by DEBORA IOZZI
On October 2016, an Italian tribunal asked for a life sentence against Jorge Troccoli, a member of Uruguayan secret services, accused of torture during Operation Condor – an intelligence network constructed by several Latin American countries during the 1970s to fight alleged Marxist subversion. Key members were the governments of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia with Peru and Ecuador episodically participating. Under this initiative, thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured, forcibly disappeared, and murdered. Operations were not fully contained within any single state, but they crossed international borders and even reached as far as Europe. A number of Latin American countries involved seem to still be haunted by the ghosts of a bitter past and have been reticent to use all the information in their possession to do justice. In some cases, people had to wait many years or rely on the support from their second nationality country, such as the ongoing Italian trial, in order to have some hope of compensation. In recent years, the disclosure of state archives is helping to establish the truth about these terrible events, but the families of the victims are still waiting for complete justice to be found. Nonetheless, matters are moving forward and the search for truth and justice is being slowly advanced.
The Mercosur of Terror
Operation Condor (Operación Cóndor) was set up on November 25, 1975 in Santiago de Chile, during the First Inter-American Working Meeting of Intelligence, which convened the body of leaders from the feared military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.[i] Led by Manuel Contreras, leader of the Chilean secret police (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, DINA), they decided to create a secret coordination between right-wing military dictatorships in order to combat leftist insurgences and eliminate political opponents. This covert hemispheric program of political repression was designed to destroy any traces of soviet influence, but it was also geared to be used by the authoritarian regimes in order to eliminate more moderate movements advocating political and structural change. There were many targets of this repression: security forces chased dissidents, leftists, union and peasant leaders, nuns and priests, intellectuals, and students.[ii] Among the most famous aggressions, were the murder of the Chilean Foreign Minister – under Allende’s government, Orlando Letelier in Washington DC, the murders of the nationalist former president of Bolivia, Juan José Torres, and of General Prats in Buenos Aires, and the attempt against the life of the Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernando Leighton in Rome[iii] Plan Condor was divided into three phases: cooperation among national and transnational military services, covert actions, and assassinations. Paramilitary groups carried out illegal, and sometimes extraterritorial, operations using disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution to eliminate political enemies. The hidden apparatus of terror and social control by right wing dictatorships in Latin America, a parallel state, used warfare tactics and counterinsurgency methods that were taught to them during the military training at the School of the Americas.[iv] Operation Condor served two different objectives. For the Latin American leaders, it was a means to eliminate all possible opposition by violating all basic human rights with impunity. For the United States, who supported the plan, it was a means to promote its national security during the Cold War. In fact, the military and security forces of the United States viewed everything, even domestic and social conflicts abroad through the lens of the Cold War confrontation between West and East.
Another Step Towards Justice: the Italian Trial
Council on Hemispheric Affairs for more