Bank Investigated for Pinochet's Fraud

[seemslikeadream]

The Observer (London, UK)

The law is finally catching up with General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator.

Having for years eluded justice on allegations of torture, murder and international terrorism, he will shortly be facing charges of corruption, tax evasion and the laundering of enormous profits from drug dealing and the privatisation of large swaths of the Chilean economy in the 1970s.

The reputation he carefully cultivated for financial probity which was trumpeted by his many supporters around the world - from Margaret Thatcher to Henry Kissinger - faces final demolition.

Revelations from the US Senate's Sub-Committee on Investigations this month about Pinochet's financial dealings will ensure this. They also make extremely unpleasant reading for the UK government, the British judiciary and the Bank of England.

While under arrest in a small house by a golf course in Surrey he was able to shuffle millions of pounds of his personal fortune through Riggs, a Washington-based bank with a branch in London.
In the past 10 days Riggs, which held accounts for other Pinochet family members, the Chilean army and the secret police, has been sold off for $779 million, a fraction of its former worth.

more
http://www.ktok.com/script/headline_newsmanager.php?id=333893&pagecontent=nationalnews&feed_id=59

[Mara Steele]

1. What an evil & miserable sick excuse for a man ...

I shudder to see his picture/hear his name...

Would be thrilled to see him rotting in jail...

(Nothing constructive to say here,

just had to add my spit to his face on more time...)

Thank you for posting, SLAD...

[seemslikeadream]

2. Thanks for the spit! Mara Steele

They dance alone


Why are there women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here
Their faces fixed like stone?
I can't see what it is that they dispise
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone

It's the only form of protest they're allowed
I've seen their silent faces scream so loud
If they were to speak these words they'd go missing too
Another woman on a torture table what else can they do
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone

One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance
One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance

Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos
Ellas danzan con los muertos
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angustia
Danzan con sus pardres
Danzan con sus hijos
Danzan con sus esposos
Ellas danzan solas
Danzan solas

Hey Mr. Pinochet
You've sown a bitter crop
It's foreign money that supports you
One day the money's going to stop
No wages for your torturers
No budget for your guns
Can you think of your own mother
Dancin' with her invisible son
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
They're anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone

sting





September 11 means EVERYTHING to Chileans, as well.




From the film The Battle of Chile(First Run/Icarus Films)

Chile and the United States:
Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973

by Peter Kornbluh

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.

CONTINUED...

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





Have you seen these

PINOCHET CHARGED WITH CORRUPTION
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=699610

UK banking link to fraud by Pinochet
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=707276

WaPo: Allbritton Loses Riggs Bank (front page, day 3)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=691609

[Mara Steele]

3. Such a sad song & pictures... Made me cry, so powerful...

Thanks for the links; there is so much to keep up with, and you make the task a little easier.

Will talk with you again in the future... Am a little too tired right now. :hi:

Thanks, again...

[Mara Steele]

4. Kick...

:kick:

[Snazzy]

5. CNN: Bank targeted over Pinochet funds

Bank targeted over Pinochet funds
From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman
Tuesday, July 27, 2004 Posted: 1851 GMT (0251 HKT)



Pinochet seized power in Chile in 1973 in a coup and ruled until 1990.

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish judge is being urged to charge a U.S. bank for concealing millions of dollars belonging to former Chilean dicator Augustus Pinochet despite a court order freezing his assets worldwide.

A Spanish lawyer representing alleged victims of Pinochet's regime made the request last week to Baltasar Garzon after a U.S. Senate report on July 15 concluded Riggs Bank had helped Pinochet "evade legal proceedings related to his Riggs bank accounts."

Judge Garzon in 1998 issued an arrest warrant for Pinochet, along with an order freezing his assets. He was expected to rule this week on the new request, said the lawyer, Juan Garces.

Garces told CNN that if Garzon agrees to proceed, it could result in the Spanish government formally asking the U.S. Department of Justice to press charges against Riggs Bank and its top executives allegedly involved in the money laundering.

....

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/27/spain.pinochet/

[seemslikeadream]

9. Spanish government formally asking the U.S. Department of Justice

to press charges against Riggs Bank and its top executives allegedly involved in the money laundering.

[seemslikeadream]

18. Top executive?

Bush to Serve as President & CEO of Riggs Investment Management Subsidiary (May 31, 2000) --Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman. Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997.

http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/may31_00.html

[leesa]

22. Has Jonathan's name ever been mentioned in the mainstream media?

It's truly amazing that this fetid Bush family is in on every criminal adventure in this land and the world.

[Octafish]

23. That's why the BFEE OWNS the media.

Or at least vast tracts of them. Briefly: Nixon blamed the press for his problems, including losing Vietnam. So, over the next decade, the Reich bought the networks and as many newspapers, magazines and radio stations as they could find. What's next? Well...they're trying to figure out how to regulate the Internet. Anyway, here's how Corporate McPravda helped Pruneface:

On Bended Knee
The Press and the Reagan Presidency

by Mark Hertsgaard
Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988

EXCERPT...

p3
"We have been kinder to President Reagan than any President that I can remember since I've been at the Post." So said Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, some four months before the November 1984 re-election of Ronald Reagan. Three years later, after the Iran-Contra affair had shattered Mr. Reagan's previous image of invincibility, I asked the legendary editor if he still stood by his statement. He did. Stressing that this was "all totally subconscious," Bradlee explained that when Ronald Reagan came to Washington in 1980, journalists at the Post sensed that "here comes a really true conservative.... And we are known-though I don't think justifiably-as the great liberals. So, we've got to really behave ourselves here. We've got to not be arrogant, make every effort to be informed, be mannerly, be fair. And we did this. I suspect in the process that this paper and probably a good deal of the press gave Reagan not a free ride, but they didn't use the same standards on him that they used on Carter and on Nixon."

