Post by UniverseSeven on Dec 28, 2005 21:54:25 GMT -5
Chile fingerprints Pinochet as rights case builds
Wed Dec 28, 2005 8:29 PM GMT
REUTERS
By Antonio de la Jara
SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Chilean police took mug shots and fingerprinted former ruler Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday over his indictment related to the murder and disappearance of leftist opponents under his dictatorship.
Judge Victor Montiglio requested the shots and prints to create a police file on the former strongman, court officials said. It was the first time courts had ordered mugshots and fingerprints of Pinochet.
Separately, Montiglio ruled to grant bail for Pinochet, under house arrest since November, although the motion must be ratified by the court of appeals. He set bail at $47,000.
Pinochet, 90, has been under house arrest in his Santiago mansion for nearly one month in connection with Operation Colombo, in which 119 members of a leftist rebel group disappeared during his 1973-1990 rule and are presumed dead.
The mug shots on Friday add to Pinochet's legal woes, which have been building over recent months and which even saw his wife and son briefly arrested.
"This is insulting but what pains us the most is not that a police record has been made for a former president but that there are no legal grounds to do so," said Pablo Rodriguez, Pinochet's attorney.
"This is an arbitrary procedure by the judge," he said.
Human rights lawyers and the government of socialist President Ricardo Lagos said they were pleased to see standard court procedure upheld, saying it was proof the once-powerful general would not get special treatment by the courts.
"Once more in Chile we can happily affirm that there is equality before the law and that the courts of justice are functioning impeccably," said government spokesman Osvaldo Puccio.
The police record includes front and side-view photographs of the accused and prints of all 10 fingers.
Under Pinochet, about 3,000 suspected lefists were "disappeared" or killed and another 28,000 were tortured, according to government reports.
Pinochet lost a key appeal before the Supreme Court on Monday and must now face the first of a series of human rights charges against him related to Operation Colombo.
In November he was also indicted for tax fraud and other crimes related to some $27 million hidden in foreign bank accounts.
(Additional reporting by Erik Lopez and Lorena Ormeno)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
What's Behind the Bush-Pinochet Friendship?
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
source - saul landau <slandau@csupomona.edu>
Miami Herald 6/1/99
OPINION:
What's behind the Bush-Pinochet friendship?
by SARAH ANDERSON AND SAUL LANDAU
Former President George Bush is acting strangely these days, as if he may
have something to hide.
On April 12 The London Times reported that Bush had written a letter
supporting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom British
authorities have detained since October while trying to decide whether to
let a Spanish magistrate extradite and try him for crimes against humanity.
The Times quoted Bush's letter to former British Chancellor Lord Lamont,
calling the accusation against Pinochet a ``travesty against justice.''
Britain, Bush concluded, should allow Pinochet to return to Chile.
Why would a former President who spends his time schmoozing at fund raisers
issue an impassioned defense of a notorious Latin American dictator? Hoping
that the full text of the letter might help explain Bush's actions, we tried
to get a copy.
On April 26 Michael Dannenaher, Bush's chief of staff, told us that he, not
Bush, had written said letter and that he would not provide a copy. We then
turned to House International Relations Committee member Rep. Cynthia
McKinney, D-Ga., who also requested a copy. Her aide told us that Dannenaher
gave him a different story: that no letter had been written. Lamont insists
he received a letter from Bush but has yet to comply with McKinney's request
for a copy.
Bush's behavior raises questions about his relationship to Pinochet, whose
17-year regime executed more than 3,190 people. The CIA backed Pinochet's
rise to power in a bloody 1973 coup. Three years later Bush, as head of the
CIA, had access to information that Pinochet headed Operation Condor, an
international network of secret-police agencies established to eliminate
dissidents. CIA officials knew, for example, that Chile had sent agents to
Argentina and Italy to assassinate prominent exiled opponents. The CIA also
knew Pinochet's method for foreign killings because it and the FBI
collaborated in some phases of the Condor operations.
Nevertheless, Bush and other CIA officials reacted like tortoises when a
top-secret cable arrived in June 1976 from U. S. Ambassador to Paraguay
George Landau (no relation to author Saul Landau). The cable advised CIA
Deputy Director General Vernon Walters that Landau had authorized U. S.
visas for two of Chile's covert agents, who were using phony Paraguayan
passports, to visit Washington. Walters was absent, so according to CIA
protocol, only Bush could have signed for the cable. Landau received no
response to his urgent alert.
Pinochet's secret-police chief aborted that mission, then quickly
rescheduled it. Two months later, two other Chilean agents under the same
aliases obtained U. S. visas in Santiago. Upon their arrival, U. S.
immigration officials informed the CIA, but the CIA apparently made no
response. To Pinochet, this may have been an indication that the coast was
clear to hit his target: Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to
the United States.
On Sept. 21, 1976, Chilean agents detonated a bomb under Letelier's car as
he drove to work at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D. C. An
American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, also died in the attack.
