Torture in Iraq and Chile: The US Connection

There is another frightening connection between Chile and Iraq, for the United States’ partial privatization of the war has reached our continent too. The US Blackwater Security firm has recruited at least 135 Chilean mercenaries to travel to Iraq to perform security duties. Needless to say they hired former members of the Dictatorship’s repressive apparatus and Special Forces. They were trained at a company installation in Moyock, North Caroline, but they also underwent training on Chilean soil. Indeed, at a secret location in El Arrayan, eastern Santiago, they organized their own paramilitary training camp. This, of course, is prohibited under Chilean law, but for some unknown and strange reason, Chilean authorities seemed to have turned a blind eye on the activities of “Red Tactica” Consulting Group, the local subsidiary of Blackwater. Thus, the first hundred of an expected total of 800 Chilean mercenaries left for Iraq.

The School of the Americas changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Perhaps, this is exactly what Blackwater is doing: cooperating with the Pentagon and the US occupying force in Iraq. Perhaps this is the reason they hired ex members of the dictatorship’s repressive services; maybe they will need their skills in torturing and killing innocent civilians.

Tito Tricot was a political prisoner during the Pinochet dictatorship and is an independent journalist and a sociologist. He directs academic programs in Chile for the School for International Training, the University Academy of Christian Humanism and the University of Art and Social Sciences.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Tricot0511.htm

Hired Guns in Iraq May Have War Crimes Pasts
News Report, Louis Nevaer,
Pacific News Service, May 03, 2004

Editor's Note: South African ex-hit men and Serbian mercenaries find gainful employment in Iraq, to the discredit of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

When a suicide bomber parked a van disguised as an ambulance in front of the Shaheen Hotel in the Karadah neighborhood of Baghdad on Jan. 28 and blew himself up, he killed four people and wounded scores of others.

He also blew the lid off a dirty little secret of the Coalition Provisional Authority: due to its "outsourcing" of privatized security services, the CPA has put terrorists, mercenaries and war criminals on the payrolls of companies contracted by the Pentagon.

After the Shaheen Hotel blast, departmental spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa at South Africa's Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of the Westerners killed was South African Frans Strydom. Four of the wounded were also South African nationals, including Deon Gouws, who sustained serious injuries.

News that Strydom and Gouws were in Iraq sent shockwaves throughout South Africa: In front of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, both men were granted amnesty after confessing to killing blacks and terrorizing anti-apartheid activists, acts that can only be called crimes against humanity.

In Iraq, Strydom and Gouws were employed by Erinys International, a security firm based in the United Kingdom. Erinys Iraq, the subsidiary of Erinys International, was awarded a two-year, $80 million contract in August 2003 to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations. Erinys has been awarded subcontracts to protect American construction contractors, including San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp.'s partners and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=68c393b4db74f12d009eab2321704610

Mercenaries are better than sending our troops. If these people are willing to sacrifice their lives for pay, so be it.

They're government contractors. Who do you suppose pays?

dupe

that Chile had multiple torture centers, and also off-shore torture ships.

They still deny their crimes against humanity set in motion by Nixon's and Kissinger's substantial support and help before during and after the coup and killing of Allende.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Exposing the Crime of Torture


Attorney Hiram Villagra is a member of the Corporation for Defense of the Rights of the People (CODEPU) legal staff since 1986. He represents 40 former prisoners of Villa Grimaldi as plaintiffs in criminal complaints for the crime of torture.


Interviewed by Memoria y Justicia, May 2003


Factories of Terror
Repressive agents of the dictatorship subjected prisoners to torture since the very day of the military coup, September 11, 1973. Later torture was institutionalized by the DINA, the Comando Conjunto, and by the CNI secret police. It reemerges during the years of protest in the 1980s. Torture takes place under different contexts. It is important to point out that all political prisoners were subjected to torture. Not only did they endure unjustified political imprisonment but also direct torture. This alone makes them victims of human rights violations and gives them the right to demand and agitate the issue.

Within these former political prisoners subjected to torture, the survivors of torture centers are key. Their testimony allows us to continue filing cases against the factories of terror such as Villa Grimaldi, Venda Sexy, Jose Domingo Cañas, and other such places in which an entire structure existed to systematically apply torture. These were true torture factories designed to produce a determined result: confession, demoralization, and fear with the object of facilitating the break up of opposition to the military regime.

