By Mario A. Flores
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. published declassified White House secret memos showing that Brazil and the United States discussed plans to overthrow or destabilize Chilean President Salvador Allende in a 1971 meeting.

According to the formerly secret documents that reveal a deeper collaboration than previously known between the United States and Brazil, President Nixon discussed with Brazilian military regime-era President Médici a cooperative effort to overthrow the democratically elected Chilean administration.

Nixon, at a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 9, 1971, said he was willing to offer Brazil the assistance, monetary or otherwise, it might need to rid South America of leftist governments, the White House memorandum of the meeting shows.

The United States and Brazil, Nixon told Médici, “must try and prevent new Allendes and Castros and try where possible to reverse these trends.”

The records released also reveal that Brazil was involved in the Uruguayan election fraud of 1971 with consent from the United States.

Nixon saw Brazil’s military government as a critical partner in the region. “There were many things that Brazil as a South American country could do that the U.S. could not,” Nixon told his Brazilian counterpart, according to the memos.

Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archives, noted that “a hidden chapter of collaborative intervention to overthrow the government of Chile” was now emerging from the declassified documentation. “Brazil’s archives are the missing link,” he said, calling on President Ignacio Lula da Silva to open Brazil’s military archives on the past. “The full history of intervention in South America in the 1970s cannot be told without access to Brazilian documents.”

Eventually, a CIA-supported coup, led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, toppled the Allende government in Chile in 1973.

The daughter of Salvador Allende requested that Brazil open any secret archives that could shed light on any role it played in the 1973 overthrow of her father’s administration.

“It seems to me Brazil owes an explanation, if not an apology, to Chile in the form of a full historical reckoning of its role in the overthrow of Allende and the advent of Pinochet,” Kornbluh said.

For more information, please see:

The Washington Post – Allende seeks Brazil documents on ’73 Chile coup – 18 August 2009

The New York Times – Chile: Allende’s Daughter Seeks Secret Records About Coup – 18 August 2009

The New York Times – Memos Show Nixon’s Bid to Enlist Brazil in a Coup – 16 August 2009

National Security Archive at George Washington University – Brazil Conspired with U.S. to Overthrow Allende – 16 August 2009

By Mario A. Flores
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) said this week that it was the target of Colombian intelligence operations.

The IACHR said that it had received documents proving that at least one of its members had been spied on by Colombia’s intelligence agency, the Administrative Security Department (DAS), which answers to the president’s office.

According to the human rights commission, Susana Villarán, a former Peruvian minister who visited Colombia in 2005 as IACHR Commissioner and Rapporteur for Colombia was declared a “target” of intelligence operations by the DAS Special Strategic Intelligence Group known as G3.

In February of this year, the local magazine Semana revealed that the DAS had for years carried out illegal wiretap activities against opposition politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and even Supreme Court judges.

The IACHR expressed “concern” over these intelligence activities and requested information from Colombia on the espionage against people the Commission itself had ordered be protected, while calling for an investigation and punishment of those responsible.

The Commission later expanded its request for information to include all intelligence operations carried out with respect to the IACHR, the destination and use of the reports, and the investigations of the matter carried out by the Office of the General Prosecutor and the Office of the Attorney General.

The IACHR says the DAS files it received show that the G3 “was created to monitor activities tied to the litigation of cases at the international level” – cases of serious human rights violations involving the Colombian state that were being considered by the Inter-American human rights system.

The file shows that objective of the operation against the Commissioner and Rapporteur was “to identify the cases being studied by the Rapporteur and the testimony presented by nongovernmental organizations, as well as the lobbying these organizations are doing to pressure for a condemnation of the State.”

The IACHR says these intelligence activities violate Colombia’s commitment to respect the privileges and immunities of representatives of the OAS and to comply in good faith with the aim and purpose of the American Convention on Human Rights and other treaties of the inter-American system.

Following the IACHR revelations, the Colombian government issued a press release denying involvement in the alleged spying of the human rights commission.

Colombian authorities condemned the illegal activities of the intelligence organization and stressed its commitment to turn it into a “reliable and transparent” entity.

The Attorney General’s office is pressing charges against several G3 members in connection with the illegal spying scandal. It says that the G3 operated from DAS headquarters although it never appeared on the intelligence service’s organizational chart. Officials claim that the G3 has been dissolved.

For more information, please see:

IPS – COLOMBIA: Spying on Human Rights Defenders – 15 August 2009

Colombia Reports – Government denies involvement in wiretapping IACHR – 14 August 2009

Colombia Reports – IACHR says it was spied on by Colombian intelligence agency – 13 August 2009

Read the Press Release by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) – 13 August 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela – Scuffles broke outside the Venezuelan parliament building as lawmakers debated a bill that would broaden government control over schools.  Venezuelan police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Thousands of teachers, union leaders, community activists, and militants of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela gathered near the National Assembly building in support of the law.  In a smaller march led by high profile politicians, opponents of the law demanded that discussions of the law be further postponed.

University and private school authorities fear that the law will allow an increase in government influence on campuses by involving grass-roots community groups, often loyal to President Chavez, in school operations.

One of the contentious parts of the law is that it strengthens the role of the state in education. Article 4 states that is the responsibility of the “Estado Docente” or the Educator State  is to guarantee “education as a universal human right and fundamental, inalienable, non-renounceable social duty, and a public service… governed by the principles of integrality, cooperation, solidarity, attentiveness, and co-responsibility.”

President Hugo Chavez claims that the bill is based on the ideals espoused by 19th century Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar. Opponents say the changes would amount to indoctrination.

“This law is very dangerous,” said legislator Pastora Medina of the Humanist Front, a former government supporter and a member of the education commission. “It turns schools into centers for community activists and ignores the pedagogical aspect.”