Bush promised the FBI full cooperation, but the CIA withheld key
information, including photocopies of the phony passports that Landau had
sent. The agency also appears to have planted stories suggesting Pinochet's
innocence in the affair. FBI investigators later complained that the CIA
delivered thousands of files of leftist ``suspects,'' suggesting that the
Chilean left had killed Letelier to create a martyr.
Pinochet's hatred of Letelier was no secret in Washington. Three months
before the assassination, Pinochet had complained to then-Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger that Letelier's influence with the U. S. Congress was
creating problems for him. Months after the murders, the State Department
finally gave the FBI its copy of Landau's files on the covert operatives,
which led to indictments against eight of Pinochet's men.
Given the working relationship between Chile's secret police and the CIA,
Bush may have assumed that Pinochet wouldn't embarrass the Americans with a
high-profile assassination a mile from the White House. Once the deed was
done, did the CIA cover it up?
We can't even get a straight answer from Bush on whether he is supporting
Pinochet today, much less what he might have been doing 23 years ago.
Ironically, Pinochet himself eventually might reveal the truth of his
relationship to the CIA. If his British appeals fail, he might spill
interesting information on the witness stand in Spain.
The absence of sex scandals in Bush's legacy may pale before the stain of
dalliances with an international serial killer.
[Sarah Anderson and Saul Landau are fellows of the Institute for Policy
Studies in Washington, D. C. Landau also holds the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of
Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge at California State Polytechnic
University at Pomona.]
(c) 1999 Miami Herald
Saul Landau
Hugh O. La Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge,
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Pomona, CA 91768
tel:909-869-3115
fax:909-869-4751
mailto: slandau@csupomona.edu
www.csupomona.edu/~slandau
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8
Chile and the United States:
Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
Tim Weiner, "How the CIA Took Aim at Allende," New York Times, September 12, 1998
www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ciachile.htm
CNN: CIA acknowledges involvement in Allende's overthrow, Pinochet's rise
September 19, 2000
archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/09/19/us.cia.chile.ap/
Virtual Truth Commission
Telling the Truth for a Better America
Reports by Topic: Operation Condor
www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/condor.htm
Bush & the Condor Mystery
By Robert Parry
Newly released U.S. government documents reveal that George Bush's CIA knew more about Chile's role in an international assassination ring, code-named Condor, than Bush and the agency disclosed to FBI agents investigating a Condor terrorist bombing in Washington, D.C., in 1976.
www.consortiumnews.com/1999/100599b.html
Orlando Letelier: He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify about the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. He refused.
www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/bush_body_count.htm
Wed Dec 28, 2005 8:29 PM GMT
REUTERS
By Antonio de la Jara
SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Chilean police took mug shots and fingerprinted former ruler Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday over his indictment related to the murder and disappearance of leftist opponents under his dictatorship.
Judge Victor Montiglio requested the shots and prints to create a police file on the former strongman, court officials said. It was the first time courts had ordered mugshots and fingerprints of Pinochet.
Separately, Montiglio ruled to grant bail for Pinochet, under house arrest since November, although the motion must be ratified by the court of appeals. He set bail at $47,000.
Pinochet, 90, has been under house arrest in his Santiago mansion for nearly one month in connection with Operation Colombo, in which 119 members of a leftist rebel group disappeared during his 1973-1990 rule and are presumed dead.
The mug shots on Friday add to Pinochet's legal woes, which have been building over recent months and which even saw his wife and son briefly arrested.
"This is insulting but what pains us the most is not that a police record has been made for a former president but that there are no legal grounds to do so," said Pablo Rodriguez, Pinochet's attorney.
"This is an arbitrary procedure by the judge," he said.
Human rights lawyers and the government of socialist President Ricardo Lagos said they were pleased to see standard court procedure upheld, saying it was proof the once-powerful general would not get special treatment by the courts.
"Once more in Chile we can happily affirm that there is equality before the law and that the courts of justice are functioning impeccably," said government spokesman Osvaldo Puccio.
The police record includes front and side-view photographs of the accused and prints of all 10 fingers.
Under Pinochet, about 3,000 suspected lefists were "disappeared" or killed and another 28,000 were tortured, according to government reports.
Pinochet lost a key appeal before the Supreme Court on Monday and must now face the first of a series of human rights charges against him related to Operation Colombo.
In November he was also indicted for tax fraud and other crimes related to some $27 million hidden in foreign bank accounts.
(Additional reporting by Erik Lopez and Lorena Ormeno)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
What's Behind the Bush-Pinochet Friendship?
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
source - saul landau <slandau@csupomona.edu>
Miami Herald 6/1/99
OPINION:
What's behind the Bush-Pinochet friendship?
by SARAH ANDERSON AND SAUL LANDAU
Former President George Bush is acting strangely these days, as if he may
have something to hide.
On April 12 The London Times reported that Bush had written a letter
supporting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom British
authorities have detained since October while trying to decide whether to
let a Spanish magistrate extradite and try him for crimes against humanity.