Even with all that eventually went wrong-the Iran-contra scandal, the stock-market crash, the seemingly endless series of criminal investigations of former top White House officials-the overall press coverage of the Reagan administration was extraordinarily positive. It is rare indeed for public officials to express satisfaction with their press coverage-in the words of NBC News White House correspondent Andrea Mitchell, "Politicians always say they want a fair press, when what they really want is a positive press"-but the men in charge of media and public relations in the Reagan White House were, almost unanimously, quite pleased with how their President was treated.

James Baker, White House chief of staff during the first term and Secretary of the Treasury during the second, told me, "There were days and times and events we might have some complaint about, on balance and generally speaking, I don't think we had anything to complain about in terms of first-term press coverage. "

David Gergen, former White House director of communications, confirmed shortly after leaving the administration in January 1984 that President Reagan and most of his advisers had come to believe that the basic goal of their approach to the news media-"to correct the imbalance of power with the press so that the White House will once again achieve a 'margin of safety' "- had finally been attained.

CONTINUED TREASON (subverting the Constitution)by the BFEE...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/On_Bended_Knee.html

[Octafish]

6. Gee. George Herbert Walker Bush LOVES Pinochet...a NARCOTRAFFICKER!!

A mid-1980s investigation led by Sen. John Kerry turned up extensive evidence of drug involvement by the CIA-backed contras.



Cocaine and a Covert War

Although Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina is a famed isolationist on foreign policy matters, during the Cold War he often led the drive to commit U.S. support to anti-communist crusades abroad. In the process, he buddied up to some of most notorious right-wing leaders in the hemisphere. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Helms praised the dictatorial rule of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, even as Pinochet's military government crushed its civilian opposition with dirty war tactics. In the early 1980s, Helms played top Washington apologist for Roberto D'Aubuisson, the arch-conservative former military officer who ran several Salvadoran death squads.

Helms' ties to such infamous characters have been widely known for years. But few people are aware of the Senator's vigorous support of a Nicaraguan rebel group closely linked to narcotrafficking -- support Helms continued long after the drug link was reported by U.S. intelligence and the media.

Why did Helms back a guerrilla faction undergirded by drug money? The Senator and his aides declined to comment for this story. But news reports, congressional testimony and declassified federal documents have made it possible to piece together a complicated tale -- one that stretches from the Nicaraguan border to the White House, from Miami to Senator Helms' office in Washington.

Along the way, this tale raises serious questions about the lengths Helms would go to eradicate the threat of communism -- and, more specifically, questions about the senator's activities on behalf of a group that was heavily involved in smuggling cocaine into the United States.

CONTINUED...

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0797/helm01.htm

And now you know another reason why I am so pro-Kerry...

[Octafish]

8. Remember the Condor

An extreme right-wing death squad HAS to get funding from somewhere to fight godless communism, right?

One guess as to where they can make a buck faster than a Bush can steal it. (No fair Minstrel Boy! Propaganda-Due IS a for-profit organization.)



THE DOUBLE ROLE OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

by SAMUEL BLIXEN
Uruguayan journalist
Posted April 22, 1998

On May 19, members of the Mexican army's special group Ledin combed the foothills between Tianal and Sikiculum, in Chiapas, Mexico, in search of drugs, according to the explanation given by the National Institute for Combatting Drugs. The army set up four camps around Aguascalientes II, to some extent confirming Zapatista allegations of an imminent military offensive that, throughout the negotiation process, acted as a counterpoint in the sporadic peace talks. General Castillo denied the allegations, attributing the deployment of troops to the suppression of a supposed «Southeastern cartel», operating in the states of Chiapas, Campeche and Tabasco.

SNIP...

Simultaneously, in June 1996, the US State Department announced the donation of US$5 million to supplement a training program for members of the Mexican military in the war against drugs; and in August, Senator Jesse Helms lifted his veto of General Geoffrey McCaffrey's proposal to give 50 «used» Huey HU-1H helicopters to the Mexican army; in exchange, the Mexican government «accepted» that the helicopters would be subject to US «monitoring» of their use, and furthermore authorized US public security agencies, in particular the Customs Service, to fly over Mexican territory.

SNIP...

In the view of many social groups , politicians and Latin American military officials, out of all the possible options, «narcotrafficking» and its offspring, «narco-terrorism», are considered extremely dubious tools for sustaining a strategy that extends US national security interests throughout the continent, working simultaneously in geographic, economic and military spheres.

SNIP...

According to some reports, the Argentine military intelligence apparatus and extreme-right Central American groups share contacts initiated by the Italian neofascist organization Avanguardia Nazionale. The link dates back as far as 1973, when the Italian terrorist Stephano Delle Chiaie began operating in Argentina, with ties to the Chilean DINA, the political police under Augusto Pinochet's regime, directed by the then Colonel Manuel Contreras (later promoted to general). Delle Chaie, who coordinated his activities with the Chilean agent (and presumed CIA agent) Michael Townley (convicted in the US of assassinating Chile's ex-Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier) served also as a go-between with Salvadoran army officer Roberto D'Aubisson during the first advisory missions.

CONTINUED...

http://www.copi.com/articles/double.html

[seemslikeadream]

10. Good news tonight from Snazzy, isn't it Octafish?

[Octafish]

13. Es una buena noticia, si.

Ahora, acqui!



Bedfellows.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/

[seemslikeadream]

16. This document is the Rosetta stone

from your link


"This document is the Rosetta stone for deciphering the motivations of Kissinger and Nixon in undermining Chilean democracy," according to Peter Kornbluh who directs the Archive's Chile Documentation Project. "It reinforces the judgement of history on Kissinger's role as the primary advocate of overthrowing the Allende government."

Too much blood: Kissinger and Pinochet
Kissinger Declassified
by Lucy Komisar
>>> I recently got hold of a declassified memorandum about Henry Kissinger's only meeting with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The meeting occurred on June 8, 1976, in Santiago, and the internal State Department memorandum shows how hard Kissinger tried to shield the Chilean general from criticism and assure him that his human rights violations were not a serious problem as far as the U.S. government was concerned.

