https://sputnikglobe.com/20231208/new-documents-reveal-depravity-of-us-backed-pinochet-dictatorship-in-chile-1115470366.html
New Documents Reveal Depravity of US-Backed Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile
New Documents Reveal Depravity of US-Backed Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile
Sputnik International
New files have been declassified relating to a hitman for Augusto Pinochet’s secret police. The despot came to power after a US-backed coup against Chile’s democratically-elected president.
2023-12-08T04:16+0000
2023-12-08T04:16+0000
2023-12-08T04:16+0000
analysis
chile
augusto pinochet
henry kissinger
us
central intelligence agency (cia)
military dictatorship
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Last week’s death of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided the opportunity for praise and criticism of the consequential statesman’s role in shaping US foreign policy. Now, recently declassified documents are shedding light on one particularly dark chapter of his legacy.The National Security Archive, an independent US-based institution that publishes sensitive government material, has released notes written by Michael Townley, a notorious agent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA). The documents provide detail on car bombings, poisonings, and murders committed by the US-born assassin.Townley first moved to Chile in the late 1950s where his father was head of Ford Motor Company’s operations in the country. In the following decade he befriended anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami. The hardened group of anticommunist diehards have been called the “Miami Mafia” for their involvement in terrorist attacks and the illegal 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion under US President John F Kennedy.Sympathizing with the far-right exiles, Townley returned to Chile after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s democratic socialist government. Under Pinochet, Chile would become a hub of fascist violence throughout the world and the epicenter of a South American state terror campaign known as Operation Condor.Townley became an eager footsoldier of Pinochet as an agent of his DINA secret police. He’s perhaps best known for the murder of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his 25-year-old assistant Ronni Karpen Moffitt on US soil. The two were killed by a 1976 car bombing in Washington DC.Townley also used nerve gas to murder Chilean dissidents, according to the newly-revealed documents.Townley has admitted to his role in an assassination in Argentina and was found guilty by an Italian court of involvement in an attempted murder in Rome, but he has only faced justice for his killing of Letelier. He served just over half of a 10-year sentence for that crime.The document release is likely to intensify scrutiny of the legacy of Henry Kissinger in the aftermath of his death at the age of 100. Kissinger has faced heavy criticism in Chile, where he helped engineer a destabilization campaign against Allende’s government in the leadup to the military coup. Under the advisement of Kissinger, then-US President Richard Nixon famously instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to “make the [Chilean] economy scream” to discredit the leftist leader.The agency engaged in a broad campaign of economic subversion of the country, fomenting strikes and cutting Chile off from international lines of credit. The US has adopted similar tactics in recent years via sanctions against Venezuela and the ongoing embargo of Cuba.For decades during the Cold War, a fear of communism and the Soviet Union often permeated Western society, but an expanding knowledge of history continues to deepen our understanding of the crimes committed by the United States in the name of counterrevolution.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231203/kissinger--the-americas-how-the-us-built-order-on-the-ashes-of-genocide-1115362379.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230911/situation-was-horrible-chilean-activist-says-pinochets-economic-miracle-totally-false-1113294361.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230216/forensic-probe-reveals-chilean-nobel-laureate-pablo-neruda-died-of-poisoning-family-says-1107480756.html
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augusto pinochet, dictatorship in chile, pinochet dictatorship, military dictatorship, pinochet, us interference, us influence
augusto pinochet, dictatorship in chile, pinochet dictatorship, military dictatorship, pinochet, us interference, us influence
New Documents Reveal Depravity of US-Backed Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile
New files have been declassified relating to a hitman for Augusto Pinochet’s secret police. The despot came to power after a US-backed coup against Chile’s democratically-elected president.
Last week’s death of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided the opportunity for praise and
criticism of the consequential statesman’s role in shaping US foreign policy. Now, recently declassified
documents are shedding light on one particularly dark chapter of his legacy.
The National Security Archive, an independent US-based institution that publishes sensitive government material, has released notes written by Michael Townley, a notorious agent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA). The documents provide detail on car bombings, poisonings, and murders committed by the US-born assassin.
Townley first
moved to Chile in the late 1950s where his father was head of Ford Motor Company’s operations in the country. In the following decade he befriended anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami. The hardened group of anticommunist diehards have been called the “
Miami Mafia” for their involvement in
terrorist attacks and the illegal 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion under US President John F Kennedy.
3 December 2023, 17:24 GMT
Sympathizing with the far-right exiles, Townley returned to Chile after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s democratic socialist government. Under Pinochet, Chile would become a hub of fascist violence throughout the world and the epicenter of a South American state terror campaign known as Operation Condor.
Townley became an eager
footsoldier of Pinochet as an agent of his DINA secret police. He’s perhaps best known for the murder of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his 25-year-old assistant Ronni Karpen Moffitt on US soil. The two were killed by a 1976 car bombing in Washington DC.
Townley also used nerve gas to murder Chilean dissidents,
according to the newly-revealed documents.
Townley has admitted to his role in an assassination in Argentina and was found guilty by an Italian court of involvement in an attempted murder in Rome, but he has only faced justice for his killing of Letelier. He served just over half of a 10-year sentence for that crime.
11 September 2023, 21:42 GMT
The document release is likely to intensify scrutiny of the legacy of Henry Kissinger in the aftermath of his death at the age of 100. Kissinger has faced heavy criticism in Chile, where he helped engineer a destabilization campaign against Allende’s government in the leadup to the military coup. Under the advisement of Kissinger, then-US President Richard Nixon famously
instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to “make the [Chilean] economy scream” to discredit the leftist leader.
The agency engaged in a broad campaign of economic subversion of the country, fomenting strikes and cutting Chile off from international lines of credit. The US has adopted similar tactics in recent years via sanctions against Venezuela and the ongoing embargo of Cuba.
“I don’t know of any U.S. citizen who is more deplored, more disliked in Latin America than Henry Kissinger,” said biographer Stephen Rabe after his death. “The reality is, if he had traveled once democracy returned to Argentina, to Brazil, to Uruguay – if he had traveled to any of those countries he would have been immediately arrested.”
For decades during the Cold War, a fear of communism and the Soviet Union often permeated Western society, but an expanding knowledge of history continues to deepen our understanding of the crimes committed by the United States in the name of counterrevolution.
16 February 2023, 00:38 GMT
