Argentina's ex-army chief being tried for killings (U.S. supported junta)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald/Associated Press

Argentina's ex-army chief being tried for killings
Posted on Mon, May. 26, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM print email
By JEANNETTE NEUMANN
Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- One of Argentina's most feared former military leaders goes on trial Tuesday on charges of kidnapping, torturing and killing left-wing militants during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

Former army chief Luciano Benjamin Menendez will be tried in the northern city of Cordoba, where he commanded the regional Third Army Corps for five years.

Menendez and seven other former army officers are being prosecuted for the killing of Hilda Palacios, Humberto Brandalisi, Carlos Laja and Ruben Cardozo, who were kidnapped in November 1977. Prosecutors say they were taken to the clandestine prison and torture center known as La Perla on the outskirts of Cordoba.

According to prosecutors, they were killed the following month and then dumped in the street to make it look like they died in a shootout with officials - a tactic commonly used at the time by the military in Cordoba to cover executions of dissidents.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/547447.html

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He's mentioned in this article with a link to another page which contains personal accounts of his mass executions of political prisoners, dumping them into a pit, etc.

http://www.yendor.com/vanished/junta.html

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ARGENTINE MILITARY BELIEVED U.S. GAVE GO-AHEAD FOR DIRTY WAR

New State Department documents show conflict between Washington and US Embassy in Buenos Aires over signals to the military dictatorship at height of repression in 1976

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part II
Edited by Carlos Osorio

Assisted by

Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance
Florence Segura, research assistance
of the National Security Archive

Natalia Federman, research assistance and Spanish translation
of CELS
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were "euphoric" over signals from high-ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Embassy reported to Washington that after Mr. Kissinger's 10 June 1976 meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti, the Argentine government dismissed the Embassy's human rights approaches and referred to Kissinger's "understanding" of the situation. The current State Department collection does not include a minute of Kissinger's and Guzetti's conversation in Santiago, Chile.

On 20 September 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill reported that Guzzetti said "When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA 'get it over quickly'."

After a second meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in Washington, on 19 October 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill wrote "a sour note" from Buenos Aires complaining that he could hardly carry human rights demarches if the Argentine Foreign Minister did not hear the same message from the Secretary of State. "Guzzetti went to U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG over that issue," wrote Hill.

More:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm

[L. Coyote]

1. Italy: Judge issues 140 arrest warrants in "Plan Condor" case. Bush NOT YET indicted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2528536

[Judi Lynn]

3. Speaking of Operation Condor, I just saw some material on Michael Townley I've never seen before:

Michael Vernon Townley was born in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1942. His father, Vernon Townley, was appointed head of the Ford Motor Company in Chile. As a result, the family moved to Santiago. Vernon Townley, who had developed links with the CIA while working in the Philippines, became involved in politics and helped fund the 1958 presidential campaign of conservative candidate, Jorge Alessandri who narrowly managed to defeat Salvador Allende in the election.

Michael Townley went to work for Investors Overseas Services, the company owned by Bernard Cornfeld and Robert Vesco. In 1961 Townley married Mariana Callejas. Although active in the Socialist Party of Chile, she was actually working as an informer for Chilean military intelligence. Soon afterwards Townley began working for the CIA. He became associated with a Cuban group called the Chicago Junta. This group included Frank Sturgis, Orlando Bosch, Antonio Veciana and Aldo Vera Serafin. According to Peter Dale Scott, this operational hit team was disbanded on 21st November, 1963, the day before John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

In 1967 Townley moved to Miami. According to Donald Freed (Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier) Towney was now being sponsored by Frank Sturgis and the Secret Army Organization (SAO). "Townley began an intensive study of electronics and explosives under the tutelage of several former CIA men who were in the process of taking over an electronics operation in the Fort Lauderdale area." One of Townley's tasks was to plant bombs under the cars of people living in Miami.
(snip)


Townley's main task was to deal with those dissents who had fled Chile after General Augusto Pinochet gained power. This included General Carlos Prats who was writing his memoirs in Argentina. Donald Freed argues in Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier that: "On September 30, 1974, shortly after the first anniversary of the violent overthrow of the Allende government, Townley and a team of assassins murdered Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires. Their auto was exploded by a bomb."

Promoted to the rank of major by General Juan Manuel Contreras Townley made regular visits to the United States in 1975 to meet with Rolando Otero and other members of the White Hand group. In September 1975, Townley's death squad struck again. Former Chilean vice-president Bernardo Leighton and his wife were gunned down in Rome by local fascists working with DINA.

On 25th November 1975, leaders of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met, with Juan Manuel Contreras in Santiago de Chile. The main objective was for the CIA to coordinate the actions of the various security services in "eliminating Marxist subversion". Operation Condor was given tacit approval by the United States which feared a Marxist revolution in the region. The targets were officially leftist guerrillas but in fact included all kinds of political opponents. Townley soon became involved in this undercover operation.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtownleyM.htm

I thought about Townley looking at the great thread you linked. So much information in one place. It's a gift! Really appreciate what you have done here.

[L. Coyote]

4. Understatement/obfuscation: "Operation Condor was given tacit approval by the United States"

The communications center was Southern Command. That is more than "tacit approval" and
constitutes participation in the conspiracy to murder and kidnap liberal political opposition.

Those of us whose friends got bullets in the head will not rest until we are dead too
or until justice is finally restored everywhere in the Americas, and the guilty are punished.

[L. Coyote]

2. K & R. Keep up the greeeeat work on this beat!!

[Judi Lynn]

5. Argentine ex-army chief on trial

Page last updated at 16:34 GMT, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 17:34 UK

Argentine ex-army chief on trial
An ex-army officer viewed by Argentine human rights activists as a prime example of the military's cruel rule in the 1970s and 1980s has gone on trial.

Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 80, and seven other former army officers, are accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing four left-wing activists.

Prosecutors say the victims were dumped in the street to make it look like they died in a shootout with officials.

It is the first big human rights trial to be held in the city of Cordoba.

Most human rights cases to date have been tried in Buenos Aires and the surrounding area. Luciano Benjamin Menendez, who reached the rank of general, was one of Argentina's most feared army officers during military rule between 1976 and 1983.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7422284.stm

~~~~~~~~~~
Argentine dictatorship-era general on trial
Updated at: 0415 PST, Wednesday, May 28, 2008
BUENOS AIRES: An Argentine former army general from the country's 1976-1983 dictatorship has been on trial on charges of kidnapping, torturing and murdering leftist opponents of the regime.

Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 80, and seven other military officers are being prosecuted for the killing of four members of the leftist Revolutionary Worker's Party (PRT) in 1977.

"Now it's your turn!" cried one of the relatives of the victims, pointing at Menendez and the alleged co-conspirators.

Menendez, nicknamed "Cub" or "The Hyena of La Perla," commanded the Third Army Corps between 1975 and 1979, with authority over much of central and northeastern Argentina.

The four leftist activists were allegedly tortured at La Perla, the largest government-run torture center in the central province of Cordoba. Some 2,500 junta opponents went through La Perla between 1976 and 1979, and today the site is a museum dedicated to the victims.

Scores of police officers protected the court house in the city of Cordoba, located 700 kilometers (435 miles) north of Buenos Aires, as the trial began.

Witnesses testified that Menendez personally supervised the torture and execution of political prisoners.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=46372