I had been trying since 1995 to get the memorandum, which was stamped Secret/Nodis (No Distribution). My initial request was refused, but suddenly, to my surprise, the State Department "memorandum of conversation" arrived in the mail in October, shortly after Pinochet's arrest, with a note explaining that, on re-review, it had been opened in full.

The memo describes how Secretary of State Kissinger stroked and bolstered Pinochet, how--with hundreds of political prisoners still being jailed and tortured--Kissinger told Pinochet that the Ford Administration would not hold those human rights violations against him. At a time when Pinochet was the target of international censure for state-sponsored torture, disappearances, and murders, Kis-singer assured him that he was a victim of communist propaganda and urged him not to pay too much attention to American critics.



See scans of the complete Kissinger/Pinochet memo at The Progressive

The meeting occurred at a gathering of the Organization of American States (OAS). Against the advice of most of the State Department's Latin America staff, Kissinger decided to go to Chile for the opening of the OAS general assembly. He and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs William Rogers flew into Santiago June 7 and met with Pinochet the next day. The site of the meeting was the presidential suite in Diego Portales, an office building used during repairs on La Moneda, the presidential palace Pinochet had bombed on September 11, 1973, when he overthrew Salvador Allende. Chilean Foreign Minister Patricio Carvajal and Ambassador to the United States Manuel Trucco were also there. (I've interviewed Rogers, Carvajal, and Trucco, but not Kissinger, who has refused requests.)

Kissinger was dogged by charges he had promoted the military coup against an elected Allende government, and he sought to maintain a cool public distance from Pinochet. But at his confidential meeting, he promised warm support.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/kissinger-declass.htm

[Octafish]

11. Crooks using dope to enslave mopes to fight dupes.

So what does that mean for George Herbert Walker Bush, George Walker Bush, Jebthro, Neil, Marvin and all the uncles, cousins, retainers, pals, hangers-on, soldiers, capos, and consiglierri? It means they're going to be investigated, and if there's evidence, prosecuted.

Mario, (a human rights worker) exiled from Chile and living in the U.S.

In October 1998, the detention of General Pinochet in London brought mixed feelings: sadness and the return of memories of those who had been killed or disappeared. It was a victory, however, for those detained, tortured, disappeared, and killed. The international network of human rights was strengthened and solidarity groups were reactivated. Little by little the U.S. role in the 1973 coup in Chile and during the Pinochet dictatorship is coming out. CIA and State department documents are being declassified. On a national and international level torturers and human rights abusers know that they can’t operate with impunity. The example of Pinochet shows the truth of what happened in terms of human rights violations. Holding the perpetrators responsible, bringing them to trial and justice, and finding the truth can happen. This breaks the power of impunity.

SOURCE...

http://www.lasolidarity.org/papers/humanrights.shtml

Hey, Smirk! Have a nice day!

[Snazzy]

19. Funny that Blackwater is based in NC

Such a small world.

US contractor recruits guards for Iraq in Chile

Forces say experienced soldiers are quitting for private companies which pay more for similar work

Jonathan Franklin in Santiago
Friday March 5, 2004
The Guardian

The US is hiring mercenaries in Chile to replace its soldiers on security duty in Iraq. A Pentagon contractor has begun recruiting former commandos, other soldiers and seamen, paying them up to $4,000 (£2,193) a month to guard oil wells against attack by insurgents.

Last month Blackwater USA flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a 2,400-acre (970-hectare) training camp in North Carolina.

From there they will be taken to Iraq, where they are expected to stay between six months and a year, the president of Blackwater USA, Gary Jackson, told the Guardian by telephone.

"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," he said.

....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1162392,00.html

Some 1 degree of GOP inbreeding about who owns Blackwater in here:

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1031775245470&pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle

Betcha Betsy and Jesse are pals.

[Snazzy]

20. SOA replacement?

News Analysis: For security in Iraq, corporate America turns to Central and South America
2004-06-28
By Louis E.V. Nevaer



MIAMI -- If Jose Miguel Pizarro has his way, he will recruit 30,000 Chileans as mercenaries to protect American companies under Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraq. And undoubtedly, within those ranks will be former members of death squads that tortured and murdered civilians when dictatorships ruled in Latin America.

"There is no comparison with what they can earn in the active military or working in civilian jobs, and what we offer," says Jose Miguel Pizarro, Chile's leading recruiter for international security firms. "This is an opportunity that few in Chile can afford to pass up."

Pizarro's firm, Servicios Integrales, was contracted by Blackwater USA to recruit the first batch of Chileans in November 2003. By May 2004, he had placed 5,200 men who, after one week of training in Santiago, head to North Carolina for orientation with Blackwater, the private security firm that made headlines when four of its employees where killed in Falluja, their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge. After training, Blackwater flies the men to Kuwait City to await their assignments in Iraq.

As democratic governments were voted into office throughout Latin America in the 1990s, Latin militaries were downsized. Thousands of military officers lost their jobs.

"This is a way of continuing our military careers," Carlos Wamgnet, 30, explained in a phone interview from Kuwait while awaiting his assignment in Iraq. "In civilian life in Chile, I was making $1,800 a month. Here I can earn a year's pay in six weeks. It's worth the risks."

....

http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=17195

I know Blackwater has been covered here a lot, just thinking about Helms-Kissinger-Poppy axis of evil and timing with all of this. And Chile also stepping up with Haiti, not just Iraq.

Jose Miguel Pizarro's company used to be called (maybe still is) Red Tactica. Pretty damn close to "Red Team" huh?

