So, Kissinger failed to stop Condor assassinations, and days later Letelier was dead

[rabs]

Cable ties Kissinger to Chile controversy

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer – Sat Apr 10, 10:20 am ET

WASHINGTON – As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington's Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.

Whether Kissinger played a role in blocking the delivery of the warning against assassination to the governments of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay has long been a topic of controversy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100410/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_kissinger_chile;_ylt=Ak6gTrRzpTYnvjZnhtNeZiis0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNtaDVmOTVwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDEwL3VzX2tpc3Npbmdlcl9jaGlsZQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNjYWJsZXRpZXNraXM-

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Most of us already knew this. It's just that it has now been confirmed beyond any lingering doubts.

There is a special cell reserved for Kissinger in Hades. He will be bunking with Pinochet for eternity.

[Judi Lynn]

1. George W. Bush gave the two bombers who murdered Letelier & Ronnie Moffit a free pass out of prison.

First, personal observations from someone, very young at the time, who lived in Washington, D.C. at the time of the assassinations:

~snip~
ORLANDO LETELIER

Orlando Letelier had been a high-ranking official in the Allende government. After the coup he spent a year in one of Pinochet's many concentration camps before being ejected from Chile. In 1975 he began working for the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank in Washington, D.C. The position at IPS gave Letelier the opportunity to travel the world, lobbying against investment in Chile and encouraging countries to institute sanctions against the Pinochet regime.

On September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier drove to work along with two other IPS employees—Michael Moffitt and his wife Ronni. As the car entered Sheridan Circle, only a few blocks from the White House, it exploded. The lower part of Letelier's body was blown off. He died instantly. Flying metal fragments ripped open Ronni Moffitt's carotid artery, filling her lungs with blood. She died a short time later. Michael Moffitt, who was in the back seat, was only slightly injured.

DINA had struck again with a car bomb. Pinochet's arrogance—carrying out a terrorist attack in the capital city of his most important ally—must have shocked even his most loyal supporters in the U.S.

FUNERAL
I was living in Washington, D.C. in 1976 when Orlando Letelier was murdered, so I was able to participate in a hastily organized protest funeral march. The procession was to begin in a small plaza and end up at the cathedral where the Letelier/Moffitt funeral service was being held. I couldn't believe how many people showed up on that sunny September afternoon—there were thousands. It surprised me that so many people even knew who Letelier was.

As we marched slowly through the streets of Washington, the mood was solemn and defiant. We walked through Sheridan Circle past the spot where Letelier's car had exploded. It was scattered with flowers left by the marchers. Occasionally the crowd would chant back and forth:

"Compañero Orlando Letelier."
"Presente."
"Ahora."
"Y Siempre."

As we marched, dark clouds rolled in. By the time we got to the cathedral the sky was black and angry. They had public address speakers set up outside for people who could not get into the service. Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the church, standing in silence while eulogies were spoken. Halfway through, a light rain began to fall. No one left.

When the service was over, the music began. As they carried out the caskets Joan Bias was singing "We Shall Overcome." She sang without accompaniment, her voice ringing out sweet and clear, piercing the rainy darkness like a golden light. The crowd stood silently as the first casket appeared, slowly carried down the church steps. Suddenly a clenched fist went up in the air, then another. Then there were hundreds of raised fists, a salute of defiance to those in high places who acknowledged no limits to their power.

A shiver went down my spine. It was a defining moment in my young life. A feeling of power and destiny washed over me, as what seemed like a great truth revealed itself. I saw that those who rule could manipulate and intimidate, butcher and bomb, but as long as there were brave committed people like these to defy them, their command could never be absolute. Standing there in that hushed crowd with a lump in my throat and the cold rain washing down my face, I knew with moral certainty that standing up and speaking the truth was always the right thing to do, because it strikes at the heart of Power. I knew that putting your life on the line, like Letelier did, unleashes forces against which no dictator can stand for long.