Supporters of the law generally discount the claims that it’s aimed at indoctrinating children and downplay concerns, saying the legislation reflects the government’s efforts to ensure equal opportunities and teach social responsibility. The law, they claim, requires that education be “open to all forms of thinking.”

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Venezuela passes education, land laws after clashes – 14 August 2009

BBC News- Venezuelan clash over education – 14 August 2009

Venezuela Analysis – Venezuelan National Assembly Passes New Education Law – 14 August 2009

El Universal – Oposición se declara en rebeldía y anuncia acciones contra Ley de Educación – 14 August 2009

By Mario A. Flores
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

QUITO, Ecuador — A plan from the Obama administration to deploy troops and station aircraft at seven Colombian military bases aimed at combating drug operations has generated controversy across Latin America, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez warning that it could lead to war.

According to the Washington Post, the agreement with Colombia would last ten years and allow for U.S. aircraft to be stationed at up to five Colombian air bases and for U.S. naval vessels to dock at two Colombian ports, one on the Caribbean and the other on the Pacific. Up to 800 U.S. military personnel and 600 private contractors could use the bases.

The President of Venezuela cautioned leaders at the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) summit held in Ecuador this week that an American military presence in Colombian bases “may result in a war in South America.”

“Winds of war are starting to blow,” warned Chávez, as he added that his country was gearing up because “we are in their sights,” referring to American military forces.

A day before the summit got under way, the Venezuelan Secretary of State, Nicolás Maduro, said that the military bases “are part of a plan to blow up South America, to divide South America once again, and to turn South America into a destabilized region.”

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who took over Unasur’s leadership from Brazil, kept the issue of the bases out of the summit’s agenda but condemned the Colombia-U.S. deal.

“We have put up with seven years of crop-dusting, we have put up with bombings, we have put up with 300,000 displaced, we have put up with Colombia allowing its southern border to go unprotected and where we have to keep over 10,000 troops and spend millions of dollars for a problem that is not ours,” Correa said. “We have put up with too much, we are honestly tired, truly tired,” he added.

The presidents of Brazil and Chile said they did not like the idea of an expanded American presence in the region but seem to agree that the deal is a Colombian sovereign matter.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe had embarked on a three-day South American trip in anticipation of the Quito summit to reassure fellow leaders, including populists such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales and moderates such as Chile’s Michelle Bachelet.

Uribe was not intending to attend the Unasur meeting in Quito. Ecuador and Colombia broke off diplomatic relations last year when the Colombian army raided a terrorist camp in Ecuadorian territory that killed a guerrilla chief and twenty-five other people. Bogotá says that documents found at the rebel camp show the guerrilla had at least tried to help finance Rafael Correa’s first presidential campaign.

But at the summit, the Latin American leaders called for a separate meeting in Argentina in late August to confront the issue with Presidents Uribe and Obama.

Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina said such a meeting could help allay disquiet over the plan, which was announced last month. Mrs. Kirchner said the proposal was creating “a belligerent, unprecedented and unacceptable situation.”

Uribe accepted to attend the Unasur meeting in Argentina later this month on condition that the illegal weapons trafficking in the region be discussed as well as the “military agreements that Venezuela and Ecuador hold with Russia and China, and those between Venezuela and Iran.”

As of June 19, there were 268 U.S. military personnel in Colombia and 308 civilian contractors.

For more information, please see:

Buenos Aires Herald – Uribe confirms attendance at UNASUR meeting – 13 August 2009

Noticias Cooperativa – Chávez: Soplan vientos de guerra en Sudamérica – 10 August 2009

The New York Times – Ecuador: Area Leaders Voice Worry Over G.I.’s for Colombia – 10 August 2009

The Washington Post – U.S. Plan Raises Ire in Latin America – 08 August 2009

By Don Anque
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Santiago Omar Riveros, age 86 and former chief of the Argentinean Military Institutes Command, was sentenced to life in prison for human rights abuses while he commanded the Campo de Mayo military barracks on the outskirts of Buenos Aires during the 1970s.

He is accused of more than 40 crimes against humanity involving victims of the era’s so called desaparecidos or “disappeared.”

Amid the wave of accusations, Omar-Riveros was found guilty of torturing and beating to death 15-year-old Floreal Avellaneda, a member of the Communist Youth Federation, and abducting his mother, Iris. Floreal Avellaneda and his mother were abducted in 1976 by a military squad and tortured to find out the whereabouts of the boy’s father, a Communist Party union leader.

“They applied an electric current to my armpits, breasts, mouth, genitals and did exactly the same to my son,” Iris described her torture experience to the Argentinean court.

Floreal and Isis were first taken to the police station at Villa Martelli and tortured.  Afterwards, they were taken to Campo de Mayo.

Over the court of the trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Floreal was thrown into the River Plate from a plane that departed from Campo de Mayo. In August of 1976, Floreal’s body was found impaled on the shores of Rio de La Plata in the Uruguayan city of Colonia de Sacramento.

The court found the defendants tactics “unacceptable.”  Their main argument was that Floreal’s death was part an accident.

Another former Military Institutes Command intelligence chief, Fernando Verplaetsen, was also sentenced to 25 years in prison in connection with the human rights abuses.  Four other defendants were sentenced to serve between eight to 18 years in prison.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – ‘Dirty war’ general found guilty – 13 August 2009

Yahoo News – Perpetua para Santiago Omar Riveros – 12 August 2009

Yahoo News – Argentine general gets life for rights abuses – 12 August 2009

Telam Noticias – Dan a conocer la sentencia en el juicio por el secuestro y asesinato de Floreal Avellaneda – 12 August 2009