress in Brazil from the shockingly-recent days of the dictators, and am glad that the criminals may not *all* evade justice.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 06:46 PM
Response to Original message
4. I am outraged by this Guardian article on the end of Michele Batchelet's presidency in Chile
&addressand it's going on and on about dildos and sex shops as Batchelet's "cullture legacy." Have you seen it?

Downwinder posts it here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all=405x27851
(and I commented there).

Original here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/13/michelle-bachelet-chile-president-legacy

Michele Batchelet was tortured in the same U.S.-instigated "Operation Condor" that inflicted Brazil with these horrors. She lost family members to the death squads. She suffered exile. And she has been a great champion of NOT FORGETTING. In fact, when the U.S.-instigated white separatist insurrection occurred in Bolivia last year, she was instrumental in rallying UNASUR to support the Morales government. She took the UNASUR delegates on a tour of Chile's Pinochet museum and said that "we must never let this happen again."

But the Guardian (or at least one writer for the Guardian, Oliver Balch) says her legacy is that women can now go into sex shops and buy dildos in Chile! It is an appalling article. I am really shocked at the Guardian.

-----------------------------------

On the matter of rightwing military coups:

I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S.-supported coup in Honduras has inspired Lula da Silva to go after these criminals and insure justice and accountability. He sees that the U.S. has not changed its ways. There is no new policy of "peace, respect and cooperation." So Latin Americans need to make it REALLY CLEAR that they will not tolerate this ever again. Batchelet was important in preventing a coup in Bolivia. So were da Silva, Cristina Fernandez, Chavez and others. They have all known what is at stake in Honduras, and I'm sure have felt a very cold chill, indeed, with the U.S. treachery and backstabbling against President Zelaya, against the OAS and against themselves. Every fascist, torturer and murderer, and every general with thoughts of insurrection, in Latin American, has been encouraged by Obama and Clinton. Latin America needs to watch its back. And they need to set the precedent of NO IMMUNITY for torture and murder. Some are already doing so (Argentina, Guatemala and others). They all need to do it. And I'll just bet that this is exactly what's on Lula da Silva's mind. Even though he himself was also tortured and persecuted during "Plan Condor," I don't recall him making this an issue before now. To tell you the truth, it kind of surprises me. What's changed is Honduras.
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 09:32 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. You just may be right. It could be the straw. Hadn't thought of this.
I'm glad he moved to do it, and I hope it will trigger interest in learning more about the fires of hatred which swept across the Americas when the fascists got the upper hand and a big powerful helping hand from the US lunatic, hate-filled Presidents like Nixon, Reagan, etc.

The young ones need to know. It's good to remind them to find out more.

I agree with you: President Bachelet probably had no idea anyone would be nasty, twisted, and stupid enough to dream of writing a piece of crap like that concerning her deeply serious contributions to her coutry. Hope Oliver Balch doesn't get out much, to spread his pestilence in person.
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