Operation Condor Revisited

It cannot be denied that the past casts a long shadow over us all, and those repressed memories that have not been dealt with will continue to haunt the collective memory of a people until they have been addressed. Perhaps this is why a particularly dark chapter in the history of South America--the "Operation Condor" kidnappings and assassinations of the 1970s and 1980s--has come to the surface once again in two completely separate separate incidents, in the past few weeks.

See Also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/pope-francis-accused-by-family-and.html

Prominent victims of Operation Condor

A few well-known victims of Operation Condor:

• Martín Almada, educator in Paraguay, arrested in 1974 and tortured for three years
• Víctor Olea Alegría, member of the Socialist Party, arrested on 11 September, 1974 and "disappeared" (head of DINA Manuel Contreras was convicted in 2002 for this crime)
• General Carlos Prats, who immediately preceded Pinochet at the head of the Chilean army, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1974
• William Beausire, businessman with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974, taken to the Villa Grimaldi torture centre in Chile and never seen since [6].
• Bernardo Leighton, Christian-Democrat who narrowly escaped murder in Rome in 1975 organized by Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie
• Carlos Altamirano, leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, targeted for murder by Pinochet in 1975
• Attempted assassination against Emilio Aragonés, the Cuban ambassador in Buenos Aires, in 1975, organized by leader of the CORU, Orlando Bosch
• Sheila Cassidy, British physician, arrested in Chile in 1975 and tortured for medical treatment to an opponent of the regime.
• Volodia Teitelboim, member of the Communist Party of Chile, targeted for murder alongside Carlos Altamirano, in Mexico in 1976
• "Disappearance" of two Cuban diplomats in Argentina, Crecencio Galañega Hernández and Jesús Cejas Arias who transited through Orletti detention center in Buenos Aires (9 August, 1976 – see Lista de centros clandestinos de detención (Argentina)); both were questioned by the SIDE and the DINA, with the knowledge of the FBI and the CIA^[75]
• Andrés Pascal Allende, nephew of Salvador Allende and president of the MIR, escaped assassination attempt in Costa Rica in March 1976
• Orlando Letelier, murdered in 1976 in Washington, D.C. with his assistant Ronni Moffitt
• Christian-Democrat and president of Chile from 1964 to 1970 Eduardo Frei Montalva, who may have been poisoned in the early 1980s according to current investigations
• former Bolivian president Juan José Torres, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976
• Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, former Uruguayan deputy, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976
• Zelmar Michelini, former Uruguayan deputy, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976
• Carmelo Soria, Spanish diplomat, civil servant of the CEPAL (a UN organism), assassinated on 21 July 1976
• Jorge Zaffaroni and Maria Emilia Islas de Zaffaroni, maybe members of the Tupamaros, "disappeared" in Buenos Aires on 29 September, 1976, kidnapped by the Batallón de Inteligencia 601, who handed them out to the Uruguayan OCOAS (Organismo Coordinador de Operaciones Anti-Subversivas)^[76]
• Dagmar Ingrid Hagelin, 17-year-old Swedish girl shot in the back by Alfredo Astiz in 1977 and later murdered
• Poet Juan Gelman's son and daughter-in-law (whose baby was stolen by the Uruguayan military)

• US Congressman Edward Koch, who became aware in 2001 of relations between 1970s threats on his life and Operation Condor