[seemslikeadream]

21. Counterfeit Protégé in Port-au-Prince Bailed Out

Thus far the UN’s reaction to Haiti’s diplomatic crisis has been, at best, unimpressive. After failing to intervene in the troubled Caribbean nation in time to preserve Aristide’s elected government, the UN Secretary General’s office issued a report authored by Dumas that was distortedly critical of the ousted president Aristide. The report accused him of failing to advance the cause of democracy and contributing to lawlessness in Haiti, while being almost embarrassingly sympathetic to the opposition groups that had undermined the country’s president by adamantly refusing to negotiate with him. Dumas’ unmitigated faulting of Aristide as grounds to explain Haiti’s plight was outrageously simplistic; the UN official’s tendentious report demonstrated less concern for democracy than for the persuasive influence of the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince. By his comments at the time and by allowing such a biased report to be issued in his name, Kofi Annan gave his tacit approval to Aristide’s ouster – a move that may represent one of the low points of his UN career. In the months since Aristide’s removal, the UN has remained deaf to CARICOM’s attempts to initiate a UN-sanctioned investigation into the circumstances of the former president’s abrupt departure from Haiti. When it came to Haiti, Annan did not shine.

A former foreign minister and the son of a foreign minister, Juan Gabriél Valdés brings a host of close diplomatic ties and expertise as well as a passion for multilateralism to his new task. The appointment of Valdés, who served as the Chilean Ambassador to Argentina until his appointment to the UN post, marks a refreshing change from the lack of responsibility that the UN has shown thus far in dealing with the Haiti crisis. Annan’s selection of Valdés reflects their close relationship, which dates from the latter’s leadership in the debate on Iraq. At the time, Valdés was serving as the head of Chile’s UN delegation, a post he held until last year. Supported by all members of the Security Council as well as the Haitian interim government, Valdés’ installation as the UN’s supreme day-to-day decision maker regarding UN personnel involved in Haiti will hopefully generate new momentum in the international community’s previously ineffective attempts to aid the reconstruction of the ruined country. Although the Bush administration viewed Valdés as unreliable if not overtly hostile when it came to several of its own self-serving policy initiatives, it ended up backing him for the UN post, perhaps out of a guilty conscience.

Washington’s case against Valdés was based on his opposition to lifting the restrictions on the sale of Iraqi oil that were imposed after Iraq had been defeated in the first Gulf War. The US was heavily in favor of lifting these restrictions once it assumed control of the country, while Valdés felt this was premature. This disagreement, combined with Valdés’ threats to resign last year if Chile’s President Lagos ordered him to vote in favor of the war in Iraq created a deep concern in Washington after Valdés refused to offer Chile’s support to the Washington-backed Spanish-British Security Council resolution in favor of immediately attacking Iraq.

Lagos eventually yielded to pressure from Washington to transfer Valdés out of the UN after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Iraq strategy had been temporarily blocked. Valdés was then replaced by Harvard graduate Heraldo Muñoz, another highly regarded Chilean diplomat and, like President Lagos and Valdés himself, a member of Chile’s Socialist Party. The Chilean president embarrassingly kowtowed to Washington in an attempt to ensure that the US would ratify the bilateral free trade agreement it had signed with Santiago, a critical goal of Chilean foreign policy. Lagos was shamefully willing to sacrifice Valdés after the State Department cold-shouldered Chile because of his Iraq vote, suggesting that the Chilean president feared that the trade agreement would be delayed as a result of Chile’s action. Not surprisingly, the decision to replace Valdés with Muñoz was privately lauded by the Spanish ambassador to the UN and the U.S. ambassador to Santiago, both key supporters of the military action against the Saddam regime.

Valdés Gets Down to Work
There are already positive indications that Valdés may steer the UN’s involvement in Haiti in a more responsible direction. At a donors’ conference at the World Bank in which over one billion dollars in relief funds were pledged to Haiti, Valdés insisted that the UN must address the deeply-rooted causes of Haiti’s political and economic turmoil, “not merely paper over the problems.” He went on to emphasize that the international community must be prepared to remain involved in Haiti in the months and years ahead. Whether Valdés can salvage the UN’s tattered reputation in Haitian affairs will be seen soon enough. But of all the actors who have been involved with Haiti in recent months, he alone promises a truly dignified diplomacy that can bring political transparency and democratic order to the country, in sharp contrast to the ignominious role played by the US, France and several presidents in the region, including those of Argentina, Brazil and Chile itself. Initially, the best that Lagos was prepared to do for Haiti was to dispatch several hundred troops, as an accommodation to Washington and to win points with his own perpetually menacing and unrepentant armed forces, who still have Salvador Allende’s blood on their hands.

more
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0407/S00268.htm


Chile to Take Key Role in Haiti's Reconstruction
Last week, former Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdes became the head of the new U.N. mission in Haiti. The U.N. peacekeeping operation, which is expected to number more than seven thousand troops and security officers, replaces a smaller, U.S.-led mission that arrived after a rebellion ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide in February.
more
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=EFD7AA61-9D8B-4FFF-9061F9C5873FDC67

President Lagos, Chile’s Tony Blair, Visits Washington

• Chilean President Ricardo Lagos’ foreign and domestic policy is rapidly gaining his country a reputation as Washington’s lap dog.
President Lagos, Chile’s Blair, Visits Washington
Wednesday, 21 July 2004, 12:26 pm
more
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0407/S00206.htm

[Octafish]

24. Betsy DeVos hates America.

The head of the Michigan GOP especially hates working people.

Thanks to your articles, Snazzy, I understand why.


Betsy DeVos: Michigan workers paid too much

Wednesday, April 28, 2004
By Steven Harmon
The Grand Rapids Press

So, who does Betsy DeVos think is getting paid too much?

The Republican state party chairwoman raised the issue Tuesday when she issued a press release saying high wages were partly to blame for Michigan's economic woes.

"Many, if not most, of the economic problems in Michigan are a result of high wages and a tax and regulatory structure that makes this state uncompetitive," DeVos said in the prepared statement.