CONVICTIONS
Amazingly (given the links to the CIA and other U.S. government agencies), some of the people responsible for Letelier's death were tried and convicted in the United States. Michael Townly, who was born in the United States but lived in Chile, was the DINA agent who coordinated the assassination. He was given a reduced sentence of ten years in return for testifying against his Cuban accomplices. Townly only served five years in prison before being released into the witness protection program. Two of the anti-Communist Cubans who helped with the bombing received life terms, and another received eight years.

http://www.fragmentsweb.org/TXT2/orlandtx.html
http://www.genealog.cl.nyud.net:8090/Chile/L/Letelier/LetelierdelSolar,Orlando-es.wikipedia.org.jpg http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/JFKtownleyM2.jpg
http://www.beautifulhorizons.net.nyud.net:8090/photos/uncategorized/rv_condor14.jpg

Orlando Letelier, Ronnie Moffit, the cratered car in which Orlando Letelier, Ronnie Moffitt, and her husband, Michael Moffitt were driving.

http://www.lanacion.cl.nyud.net:8090/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20060820/imag/FOTO220060820204239.jpg http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/belligerence/MNC-9-29-69.jpg

U.S. citizen Michael Townley, Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel being released August 18, 2001, Virgilio Paz Romero, on the right.

Our Man's in Miami. Patriot or Terrorist?
By Ann Louise Bardach
Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page B03

~snip~
In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58297-2005Apr16.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Yes, there will be a reserved place for the evil twins, absolutely.

Augusto Pinochet, and soul mate, Henry Kissinger.
Isn't it a shame there are STILL supporters for both these monsters walking on our same planet? Looks as if Kissinger is never going to be formally be asked to pay for his crimes against humanity.

At least he will live with the knowledge that everyone with whom he speaks will know what he has done, and only true monsters would EVER consider befriending him.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Recommending.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[bemildred]

4. Kissinger is a toad. nt

[roody]

5. k

[Judi Lynn]

6. Declassified Document: Kissinger Blocked U.S. Protest on South American Assassinations

Declassified Document: Kissinger Blocked U.S. Protest on South American Assassinations
By: Jeff Kaye Sunday April 11, 2010 1:58 am

A controversy has simmered for some years over the role of the United States, and particularly of its then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in the actions surrounding Operation Condor. Condor was an assassination and torture plan implemented by a number of South American countries, braintrusted by Pinochet’s Chile.

A new FOIA release, courtesy of the National Security Archive, shows that only five days before former high-ranking Allende official, Orlando Letelier, and his U.S. assistant, Ronnie Moffit, were assassinated by Chile’s notorious DINA secret service in Washington, DC, a September 16, 1976 State Department cable from Henry Kissinger told his assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, Harry Shlaudeman, to cancel a formal demarche to the Uruguayan government, protesting the assassinations and other activities of Operation Condor. The cable was followed four days later by instructions from Shlaudeman to numerous South American U.S. embassies to forego any protests regarding Condor policy, offering the excuse that Condor appeared to be inactive.

Yet, only the next day, a Condor assassination took place in the streets of Washington, DC, when a car bomb blew up Letelier and Moffitt. According to British historian, Kenneth Maxwell, the U.S. government was aware of Operation Condor, and even "that a Chilean assassination team had been planning to enter the United States." A flap over Maxwell’s favorable review in the journal of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), Foreign Affairs of Peter Kornbluh’s book The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, led to Maxwell’s resignation from the CFR some months later.

See Maxwell’s account in "The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs: Kissinger, Pinochet and Operation Condor," PDF. Today, Kornbluh is a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, and edited the introduction to the documents on Kissinger and Operation Condor.

What is Operation Condor?

According to a cable to FBI headquarters from FBI agent Robert Scherrer, who previously had worked with Paraguayan police in intelligence gathering on leftists, Operation Condor was work of "cooperating services in South America in order to eliminate Marxist terrorists and their activities in the area…. Chile is the center for Operation Condor, and in addition it includes Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil has also tentatively agreed to supply input for Operation Condor."

Scherrer, who later captured Letelier and Moffitt’s killer, continued:

"A third and more secret phase of Operation Condor involves the formation of special teams from member countries to travel anywhere in the world to non-member countries to carry out sanctions, assassination, against terrorists or supporters of terrorist organizations from Operation Condor member countries. For example, should a terrorist or a supporter of a terrorist organization from a member country be located in a European country, a special team from Operation Condor would be dispatched to locate and surveil the target. When the location and surveillance operation has terminated, a second team from Operation Condor would be dispatched to carry out the actual sanction against the target. Special teams would be issued false documentation from member countries of Operation Condor."

More:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/40186