The Times quoted Bush's letter to former British Chancellor Lord Lamont,
calling the accusation against Pinochet a ``travesty against justice.''
Britain, Bush concluded, should allow Pinochet to return to Chile.
Why would a former President who spends his time schmoozing at fund raisers
issue an impassioned defense of a notorious Latin American dictator? Hoping
that the full text of the letter might help explain Bush's actions, we tried
to get a copy.
On April 26 Michael Dannenaher, Bush's chief of staff, told us that he, not
Bush, had written said letter and that he would not provide a copy. We then
turned to House International Relations Committee member Rep. Cynthia
McKinney, D-Ga., who also requested a copy. Her aide told us that Dannenaher
gave him a different story: that no letter had been written. Lamont insists
he received a letter from Bush but has yet to comply with McKinney's request
for a copy.
Bush's behavior raises questions about his relationship to Pinochet, whose
17-year regime executed more than 3,190 people. The CIA backed Pinochet's
rise to power in a bloody 1973 coup. Three years later Bush, as head of the
CIA, had access to information that Pinochet headed Operation Condor, an
international network of secret-police agencies established to eliminate
dissidents. CIA officials knew, for example, that Chile had sent agents to
Argentina and Italy to assassinate prominent exiled opponents. The CIA also
knew Pinochet's method for foreign killings because it and the FBI
collaborated in some phases of the Condor operations.
Nevertheless, Bush and other CIA officials reacted like tortoises when a
top-secret cable arrived in June 1976 from U. S. Ambassador to Paraguay
George Landau (no relation to author Saul Landau). The cable advised CIA
Deputy Director General Vernon Walters that Landau had authorized U. S.
visas for two of Chile's covert agents, who were using phony Paraguayan
passports, to visit Washington. Walters was absent, so according to CIA
protocol, only Bush could have signed for the cable. Landau received no
response to his urgent alert.
Pinochet's secret-police chief aborted that mission, then quickly
rescheduled it. Two months later, two other Chilean agents under the same
aliases obtained U. S. visas in Santiago. Upon their arrival, U. S.
immigration officials informed the CIA, but the CIA apparently made no
response. To Pinochet, this may have been an indication that the coast was
clear to hit his target: Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to
the United States.
On Sept. 21, 1976, Chilean agents detonated a bomb under Letelier's car as
he drove to work at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D. C. An
American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, also died in the attack.
Bush promised the FBI full cooperation, but the CIA withheld key
information, including photocopies of the phony passports that Landau had
sent. The agency also appears to have planted stories suggesting Pinochet's
innocence in the affair. FBI investigators later complained that the CIA
delivered thousands of files of leftist ``suspects,'' suggesting that the
Chilean left had killed Letelier to create a martyr.
Pinochet's hatred of Letelier was no secret in Washington. Three months
before the assassination, Pinochet had complained to then-Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger that Letelier's influence with the U. S. Congress was
creating problems for him. Months after the murders, the State Department
finally gave the FBI its copy of Landau's files on the covert operatives,
which led to indictments against eight of Pinochet's men.
Given the working relationship between Chile's secret police and the CIA,
Bush may have assumed that Pinochet wouldn't embarrass the Americans with a
high-profile assassination a mile from the White House. Once the deed was
done, did the CIA cover it up?
We can't even get a straight answer from Bush on whether he is supporting
Pinochet today, much less what he might have been doing 23 years ago.
Ironically, Pinochet himself eventually might reveal the truth of his
relationship to the CIA. If his British appeals fail, he might spill
interesting information on the witness stand in Spain.
The absence of sex scandals in Bush's legacy may pale before the stain of
dalliances with an international serial killer.
[Sarah Anderson and Saul Landau are fellows of the Institute for Policy
Studies in Washington, D. C. Landau also holds the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of
Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge at California State Polytechnic
University at Pomona.]
(c) 1999 Miami Herald
Saul Landau
Hugh O. La Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge,
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Pomona, CA 91768
tel:909-869-3115
fax:909-869-4751
mailto: slandau@csupomona.edu
www.csupomona.edu/~slandau
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8
Chile and the United States:
Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
Tim Weiner, "How the CIA Took Aim at Allende," New York Times, September 12, 1998
www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ciachile.htm
CNN: CIA acknowledges involvement in Allende's overthrow, Pinochet's rise
September 19, 2000
archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/09/19/us.cia.chile.ap/
Virtual Truth Commission
Telling the Truth for a Better America
Reports by Topic: Operation Condor
www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/condor.htm
Bush & the Condor Mystery
By Robert Parry
Newly released U.S. government documents reveal that George Bush's CIA knew more about Chile's role in an international assassination ring, code-named Condor, than Bush and the agency disclosed to FBI agents investigating a Condor terrorist bombing in Washington, D.C., in 1976.
www.consortiumnews.com/1999/100599b.html
Orlando Letelier: He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify about the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. He refused.
www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/bush_body_count.htm