The press release was issued as DeVos criticized Gov. Jennifer Granholm for pinning the blame on President Bush for Michigan's loss of nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs. Granholm was in Washington, D.C. with U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow touting plans to protect manufacturing jobs.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1083163979157460.xml

[Octafish]

25. Holy smokes! Check out the LINK between DeVos and Helms.

This page of religious orgs describes a place called "Freemason" that shows a membership listing with:

Freemason ~ Don DeFore, Rich DeVos, Jesse Helms, Rep. Jack Kemp, Hon. Trent Lott

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnporgan.htm

There are more strings and connections between nutjob NAZIs and religious than even my conspiracy-addled brain can digest without a drink. Wow!

[seemslikeadream]

28. Better leave the keys with me

if you're gonna start drinkin'

Dangerous Clouds
http://www.dreamingaloud.com/Gallerys/Gal5.htm

[Octafish]

33. THAT is art!

Thanks for the heads-up, Dreamy!


The Bull at Stonehenge

Too bad there's so much, em, evil in the world. Let's think up ways of getting it O-U-T!

The Pinochet Precedent:
How Victims Can Pursue Human Rights Criminals Abroad

The Pinochet Case - A Wake-up Call to Tyrants and Victims Alike

EXCERPT...

Human Rights Watch described the Pinochet arrest as a "wake-up call" to tyrants everywhere, but an equally important effect of the case has been to give hope to other victims that they can bring their tormentors to justice abroad. Indeed, in January 2000, Human Rights Watch helped Chadian victims to bring a criminal prosecution in Senegal against the exiled dictator of Chad, Hissein Habre, who has been indicted and awaits trial on torture charges (see side-bar).

This brochure attempts to outline the key elements of the "Pinochet precedent" --in particular "universal jurisdiction"--so that victims and human rights activists can press for other state criminals to be brought to justice abroad, and so that they understand the many obstacles to doing so.

CONTINUED...

[Snazzy]

34. Twisted

Drink would help, kinda early, popped some brain cells just visiting that site. Need to get some bloody mary fixings.

-----

The site sez they are members, along with some 500 other often familiar assholes of something called The Council for National Policy, which they then go on to say is some sort of Reagan error Christian right conquer the world, NWO, cabal. CFR, Moonies and Masons too.

News to me, but there's no shortage of groups like that.

Site is equally bizarre. Ah, looks like Jehovah's Witnesses, who I guess prefer their own cabal.

Yikes.

But actually some useful connections in there if you wade through.

Rich DeVos - CNP Executive Committee 1984-85, CNP Senior Executive Committee 1986-88, 1990-93, Board of Governors 1996, 1998; 33º Freemason; co­founder, Amway Corp., one of the world's largest direct selling companies, subsidiaries include the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, Peter Island Resort, and Yacht Harbour and Nutrilite, Inc.; author, BELIEVE! and Compassionate Capitalism; Templeton Foundation 18 - judge for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion; Board of Directors of (33º Mason) Robert Schuller Ministries; Served on Chairman's Council of the Conservative Caucus; owner, Orlando Magic; president, Amway Environmental Foundation, Grand Valley State University Foundation; chairman of the board, Butterworth Health Corporation; board member Newcomen Society ; board member and founding chairman, National Organization on Disability; board of trustees, Gerald R. Ford Foundation; fellow, World of Fellowship for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award; past member, Presidential Commission on AIDS; recipient, Horatio Alger Award, Horatio Alger Association, 1996; holds nine honorary doctorate degrees from various colleges and universities across the country; served in the United States Air Force, 1944­1946; attended Calvin College, 19. Sponsor for Center for the American Founding Re-Elect America Bus Tour. See: Balint Vazsonyi Backer of efforts to stimulate the religious right to make the U.S. a "Christian Republic."

Maybe I'll cautiously bookmark it (section on Helms not bad).

-----------

There's a multi-part story at Blackwater USA 'mercs r us' here:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1476329p-7623132c.html

(sidebar for the parts)

Expands on Erik Prince's background a bit. Worked for Poppy as intern, and also for Dana Rohrabacher.

"He sits on several boards, including Christian Solidarity International, a human rights organization, and the Institute of World Politics, a fledgling foreign relations school in Washington that teaches would-be diplomats from a Judeo-Christian perspective. And he has continued to open his checkbook to the Republican Party and conservative candidates, contributing at least $151,250 since 1989."

He thought Poppy wasn't conservative enough....

-----

Edit to add: So these guys, Prince and probably Helms somehow, are essentially building the new USA private Cristian crusading army in NC, with added cannon fodder from Chile, maybe South Africa too. Paid with taxpayer and Iraqi dollars.

[Octafish]

42. Not to bog you down, but the fundie nutjobs believe the crook is chosen.

If you like to keep tabs on such things, you might enjoy:

http://www.4religious-right.info/bush2.htm

Eh. Here's a little bit that shouldn't be left out:

http://selfishpolicies.com/

Edit: added a link.

[seemslikeadream]

35. Joyce Horman: Still Seeking Justice And Truth

An Emotional Struggle
The benefit, designed to support Mrs. Horman’s lawyers in Chile, Fabiola Letelier and Sergio Corvalan, as they work with Judge Jorge Zepeda Arancibia, who is investigating the Horman’s case, was attended by close to 50 supporters. One of the speakers was Peter Weiss, Mrs. Horman’s pro-bono lawyer from the Center For Constitutional Rights. Mrs. Horman also spoke, emotionally at times, about the past and her on-going struggle for justice and truth. “This case persists because crimes against humanity still exist,” she said.
In 1976, represented by the CFCR, the Horman family brought a wrongful death suit against Henry Kissinger and Nixon administration officials, as well as a suit for the pain and suffering the family experienced due to the concealment of details regarding Mr. Horman’s death. Because many of the documents needed to plea their case were classified as State Department or CIA secrets, it was dismissed in 1980 “without prejudice,” which indicates the court was aware that information had been withheld from the prosecution. “I helped Ed when I could,” remembered Horman. “I confess, I had very little hope. Those in executive power didn’t want the answers to come out.”
Speaking to the hypocrisy Horman witnessed as a widow of the coup-de-tat, her voice broke, “In 1973, my handsome, gentle, American journalist husband was killed in Pinochet’s regime. Henry Kissinger received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.”

http://www.indyeastend.com/cgi-bin/indep/news.cgi?action=article&category=News&id=4827

[seemslikeadream]

7. Snazzy, Octafish

[seemslikeadream]

12. I'll try this one more time

?

