What Is The Us Involvement In Operation Condor
The United States’ Involvement in Operation Condor Operation Condor was a collaboration between several South American authoritarian regimes to eliminate and repress perceived threats, particularly left-wing supporters. The U.S. was a supporter and sponsor of several military coups in countries that would later participate in Operation Condor. Furthermore, countries coordinated Operation Condor by establishing a communications system using encryption machines from Crypto AG, a Swiss company secretly owned by the CIA. The CIA was essentially “supplying rigged communications gear to some of South America’s most brutal regimes” and putting itself in a position to gather intelligence on the atrocities perpetrated by Operation Condor. However, no
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Victims were known as the desaparecidos, meaning the missing in Spanish. By “disappearing” their targets, the military government could effectively erase their existence and dissent. Yet of course, victims still exist in the memories of their family members and friends, who knew about the “death flights” and detention centers where people were raped and tortured, and searched desperately for traces of their loved ones. The U.S. likely knew all about the human rights violations and brutalities occurring in Argentina as well as in other countries participating in Operation Condor, and did not step in. Furthermore, the U.S actively supported the right-wing authoritarian regimes of Operation Condor, including the violent Argentine military regime, in an effort to eradicate communism from South America. They provided Operation Condor with the machinery necessary for their communications system and spied on their activity. Though the U.S claims to be an enforcer of human rights, they actively ignored and supported human rights violations occurring before their …show more content…
Due to Letelier’s opposition to him and his capitalist reforms in Chile, Pinochet took action by assassinating Letelier, using a car bomb planted by his secret police. Before 9/11, “the Letelier-Moffitt assassination was considered the most egregious act of international terrorism ever committed in Washington D.C”. Furthermore, documentation shows that the CIA knew that Pinochet organized the bombing and even “withheld information from the State Department on Condor plotting for weeks in the summer of 1976”. On September 20th, the day before Letelier’s assassination, a cable from Henry Kissinger’s top deputy on Latin America “instructed U.S. ambassadors in the region to ‘take no further action’ on deterring Condor plots because ‘there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme’”. The CIA and the U.S. government never had any intention of fighting against the atrocities committed by Operation Condor and even participated in the atrocities by providing the equipment necessary for the countries involved to communicate and target their
Victims were known as the desaparecidos, meaning the missing in Spanish. By “disappearing” their targets, the military government could effectively erase their existence and dissent. Yet of course, victims still exist in the memories of their family members and friends, who knew about the “death flights” and detention centers where people were raped and tortured, and searched desperately for traces of their loved ones. The U.S. likely knew all about the human rights violations and brutalities occurring in Argentina as well as in other countries participating in Operation Condor, and did not step in. Furthermore, the U.S actively supported the right-wing authoritarian regimes of Operation Condor, including the violent Argentine military regime, in an effort to eradicate communism from South America. They provided Operation Condor with the machinery necessary for their communications system and spied on their activity. Though the U.S claims to be an enforcer of human rights, they actively ignored and supported human rights violations occurring before their …show more content…
Due to Letelier’s opposition to him and his capitalist reforms in Chile, Pinochet took action by assassinating Letelier, using a car bomb planted by his secret police. Before 9/11, “the Letelier-Moffitt assassination was considered the most egregious act of international terrorism ever committed in Washington D.C”. Furthermore, documentation shows that the CIA knew that Pinochet organized the bombing and even “withheld information from the State Department on Condor plotting for weeks in the summer of 1976”. On September 20th, the day before Letelier’s assassination, a cable from Henry Kissinger’s top deputy on Latin America “instructed U.S. ambassadors in the region to ‘take no further action’ on deterring Condor plots because ‘there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme’”. The CIA and the U.S. government never had any intention of fighting against the atrocities committed by Operation Condor and even participated in the atrocities by providing the equipment necessary for the countries involved to communicate and target their