The torture centers involved the planned use of a facility for the purpose of exterminating a group, serve as secret prison, and generate serious effects of forced disappearance upon a particular social group. Therefore, the criminal methodology unit, the extermination unit, and the unit of perpetrators are one single team that act in concert with each other, which makes the issue complex.
(snip/...)

http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_issues-hiram.htmlvv

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Location:

The Valparaiso port, aboard the ships "Esmeralda," "Maipo," and "Lebu." "The Lebu" and "Maipo" ships, owned by the maritime transport company Compañia Sudamericana de Vapores, operated as the Navy’s detention centers. The shipping company informed the Rettig commission that the "Maipo" was transferred to the Navy as of September 11, 1973 at 10:00 am. Navy personnel controlled the ship from that moment on and subsequently, on September 15 at 23:00 hours, sailed to Pisagua. The "Maipo" was replaced by the "Lebu," expropriated that same day, as a prison-ship.

Duration:

September 11, 1973 to until 1974.

Prisoners:

Each ship had a capacity to confine hundreds of prisoners in its hold. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported in November 1973 that there were 324 political prisoners aboard the "Lebu."


"La Esmeralda," torture ship, also called "Grey Lady."

Conditions: (from the Rettig report)

Some of the ship's prisoners had bunkbeds, but the vast majority resided in the ship's hold in extremely harsh conditions and lacking in hygiene and minimal services. With regards to the "Lebu," the International Red Cross confirmed the following facts after its visit of October 1, 1973: the prisoners were isolated from the outside world, their families were unaware they were held there, the food was insufficient and of poor quality and the conditions were generally poor. Torture and other abuses were practiced on the "Lebu."

On the "Esmeralda," a specialized Navy unit set itself up on the ship with the objective of interrogating the ship’s prisoners as well as those brought from other Navy detention centers. These interrogation sessions generally included torture and mistreatment.
(snip/)

http://www.chip.cl/derechos/campo_valparaiso_eng.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've read that when the Esmeralda was brought into the harbor in some city on the East Coast, maybe Boston?, protesters turned out in large number, and our own FBI was there to take notes on and photos of OUR PROTESTERS!

(snip)
The prisoners include the former mayor of Valparaiso who described being tied to one of the ship's masts and electrocuted repeatedly, and Michael Woodward, a British-Chilean priest who died as a result of the torture he received on board. Reports from the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, the US Senate and the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, all confirm the use of the ship as a torture and detention centre where people were raped, beaten and disfigured. Perhaps the most noteworthy report is that of the Chilean Commission, entitled the Rettig Report. Drafted in 1991, it provides the only official record in Chile that assigns human rights violations to the military government, and confirms that the navy "used the ships Lebu, Maipo and La Esmeralda as prison, interrogatory and/or torture sites in the port of Valparaiso".(snip/...)

http://www.chile-esmeralda.com/documents/la_esmeralda%202001.htm

http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_issues-hiram.htmlvv
(URL page not found)

By the way have you tried to google Orlando Borsch lately? Someone has certainly been busy, 'eh?

I'll try that one again:

http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_issues-hiram.html

GREAT! I just put it on "preview" to test it and it works. Very sorry for the incovenience!

There are a coupla "v's" on my first link which don't belong there! I think I inadvertantly depressed the "v" key in a fit of spazmosis!

Guess who put him in charge after the CIA spooks killed Salvador Allende
in 1973? If you guessed Henry Kissinger you guessed right and win a free camel ride.

http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html

Explanatory note regarding legal proceedings sparked by Kissinger’s visit to London

by ICAI

The expected arrival of Henry Kissinger in London to attend a conference on 24 April 2002 sparked several legal proceedings concerning his actions during his tenure as U.S. National Security Advisor and then U.S. Secretary of State in the Nixon administration. Two judges from Spain and France requested permission to question him in connection with cases brought against Augusto Pinochet in their countries. A British activist attempted to have him arrested for crimes allegedly committed in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam some 30 years ago. All of these attempts failed to bring Kissinger before the courts, but some may have nonetheless made progress in other ways.

In particular, the attempt to have Kissinger arrested clarified procedures for initiating a case against him in England, and demonstrated how seriously at least one judge takes the matter. On Monday, 22 April 2002, Peter Tatchell, a British human rights advocate, asked an English court to issue an arrest warrant for Kissinger, who was expected to be in London the coming Wednesday. Judge Nicholas Evans of Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, who had issued the first warrant for Pinochet, rejected Tatchell’s application two days later. While this prevented an arrest, the decision, provided below, included several potentially important points:

- Proceedings under the UK’s Geneva Conventions Act 1957 for war crimes committed prior to 1 September 2001 can be instituted only "by or on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions".

"… I am satisfied that proceedings can only be instituted by or on behalf of the DPP."