[Octafish]

14. You deserve it, seemslikeadream!

Same goes for all good Americans who want their Constitutional Republic restored and Democracy returned. The day is coming, DU Friend. Until then... ¡Salúd!

[Snazzy]

15. (clink)

"Ah! I see you have changed your mind about the champagna. No one can long resist the lure of those delicate bubbles..."

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92dcontinental.phtml

----


Oddly enough, Walken also came up earlier today (though unrelated, of course, to your fine 'champagna'):

[seemslikeadream]

17. CHRISTOPHER!

Many of the mercenaries fighting in Iraq learned their trade while propping up vicious dictatorships, serving in the Chilean army under General Pinochet or protecting the apartheid regime in South Africa. Mercenaries are allowed to carry small arms and are now demanding the right to carry larger weapons. There is no figure for the number of Iraqis they have killed.
Campaigning journalist Paul Foot, writing in Private Eye, has exposed some of the thugs hired by one company, Erinys: "In January two South Africans working for Erinys suffered a bomb attack. Deon Gouws was a former member of Valkplaas, a notorious 'hit squad' implicated in many murders. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted him amnesty after he admitted involvement in more than 40 petrol bombings of political activists' homes. Francois Strydom was a former member of Koevoet, a South African counter-insurgency unit in Namibia with a reputation for murder and torture."
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1898/sw189806.htm

[Minstrel Boy]

26. How great it is to pop into DU and discover a thread like this!

Let's keep baring those fascist asses and keep on kickin' 'em!



:hi:

[Octafish]

27. It's easy. It's fun. It's the "right" thing to do.

Perhaps that should read "It's the only thing "left" to do!

Oh well. Thank Heavens for real journalists, like the team at ConsortiumNews.com. DU's home to more than a few, as well.



Pinochet's Mad Scientist

By Samuel Blixen

On Nov. 15, 1992, a terrified scientist broke a window of a white bungalow in the Uruguayan beach town of Parque del Plata.

Chubby, in his mid-40s, the man struggled through the opening. Once outside, furtively and slowly, he picked his way to the local police station.

"I am a Chilean citizen," the scientist told the police when he finally reached the station. He pulled a folded photostatic copy of his identification papers concealed in his right shoe. "I have been abducted by the armies of Uruguay and my country," he claimed.

The scientist, rumpled with a graying beard, said he feared for his life. He insisted that his murder had been ordered by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, then the chief of Chile's army who had ruled as a dictator from 1973 to 1990.

The motive for the execution was the man's anticipated testimony at a politically sensitive trial in Chile, a case that could send reverberations all the way to Washington, D.C.

CONTINUED ...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c011399a.html

[seemslikeadream]

30. Get ya some of that champagne

before it's all gone

[seemslikeadream]

29. USA/Africa: Oil And Transparency

United States Senate

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,

Committee on Governmental Affairs

Norm Coleman, Chairman; Carl Levin, Ranking Minority Member

Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act Case Study Involving Riggs Bank

Report Prepared by the Minority Staff of the Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations

Released in Conjunction with the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' Hearing on July 15, 2004

July 14, 2004

http://govt-aff.senate.gov >

I. Introduction

From 1999 to 2001, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, at the request of Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Minority Member, conducted a detailed investigation into money laundering activities in the U.S. financial services sector, including in-depth examinations of money laundering activities in private banking, correspondent banking, and the securities industry. ...In 2003, again at Senator Levin's request, the Subcommittee initiated a followup investigation to evaluate the enforcement and effectiveness of key anti-money laundering provisions in the Patriot Act, using Riggs Bank as a case history ...

II. Executive Summary

The evidence reviewed by the Subcommittee staff establishes that, since at least 1997, Riggs has disregarded its anti-money laundering (AML) obligations, maintained a dysfunctional AML program despite frequent warnings from OCC regulators, and allowed or, at times, actively facilitated suspicious financial activity.

The evidence also shows that federal regulators did a poor job of compelling Riggs Bank to comply with statutory and regulatory anti-money laundering requirements. They were too tolerant of the bank's weak AML program, too slow in reacting to repeat deficiencies, and failed to make prompt use of available enforcement tools.

Two sets of Riggs accounts, one involving Augusto Pinochet and the other involving Equatorial Guinea, illustrate the bank's poor AML compliance.2 They also illustrate the failure of federal bank regulators to exercise meaningful oversight of a bank with numerous high risk accounts and fundamental, long-standing AML deficiencies.

...

Equatorial Guinea Accounts. The Subcommittee investigation also determined that, from1995 until 2004, Riggs Bank administered more than 60 accounts and CDs for the government of Equatorial Guinea (E.G.), E.G. government officials, or their family members. By 2003, the E.G. accounts represented the largest relationship at Riggs Bank, with aggregate deposits ranging from $400 to $700 million at a time. The Subcommittee investigation has determined that Riggs Bank serviced the E.G. accounts with little or no attention to the bank's anti-money laundering obligations, turned a blind eye to evidence suggesting the bank was handling the proceeds of foreign corruption, and allowed numerous suspicious transactions to take place without notifying law enforcement.

The Subcommittee investigation found, for example, that Riggs opened multiple personal accounts for the President of Equatorial Guinea, his wife, and other relatives; helped establish shell offshore corporations for the E.G. President and his sons; and over a three-year period, from 2000 to 2002, facilitated nearly $13 million in cash deposits into Riggs accounts controlled by the E.G.

President and his wife. On two of those occasions, Riggs accepted without due diligence $3 million in cash deposits for an account opened in the name of the E.G. President's offshore shell corporation, Otong, S.A. In addition, Riggs opened an account for the E.G. government to receive funds from oil companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea, under terms allowing withdrawals with two signatures, one from the E.G. President and the other from either his son, the E.G. Minister of Mines, or his nephew, the E.G.

