Chile’s ex-dictator Pinochet tied to multi-million-dollar payoffs

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World Socialist Web Site
By Bill Van Auken
11 December 2004


A series of revelations emerging from US investigations into money-laundering and corruption charges against the Riggs Bank have implicated Chile’s ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet in illicit payoffs totaling in the millions of dollars.

Chile’s Defense Ministry ordered an official investigation following a report published December 7 in the New York Times that Pinochet had received $12.3 million in “donations” and “service commissions” from the governments of the United States and several other countries. The paper said the payments began in 1974—the year after he led the military coup that ousted Chile’s elected President Salvador Allende—and continued until 1997, seven years after he had given up power. Until 1998, he remained head of Chile’s armed forces.

The Times said it based its report on documents that were supplied by the Chilean Defense Ministry to Riggs, where the ex-dictator maintained multiple bank accounts. Riggs in turn passed them on to a Senate committee investigating the influential Washington-based bank.

The newspaper said that these documents showed that the ex-dictator “received $3 million from the United States government in 1976 and, in other years, $1.5 million from Paraguay, $1 million from Spain, $2.5 million from China, a combined payment of $2.5 million from Britain and China, and a combined payment of $3 million from Britain, Malaysia and Brazil.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/pino-d11.shtml

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1. From New York Times

The Pinochet Money Trail
By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN and LARRY ROHTER

Published: December 12, 2004

GEN. MANUEL CONTRERAS is a religious man. A bas-relief of the Last Supper hangs on his dining room wall, not far from a thick, leather-bound Bible that rests on a table. As the former head of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's secret police in Chile, General Contreras is also a controversial man. A large silver plate, given to him by Argentina's intelligence services, sits on a shelf, a few feet from the Bible.

The inscription on the plate reads June 1976, the same month and year that General Contreras and other South American intelligence chiefs, according to declassified United States intelligence documents, authorized assassinations of exiled political dissidents in a wide-ranging conspiracy known as Operation Condor. Although General Contreras denied the existence of such a plan in a recent interview in his hillside home here, the plot has been amply documented in the United States intelligence records.

General Contreras's past banking activities have been documented, too. According to a declassified 1979 State Department memo, he opened a "secret bank account" at Riggs Bank in Washington in 1966, when he was a young soldier based in the United States. The State Department report noted that General Contreras's balance at Riggs was as high as $26,000 in the mid-1970's. In the interview, he said he was sure he never kept more than $1,000 at Riggs and that it was common for members of the Chilean army who were based in the United States to have personal accounts at the bank.

But General Contreras was less certain about funds Riggs held for his former boss, General Pinochet, whose accounts are among those at the center of a sweeping money-laundering investigation of the bank. The sums involved - as much as $8 million, according to an assessment by the United States Senate - have left even General Pinochet's staunchest allies wondering about their origin.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/business/yourmoney/12riggs.html

See also previous DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1054229

[Judi Lynn]

5. I hope Augusto Pinochet will be probed, examined, bothered every day

while the world becomes intimately aware of the atrocities his US-supported reign of terror inflicted on those thousands and thousands of helpless victems.

Looking for an internet biography on him, I stumbled across what was revealed to be a completely pro-Pinochet site which boasted that he returned nationalized properties to the owners and ushered in an era of vast ecomonic progress.

You have to remember the previous ecomomy got some artificial devastation from the Nixon regime to get it into those dire straights. Undoubtedly after bumping Allende off, they pumped all kinds of cash into the economy, as well as the millions we know they paid Pinochet personally.

It sounded EXACTLY like the thinking in which all our rightwing homicidal maniacs indulge: "no matter WHAT THE COST TO OTHERS, "economic progress" is more important than human lives any day." I think their "Good Book" they poke up our noses actually says they are on the exact wrong track. If they actually READ their bibles, they'd all have to walk away from the lives they've led, and beg for forgiveness!



"I hear there's rumors on the Internets"

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2. Chile denies allegations of Pinochet's illegal traveling payments

www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-10 10:55:03

SANTIAGO, Dec. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The Chilean government denied Thursday the legality of the document published by the New York Times on the presumed payment that ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet got from several countries for his traveling expenses.

This document lacked legality, Chilean Secretary-General of Government Francisco Vidal said.

"The document could end up being a forgery, but we'll leave it up to the legal representation of the Defense Ministry and then to the courts," he added.

The New York Times said that the document had been handed over by Chile's Defense Ministry to the US Riggs Bank, where Pinochet opened secret accounts.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/10/content_2316791.htm

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3. Chile to pay survivors of its 'dirty war'

St Petersburg Times
By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
Published December 11, 2004

MIAMI - For the survivors of illegal detention and torture in Chile, reparations were a long time coming.

Three decades after the abuse they suffered at the hands of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, it was announced last week that government compensation is to be paid to the victims.

About 27,000 people are set to receive the small $190 monthly payments, at an annual cost to the state of around $70-million.

The decision has renewed a debate in Chile about the so-called "dirty war,' which continues to haunt the country.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/11/Columns/Chile_to_pay_survivor.shtml

[pinerow]

4. I'm Shocked....!!!

nt

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

:kick:

[Judi Lynn]

7. US and Others Gave Millions to Pinochet

US and Others Gave Millions to Pinochet
By Timothy L. O'Brien and Larry Rohter
New York Times
December 7, 2004

Correction Appended

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, received multimillion-dollar payments from the governments of several countries, including the United States, during his 25-year tenure as Chile's ruler and military chief, according to documents recently uncovered during a Senate committee investigation into suspected money laundering at Riggs Bank.

The documents, including General Pinochet's sworn financial statements, show that he received $3 million from the United States government in 1976 and, in other years, $1.5 million from Paraguay, $1 million from Spain, $2.5 million from China, a combined payment of $2.5 million from Britain and China, and a combined payment of $3 million from Britain, Malaysia and Brazil. From 1974 to 1997, the payments totaled at least $12.3 million.

The documents, originally given to Riggs by the Chilean defense ministry, were verified by a senior Riggs executive assessing the sources of the general's wealth. The payments from foreign governments were described as "commissions from service and travel abroad."

General Pinochet, who is 89, assumed control in Chile after overthrowing the elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973. He instituted a police state, oversaw the kidnapping and killing of some 4,000 political dissidents, laid the foundation of a stable economy and kept a tight grip on power until 1990. Until 1998, he remained commander in chief of the military. Now he faces potential charges of human rights abuses in Chile as well as legislative and tax service investigations there of his financial dealings.

In 1976, the year General Pinochet received his payment from the United States, there were two pivotal events for Chile. The intelligence services of Chile and other South American countries agreed on a wide-ranging campaign to kill exiled political opponents. Shortly after that, a former Chilean foreign minister, Orlando Letelier, and his American assistant were blown up in their car on a busy street in Washington, an event that led to a reassessment of the United States' relationship with the Pinochet government.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/2004/1207millions.htm