Ex-President of Mexico (Luis Echeverria) Indicted | LA Times

[Ediacara]

Ex-President of Mexico Indicted
Luis Echeverria is charged in the deaths and disappearance of 280 protesters in 1971.


FORMER PRESIDENT: Experts doubt that Luis
Echeverria, 82, will face trial.
(AP)

By Chris Kraul and Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writers

MEXICO CITY — In Mexico's first effort to bring a former leader to justice for human rights abuses, a special prosecutor Friday charged ex-President Luis Echeverria with responsibility for the deaths and disappearance of up to 280 people in the so-called Corpus Christi massacre 33 years ago.

A judge overseeing the case is expected to rule today on a request by the prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, to order the arrest of Echeverria, two former Cabinet ministers and the generals who commanded army units that fired on a leftist student protest on June 10, 1971, in Mexico City.

The prosecutor handed the indictment to Judge Cesar Flores in a private meeting, then made a cryptic announcement at a news conference, avoiding any mention of the former president. Echeverria's attorney, Juan Velasquez, acknowledged that his client was named in the indictment, reportedly along with ex-Interior Secretary Mario Moya Palencia and former Atty. Gen. Julio Sanchez Vargas.

More at the Los Angeles Times

[LOVING IT]

1. Blind leading the Blind...

New warlords thumping ex-warlords...

Wonder Why our sothern border is a one way street north...

[Demeter]

2. We Better Hope And Pray and Work Like Dogs

so that it doesn't take 33 years to bring the Bush people to account (and while we're at it, the Reagan ones, too!)

[Judi Lynn]

3. We've only found out fairly recently what kind of crude viciousness

Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon were involved in in Latin America. There are people who would really like to get Kissinger into court for his crimes now, but it's been so long since, f'r instance, 9/ll, 1973.

These matters WILL come out. It would be sheer heaven to see it happen while the perps are still alive, wouldn't it?

September 11, 1998 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. The violent overthrow of the democratically-elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende changed the course of the country that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda described as "a long petal of sea, wine and snow"; because of CIA covert intervention in Chile, and the repressive character of General Pinochet's rule, the coup became the most notorious military takeover in the annals of Latin American history.

Revelations that President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him," prompted a major scandal in the mid-1970s, and a major investigation by the U.S. Senate. Since the coup, however, few U.S. documents relating to Chile have been actually declassified- -until recently. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, and other avenues of declassification, the National Security Archive has been able to compile a collection of declassified records that shed light on events in Chile between 1970 and 1976.

These documents include:

** Cables written by U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry after Allende's election, detailing conversations with President Eduardo Frei on how to block the president-elect from being inaugurated. The cables contain detailed descriptions and opinions on the various political forces in Chile, including the Chilean military, the Christian Democrat Party, and the U.S. business community.

** CIA memoranda and reports on "Project FUBELT"--the codename for covert operations to promote a military coup and undermine Allende's government. The documents, including minutes of meetings between Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of covert action in 1970, provide a clear paper trail to the decisions and operations against Allende's government

** National Security Council strategy papers which record efforts to "destabilize" Chile economically, and isolate Allende's government diplomatically, between 1970 and 1973.

** State Department and NSC memoranda and cables after the coup, providing evidence of human rights atrocities under the new military regime led by General Pinochet.

** FBI documents on Operation Condor--the state-sponsored terrorism of the Chilean secret police, DINA. The documents, including summaries of prison letters written by DINA agent Michael Townley, provide evidence on the carbombing assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C., and the murder of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires, among other operations.
(snip/...)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm

Chile and the United States:
Declassified Documents relating to
the Military Coup, 1970-1976
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm

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Even if Vicente Fox's government cannot bring Luis Echeverria to trial, at least he will have been OUTED, and will never command the respect he once had.

I would hope _{George Bush} realizes the man he assumed would be his Mexican puppet, Vicente Fox is very different from the clown he tooke him to be.