Secretary of State for Treasury and Budget. Riggs subsequently allowed wire transfers withdrawing more than $35 million from the E.G. government account, wiring the funds to two companies which were unknown to the bank and had accounts in jurisdictions with bank secrecy laws. The Subcommittee has reason to believe that at least one of these recipient companies is controlled in whole or in part by the E.G. President. When, in 2004, the bank requested more information about the two companies from the E.G. President, he declined to provide it, except to say the wire transfers to them had been authorized.

The senior leadership at Riggs Bank were well aware of the E.G.

accounts and met on several occasions with the E.G. President and other E.G. officials. The bank leadership permitted the account manager handling the E.G. relationship to become closely involved with E.G. officials and business activities, including advising the E.G. government on financial matters and becoming the sole signatory on an E.G. account holding substantial funds. ...

Riggs Bank failed to cooperate initially with Subcommittee requests for information about the E.G. accounts, identifying only about half the E.G. accounts at the bank and producing limited account documentation and electronic mail. The Subcommittee later learned that the bank had failed to designate the E.G. accounts as high risk accounts until October 2003, and did not subject them to additional scrutiny despite obvious warning signs, such as the involvement of foreign political figures, a country with a culture of corruption, and frequent high dollar transactions. The bank also failed to monitor or report suspicious activity in the E.G. accounts. The bank closed these accounts in recent weeks.

Regulatory Failure. Given the fundamental, long-standing deficiencies in Riggs' AML program, it is difficult to understand why federal regulators failed to act sooner to require the bank to correct them. The OCC recently acknowledged: "there was a failure of supervision" at Riggs, and "e gave the bank too much time." The evidence shows that, since 1997, OCC examiners repeatedly identified major AML deficiencies at Riggs Bank, but more senior OCC personnel allowed these AML deficiencies to continue year after year without forceful action to stop them. ...

It was only in 2004, six years after the OCC began citing Riggs for AML deficiencies, that federal regulators imposed their first civil fine on the bank. ...

The Subcommittee's investigation indicates that the failure of supervision in the Riggs matter is not an isolated case, but symptomatic of a pattern of uneven and, at times, ineffective AML enforcement by federal regulators. ...

An important ancillary issue raised by the Riggs case history involves the ability of U.S. financial institutions with foreign affiliates to get key due diligence information about accounts opened and managed by their foreign affiliates. After questions arose about the $35 million in wire transfers from the E.G. oil account, for example, Riggs sent letters under section 314 of the Patriot Act to at least two banks, Banco Santander and HSBC USA, asking them voluntarily to share information about the beneficial owners of certain accounts to which the funds had been directed.

... Both banks declined to provide the requested information, because the accounts had been opened at their foreign affiliates in Luxembourg or Spain. .... ...

Oil Company Payments. During its analysis of large bank transactions involving E.G. accounts at Riggs Bank and other financial institutions, the Subcommittee staff became aware of a number of substantial payments that had been made by oil companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea to individual E.G. officials, their family members, or entities controlled by these officials or family members. For example, these payments, which sometimes exceeded $1 million, paid for E.G. land leases or purchases, E.G. Embassy expenses, in-country security services, or expenses for E.G. students studying abroad. In a few instances, the evidence shows that oil companies entered into business ventures with companies owned in whole or in part by the E.G. President, other E.G. officials, or relatives.

For example, in 1998, ExxonMobil established an oil distribution business in Equatorial Guinea of which 85 percent is owned by ExxonMobil and 15 percent by Abayak S.A., a company controlled by the E.G. President. These types of payments and business ventures, which came to light as a result of the Subcommittee's detailed review of bank transactions involving Equatorial Guinea, are often unknown to the public and raise concerns related to corruption and profiteering. To reduce opportunities for corruption, the oil companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea should adhere to disclosure practices advocated in such international transparency initiatives as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative led by U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the G-8 Anti-Corruption and Transparency Initiative.These initiatives would require the oil companies to make public disclosure of all payments made to E.G officials, their family members, or entities they control. To further reduce opportunities for corruption, U.S. oil companies should not participate in future business ventures in which individual E.G. officials or their family members have a direct or beneficial interest. Congress should also amend the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to require U.S. companies to disclose substantial payments to and business ventures entered into with a country's officials, their family members, or entities they control.

III. Findings

Based upon its investigation, the Subcommittee Minority staff makes the following findings of fact.

(1) Assisting Pinochet. Riggs Bank assisted Augusto Pinochet, former president of Chile, to evade legal proceedings related to his Riggs bank accounts and resisted OCC oversight of these accounts, despite red flags involving the source of Mr. Pinochet's wealth, pending legal proceedings to freeze his assets, and public allegations of serious wrongdoing by this client.

(2) Turning a Blind Eye. Riggs Bank managed more than 60 accounts and certificates of deposit for Equatorial Guinea, its officials, and their family members, with little or no attention to the bank's anti-money laundering obligations, turned a blind eye to evidence suggesting the bank was handling the proceeds of foreign corruption, and allowed numerous suspicious transactions to take place without notifying law enforcement.

(3) Dysfunctional AML Program. For many years, Riggs Bank ignored repeated di

rectives by federal bank regulators to improve its anti-money laundering program, instead employing a dysfunctional system that failed to safeguard the bank against money laundering or foreign corruption.

(6) Uneven AML Enforcement. Current AML enforcement efforts by federal agencies are uneven and, at times, ineffective, as demonstrated by cases in which federal regulators have allowed AML compliance problems to persist at some financial institutions for years, failed after three years to issue final regulations implementing the Patriot Act's due diligence requirements, and failed to issue revised guidelines for bank examiners testing AML compliance with the Patriot Act's due diligence requirements combating money laundering and foreign corruption.