- However, the Court has a right to issue an arrest warrant for such offences, even when the DPP does not intend to bring proceedings. No consent is required from anyone but the judge.

"Thus, in the context of this application, it is within the power of this court to issue a warrant for Mr. Kissinger’s arrest for an offence said to be contrary to section 1 of the 1957 Act even though proceedings for such an offence shall not be instituted except by or on behalf of the DPP."

- The Court left open the possibility of issuing an arrest warrant in the future, if presented with sufficient evidence, even when the DPP refuses to initiate proceedings. It, however, doubted the utility of doing so.

First the Judge rejected the application on the ground that the DPP’s refusal to bring proceedings rendered an arrest useless, even if legal: "…in light of the DDP’s letter…, in which the Director says ‘ I do not intend to institute proceedings for a prosecution in this case’ it would seem quite pointless my issuing a warrant even if I were so minded."

He then explained that he had to refuse the application in this particular instance because he had not been presented with sufficient evidence, yet, importantly, implied that he might have done so had the evidence been adequate: "The material provided by Mr. Tatchell makes generalised allegations and suggests possible sources of potentially admissible evidence. I have serious misgivings concerning Mr. Tatchell’s ability to actually obtain such admissible evidence. I ought not to issue any summons/warrant unless I can draft a suitably precise charge. I can not presently do this on the information provided."

- Furthermore, this Judge recognised the need of victims, witnesses and others for justice in this matter.

"I do not doubt the strength of feeling in him and many others that justice requires that Mr. Kissinger should face the allegations made against him in a court of law."

Understanding these points could facilitate the ability of advocates and victims to bring future proceedings in England under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, be they against Kissinger or others who have allegedly committed war crimes. It could also spark further research into the consistency of the consent requirement for initiating proceedings with the rights enshrined in the European Convention of human rights, including the right to an effective remedy, among others. Finally, the supportive words of the judge may even strengthen the efforts of those affected by the crimes in question to obtain justice.



OVERVIEW - Kissinger Watch #5



1. 'WAR CRIMES' CLAIMS: Kissinger begins to stoop under the weight of legal scrutiny opinion bears down Pinochet judge leaves the way open for charge against Kissinger Court rejects application to arrest Nixon's right-hand man over covert CIA activities in the 1970's

2. Kissinger admits possible errors on Vietnam

3. Explanatory note regarding legal proceedings sparked by Kissinger’s visit to London

4. APPLICATION FOR A WARRANT FOR THE ARREST OF HENRY ALFRED KISSINGER

5. REASONS for refusing the issue of a warrant

6. Why Milosevic, but not Kissinger?

7. Kissinger testimony pleas refused

8. Chile/UK: UK shirks its obligation to cooperate in human rights investigation

9. The government of the United Kingdom DID approve its request to question Henry Kissinger

10. Statement: Regarding the Spanish court’s request to question Mr. Henry Kissinger / J. Garces & M. Murillo

11. Spanish superjudge asks USA for permission to quiz Kissinger


fair use
http://www.icai-online.org/56474,46136.htm

Apartheid Enforcers Guard Iraq For the U.S.


By Marc Perelman
February 20, 2004

In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime.
The reliance on apartheid enforcers was highlighted by an attack in Iraq last month that killed one South African security officer and wounded another who worked for the subsidiary of a firm called Erinys International. Both men once served in South African paramilitary units dedicated to the violent repression of apartheid opponents.
François Strydom, who was killed in the January 28 bombing of a hotel in Baghdad, was a former member of the Koevoet, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa.
“It is just a horrible thought that such people are working for the Americans in Iraq,” said Richard Goldstone, a recently retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and the Pentagon did not return requests for comment.
In Iraq, the U.S. government has tapped into the ever-growing pool of private security companies to provide a variety of defense services, including protecting oil sites and training Iraqi forces. Observers worry that a reliance on these companies and the resulting lack of accountability is a recipe for further problems in a volatile region.


http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=perelman20040218608

Terrorist Mercenaries on U.S. Payroll in Iraq War
By LOUIS NEVAER Pacific News Service (05-04-04)

When a suicide bomber parked a van disguised as an ambulance in front of the Shaheen Hotel in the Karadah neighborhood of Baghdad on January 28 and blew himself up, he killed four people and wounded scores of others.
He also blew the lid off a dirty little secret of the Coalition Provisional Authority: due to its “outsourcing” of privatized security services, the CPA has put terrorists, mercenaries and war criminals on the payrolls of companies contracted by the Pentagon.

After the Shaheen Hotel blast, departmental spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa at South Africa’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of the Westerners killed was South African Frans Strydom. Four of the wounded were also South African nationals, including Deon Gouws, who sustained serious injuries.