(7) Unseen Payments. Oil companies operating in Equatorial Guinea may have contributed to corrupt practices in that country by making substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures with, individual E.G. officials, their family members, or entities they control, with minimal public disclosure of their actions.


more
http://allafrica.com/stories/200407280959.html

[seemslikeadream]

31. Teaching Torture

Ever Vigilant: Attempts to shut down the School of the Americas have been met with indifference. The Iraqi prison scandal has renewed the effort this November.

"The black hood covering the faces of naked prisoners in Abu Ghraib was known as la capuchi in Guatemalan and Salvadoran torture chambers. The metal bed frame to which the naked and hooded detainee was bound in a crucifix position in Abu Ghraib was la cama, named for a former Chilean prisoner who survived the U.S.-installed regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. In her case, electrodes were attached to her arms, legs and genitalia, just as they were attached to the Iraqi detainee poised on a box, threatened with electrocution if he fell off.

The Iraqi man bound naked on the ground with a leash attached to his neck, held by a smiling young American recruit, reminds me of the son of peasant organizers who recounted his agonizing torture at the hands of the Tonton Macoutes, U.S.-backed dictator John-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier's right-hand thugs, in Port-au-Prince in 1984. The very act of photographing those tortured in Abu Ghraib to humiliate and silence parallels the experience of an American missionary, Sister Diana Ortiz, who was tortured and gang-raped repeatedly under supervision by an American in 1989, according to her testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

The long history of torture by U.S.-trained thugs in South and Central America under the command of SOA graduates has also been capaciously documented by human-rights organizations like Amnesty International (in its 2002 report titled "Unmatched Power, Unmet Principles") and in books like A.J. Langguth's Hidden Terrors, William Blum's Rogue State and Lawrence Weschler's A Miracle, a Universe. In virtually every report on human-rights abuses from Latin America, SOA graduates are prominent. A U.N. Truth Commission report said that over two-thirds of the Salvadoran officers it cites for abuses are SOA graduates. Forty percent of the cabinet members under three sanguinary Guatemalan dictatorships were SOA graduates. And the list goes on.

In 2000, the Pentagon engaged in a smoke-screen attempt to give the SOA a face-lift by changing its name to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) as part of a "reform" program. But as the late GOP Sen. Paul Coverdale of Georgia (where SOA-WHINSEC is located) said at the time, the changes to the school were "basically cosmetic."

The lobbying campaign to close SOA-WHINSEC has been led by School of the Americas Watch, founded by religious activists after the 1990s murder of four U.S. nuns by Salvadoran death squads under command of one of the SOA's most infamous graduates, Col. Roberto D'Aubuisson. Lest you think that the school's links to atrocities are all in the distant past, SOA Watch has documented a raft of recent scandals postdating the Pentagon's chimerical "reform." Here are just a few of them:

more
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/07.28.04/torture-0431.html

[Judi Lynn]

32. What a great bunch of information.Coming back to read late tonight.

Thanks for helping DU'ers get a fast education! This is important material.

[Tight_rope]

36. Good..Another bad man has fallen at a ripe old age...May he rot in hell!

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS. - Mohandas K. Gandhi

[Tight_rope]

37. Seemslikeadream after reading about Riggs Bank...I thought about you

I know that Riggs Bank is your specialty. I just want to say "Thank You" for all of your hard work in helping bring the truth about other crooks in the Bush family to the forefront.

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS. - Mohandas K. Gandhi

[seemslikeadream]

38. Thanks so much

I REALLY appreciate you taking the time.

Riggs Bank
Equatorial Guinea
Pinochet
Zimbabwe - Mercenaries
Bae

They're all connected


more
WaPo: Allbritton Loses Riggs Bank (front page, day 3)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=691609

[seemslikeadream]

39. Pinochet son arrested

From correspondents in Santiago, Chile
July 30, 2004

INVESTIGATORS are closing in on the still-untried Augusto Pinochet, arresting the former Chilean dictator's son after linking his wife to secret multimillion-dollar US bank accounts.

Augusto Pinochet Hiriart was arrested for his part in an organisation that bought and sold cars, presumably stolen, and which falsified its accounting to avoid an estimated $US625,000 ($896,121) in taxes.


Hiriart's wife Luisa was also a signatory to the Riggs accounts and could face charges if the money is found to have been fraudulently obtained.Chile's State Defence Council said last week it would open embezzlement and income tax evasion investigations.


The US Senate found that Riggs Bank had ignored banking regulations to launder money between 1994 and 2002. The accounts held between $US4 million ($5.74 million) and $US8 million ($11.47 million).

Riggs discreetly helped Pinochet hide assets after his arrest in London, when in October 1998 Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon issued a warrant for his capture.

more
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10289457%255E1702,00.html

Pinochet Son Arrested for Alleged Tax Fraud
Following his arrest, Mr. Pinochet Hiriart was transferred to the city of Curico, where a special court is handling the case.

Mr. Pinochet Hiriart's detention comes two weeks after a U.S. Senate report accused a Washington bank of helping his father, General Pinochet, conceal as much as $8 million between 1994 and 2002.

more
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=2A4A9573-F175-4DAC-9F0A226C7C55F901

[Tatiana]

40. F-ing amazing.

These funds were housed through an AMERICAN BANK, yet our mainstream media does not see fit to bring us this news.

Where is the NY Times on this? The WaPo? The Boston Globe? The LA Times? The Chicago Tribune?

No decent coverage of this scandal and if a REAL Attorney General's DOJ decided to fully investigate Riggs, we'd assurely be prosecuting dozens of high-level government officials for white-collar crimes (and possibly crimes against humanity).

F-ing unreal.

[seemslikeadream]

41. Not only that it is an AMERICAN bank

It is an American bank headed by george bush's

UNCLE JONATHAN BUSH

That's why

John Ashcroft DO YOUR JOB!!!!!!!

Remember funding terrorists and money laundering is against the law.

Does the Patriot Act ring a bell?

American Media DO YOUR JOB!!!!!!!!!!