News that Strydom and Gouws were in Iraq sent shockwaves throughout South Africa: In front of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, both men were granted amnesty after confessing to killing blacks and terrorizing anti-apartheid activists, acts that can only be called crimes against humanity.

Karl Alberts, a South African pilot, recently prepared to travel to Iraq. Before he left he was arrested and charged with mercenary activities in the Ivory Coast in 2002 and 2003.

But for every Alberts who fails to make it to Baghdad, others succeed. Though their numbers are relatively few, the harm these men can do to an occupation government desperately seeking support from the Iraqi people is enormous

more
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-04-04&storyID=18792

"Terrorist Mercenaries on U.S. Payroll in Iraq War"

Pretoria man killed in Iraq

By Graeme Hosken, Elize Jacobs and Tracy Lee Goldstone

A Pretoria man, believed to be a former Security Branch member, was killed and four other South Africans injured, one of them critically, in a suicide bomb blast in Baghdad, Iraq.

The former policeman, Francois Strydom, was killed on when a 250kg bomb, placed inside a minibus painted with ambulance insignia, exploded outside the hotel in which they were staying.

The men, who are all believed to have been former members of the security police, were contracted by SAS International to protect oil installations in the conflict-ridden country.

'What other work they were doing besides helping protect oil installations I cannot say'
SAS International is sub-contracted by the UK security company, Erinys International, which has branches in Iraq and Africa.

Erinys has a year-long contract worth $39,5-million to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations.

In Wednesday's explosion the suicide bomber detonated the explosives outside the Shaheen Hotel situated in the Baghdad suburb of Karrada. It is believed that Strydom and the four other South African men were providing security to Iraqi Labour Minister Sami Azara al-Majun, who operated from sections of the hotel.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&click_id=13&art_id=vn20040129021119595C448287&set_id=1

Israeli, Chilean and now South African terrorist mercenaries???

Oh God, who else? Milosevic's henchmen? Putin's?

Not in my name, I'm sorry. :cry:

"Joiner", the freak with the black cap and the glasses proudly posed behind the pig-pile of naked Prisoners, is a prison guard from Mumia Abu Jamal's prison in Pennsylvania.
What we are doing as part of the feigned war on terror is prison building, and it forces us to look at the prison system within the United States as well. A system that encarcerates more of our own citizens than any other nation. (We just beat out China and Russia.)
These creeps will likely return to the US "heros" and continue to behave in perverse and demented ways on our citizens.
The other day at an Adopt a minefield fundraiser, the police came to demonstrate the ability of their dogs for "security" (Dogs can sense the presence of landmines and help deminers) Well this cop revealed that they send their dogs out to get the criminals, the bad guys. The dog bolts after the person and bites the arm, or whatever it can get in it's mouth. I said, "excuse me, but aren't those peope just suspects at the point where you have them? Have you ever sent the dog after someone that was found to not be guilty." And second of all, are we supposed to punish people like this? He said its better than deadly force. I thought, not as good as hitting him with a tranquiler or something, or meeting him at his house to arrest him. So these dogs, that are trained to attack anything holding coke, pot or one other drug, get mauled by the dog. Cooooooool, Mr. Police man.

Corporation behind the action: ITT
Earth resource: Copper and ?
Industry: Communication
Agencies: State, CIA, Military

"Torture and ill -treatment is not only a matter of the past, it is still widespread in the country," said Amnesty international. "the steps taken by the Chilean government, like the reform of criminal procedure initiated in December 2000 and making torture a punishable offence under Chilean domestic law in 1998, must now be reinforced with concrete action if Chile is to eradicate torture."

An Amnesty International delegation which visited Chile in March 2003 found that prison conditions, including the problem of overcrowding, lead to torture and ill-treatment.

In January 2003, political prisoners held in Colina II Prison in the Metropolitan Region, were brutally beaten and drenched with water by members of the prison guard and the anti-riot squad known as the Grupo Especial Antimotines.

Torture has been also reported within the military itself. Reports have been received indicating that it is not unusual for recruits who are undergoing compulsory military service to be given punishments that amount to torture and ill-treatment. Cristóbal Auger Hinrishen, a 19-year-old former cadet at the Military Academy, was allegedly subjected to ill-treatment by his superiors at the military Academy between February and March 2002. Cristóbal is now suffering from post-traumatic stress.

"It is vitally important that thorough and independent investigations are conducted into all complaints of torture, the methods of investigation and conclusion made public and those responsible brought to justice." said Amnesty International.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0405/S00099.htm