_______________________________________________________________ | | CIA Support of Death Squads | https://serendipity.fakelabs.org/cia/death_squads.htm | | | CIA Support of Death Squads | by Ralph McGehee | Posted on RemarQ, 9 October 1999 | | | The information below is from CIABASE files on Death Squads | supported by the CIA. Also given below are details on Watch | Lists prepared by the CIA to facilitate the actions of Death | Squads. | | | Angola Bolivia Brazil | Cambodia Central America Chile | Columbia Costa Rica Cuba | Dominican Republic Eastern Europe East Timor | Egypt El Salvador Europe | Georgia Germany Greece | Guatemala Haiti Honduras | Indonesia Iran Iraq | Israel Italy Latin America | Mexico Nicaragua Norway | Panama Paraguay Philippines | Puerto Rico Russia South Africa | South America Syria Thailand | Turkey Uruguay USSR | Vietnam | | | | Death Squads: Miscellaneous | | CIA set up Ansesal and other networks of terror in El | Salvador, Guatemala (Ansegat) and pre-Sandinista Nicaragua | (Ansenic). The CIA created, structured and trained secret | police in South Korea, Iran, Chile and Uruguay, and | elsewhere -- organizations responsible for untold | thousands of tortures, disappearances, and deaths. Spark, | 4/1985, pp. 2-4 1953-94 Sponsorship by CIA of death squad | activity covered in summary form. Notes that in Haiti CIA | admitted Lt. General Raoul Cedras and other high-ranking | officials "were on its payroll and are helping organize | violent repression in Haiti. Luis Moreno, an employee of | State Department, has bragged he helped Colombian army | create a database of subversives, terrorists and drug | dealers." His superior in overseeing INS for Southeastern | U.S., is Gunther Wagner, former Nazi soldier and a key | member of now-defunct Office of Public Safety (OPS), an AID | project which helped train counterinsurgents and terrorism | in dozens of countries. Wagner worked in Vietnam as part of | Operation Phoenix and in Nicaragua where he helped train | National Guard. Article also details massacres in Indonesia. | Haiti Information, 4/23/1994, pp. 3,4 | | CIA personnel requested transfers 1960-7 in protest of CIA | officer Nestor Sanchez's working so closely with death | squads. Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. (1987). The | Iran-Contra Connection, p. 294 | | CIA. 1994. Mary McGrory op-ed, "Clinton's CIA Chance." | Excoriates CIA over Aldrich Ames, support for right-wing | killers in El Salvador, Nicaraguan Contras and Haiti's FRAPH | and Cedras. Washington Post, 10/16/1994, C1,2 | | | Angola: Death Squads | | Angola, 1988. Amnesty International reported that UNITA, | backed by the U.S., engaged in extra-judicial executions of | high-ranking political rivals and ill-treatment of | prisoners. Washington Post, 3/14/1989, A20 | | | Bolivia: Death Squads | | Bolivia. Between October 1966-68 Amnesty International | reported between 3,000 and 8,000 people killed by death | squads. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 264 | | Bolivia, 1991. A group known as "Black Hand" shot twelve | people on 24 November 1991. Killings were part of group's | aim to eliminate "undesirable" elements from society. | Victims included police officers, prostitutes and | homosexuals. Washington Post 11/25/1991, A2 | | | Bolivia: Watch List | | Bolivia, 1975. CIA hatched plot with interior ministry to | harass progressive bishops, and to arrest and expel foreign | priests and nuns. CIA was particularly helpful in supplying | names of U.S. and other foreign missionaries. The Nation, | 5/22/1976, p. 624 | | Bolivia, 1975. CIA provided government data on priests who | progressive. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, | p. 259 | | | Brazil: Watch List | | Brazil, 1962-64. Institute of Research and Social Studies | (IPES) with assistance from U.S. sources published booklets | and pamphlets and distributed hundreds of articles to | newspapers. In 1963 alone it distributed 182,144 books. It | underwrote lectures, financed students' trips to the U.S., | sponsored leadership training programs for 2,600 | businessmen, students, and workers, and subsidized | organizations of women, students, and workers. In late 1962 | IPES member Siekman in Sao Paulo organized vigilante cells | to counter leftists. The vigilantes armed themselves, made | hand-grenades. IPES hired retired military to exert | influence on those in active service. From 1962-64 IPES, by | its own estimate, spent between $200,000 and $300,000 on an | intelligence net of retired military. The "research group" | of retired military circulated a chart that identified | communist groups and leaders. Black, J.K. (1977). United | States Penetration of Brazil, p. 85 | | | Brazil: Death Squads | | Brazil, circa 1965. Death squads formed to bolster Brazil's | national intelligence service and counterinsurgency efforts. | Many death squad members were merely off-duty police | officers. U.S. AID (and presumably the CIA) knew of and | supported police participation in death squad activity. | Counterspy 5/6 1979, p. 10 | | Brazil. Death squads began appear after 1964 coup. Langguth, | A.J. (1978). Hidden Terrors, p. 121 | | Brazilian and Uruguayan death squads closely linked and have | shared training. CIA on at least two occasions co-ordinated | meetings between countries' death squads. Counterspy 5/6 | 1979, p. 11 Brazil, torture. After CIA-backed coup, military | used death squads and torture. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A | Forgotten History, p. 190 | | | Cambodia: Watch List | | Cambodia, 1970. Aided by CIA, Cambodian secret police fed | blacklists of targeted Vietnamese to Khmer Serai and Khmer | Kampuchea Krom. Mass killings of Vietnamese. Valentine, D. | (1990). The Phoenix Program, p. 328 | | | Cambodia: Death Squads | | Cambodia, 1980-90. U.S. indirect support for Khmer Rouge -- | U.S. comforting mass murderers. Washington Post, 5/7/1990, | A10 editorial | | | Central America: Death Squads | | Central America, circa 1979-87. According to Americas Watch, | civilian non combatant deaths attributable to government | forces in Nicaragua might reach 300, most Miskito Indians in | comparison 40-50,000 Salvadoran citizens killed by death | squads and government forces during same years, along with | similar number during last year of Somoza and still higher | numbers in Guatemala. Chomsky, N. (1988). The Culture of | Terrorism, p. 101 Central America, 1981-87. Death toll under | Reagan in El Salvador passed 50,000 and in Guatemala it may | approach 100,000. In Nicaragua 11,000 civilians killed by | 1968. Death toll in region 150,000 or more. Chomsky, N. | (1988). The Culture of Terrorism, p. 29 Central America. See | debate carried in Harpers "Why Are We in Central America? On | Dominoes, Death Squads, and Democracy. Can We Live With | Latin Revolution? The Dilemmas of National Security." | Harpers, 6/1984, p35 | | Central America, 1982-84. Admiral Bobby Inman, former head | of NSA, had deep distaste for covert operations. Inman | complained that the CIA was hiring murderers to conduct | operations in Central America and the Middle East -- | eventually Inman resigned. Toohey, B., and Pinwill, W. | (1990). Oyster: the Story of the Australian Secret | Intelligence Service, pp. 215-6 | | | Chile: Watch List | | Chile, 1970-73. By late 1971 the CIA in near daily contact | with military. The station collecting the kind of | information that would be essential for a military | dictatorship after a coup: lists of civilians to be | arrested, those to be protected and government installations | occupied at once. Atlantic, 12/1982, p. 58 | | Chile, 1970-73. CIA compiled lists of persons who would have | to be arrested and a roster of civilian and government | installations that would need protection in case of military | coup against government. Corn, D. (1994). Blond Ghost: Ted | Shackley and the CIA's Crusades, p. 251 Chile, 1972-73. Drew | up lists those to be arrested immediately, or protected | after a coup by military. Sergeyev, F.F. (1981). Chile, CIA | Big Business, p. 163 | | Chile late 1971-72. CIA adopted more active stance re | military penetration program including effort to subsidize | anti-government news pamphlet directed at armed services, | compilation arrest lists and its deception operation. CIA | received intelligence reports on coup planning throughout | July, August and September 73. U.S. Congress, Church | Committee Report. (1976) v 7, p. 39 | | Chile. Chilean graduates of AIFLD, as well as CIA-created | unions, organized CIA-financed strikes which participated in | Allende's overthrow. In 1973 AIFLD graduates provided DINA, | Chile's secret police, with thousands of names of fellow | unionists who were subsequently imprisoned and tortured and | executed. Counterspy 4/1981, p. 13 | | Chile. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, 240 | Chile, 1973-74. After 1973 coup, U.S. Embassy intelligence | types gave their files on the Chilean and foreign left to | the junta's military intelligence service (SIM). NACLA | (magazine re Latin America) 8/74, p. 28. | | Chile, 1973. The military prepared lists of nearly 20,000 | middle-level leaders of people's organizations, scheduled to | be assassinated from the morning of the coup on. The list of | some 3,000 high-level directors to be arrested. Lists | detailed: name, address, age, profession, marital status, | and closest personal friends. It alleged U.S. military | mission and the CIA involved in their preparation. Moa 186. | From late June on plotters began to finalize lists of | extremists, political leaders, Marxist journalists, agents | of international communism, and any and all persons | participating with any vigor in neighborhood, communal, | union, or national organization. The Pentagon had been asked | to get the CIA to give the Chilean army lists of Chileans | linked to socialist countries. Names sorted into two groups: | persons not publicly known but who important in leftist | organizations; and, well-known people in important | positions. 20,000 in first group and 3,000 in second. Second | group to be jailed, the first to be killed. Sandford, R.R. | (1975). The Murder of Allende, pp. 195-6 | | CIA provided intelligence on "subversives" regularly | compiled by CIA for use in such circumstances. Blum, W. | (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 194 | | | Columbia: Watch List | | Colombia. Luis Moreno, an employee of State Department, | bragged he helped Colombian army create a database of | subversives, terrorists and drug dealers. Haiti Information, | 4/23/94, pp. 3,4 | | | Columbia: Death Squads | | Colombia. MAS (Muerte A Secuestradores): "Death to | Kidnappers," Colombian antiguerrilla death squad founded in | December 1981 by members of Medellin cartel, Cali cartel, | and Colombian military. Scott, P. and Marshall, J. (1991). | Cocaine Politics, p. 261. | | Colombia, 1993-94. Amnesty International called Colombia one | of worst "killing fields." U.S. is an accomplice. William F. | Schultz, human rights group's newly appointed Executive | Director for the U.S., told a news conference that using | fight against drugs as a pretext -- Colombian government | doesn't reign in [its forces]. About 20,000 people killed | since 1986 in one of Latin America's most "stable | democracies." only 2% political killings related to drug | trafficking and 70% by paramilitary or military. U.S. | probably a collaborator and much of U.S. aid for | counternarcotics diverted to "killing fields." AI report | said human meat is sold on black market and politicians | gunned down along with children, homosexuals, and drug | addicts. U.S. support because of Colombia's strategic | position. No one is safe, people killed for body parts. | Washington Times, 3/16/1994, p. a15 | | | Costa Rica: Watch List | | Costa Rica, 1955. Ambassador Woodward reported the | government should be urged to maintain closer surveillance | over communists and prosecute them more vigorously, and the | government should be influenced to amend the constitution to | limit the travel of communists, increase penalties for | subversive activities and enact proposed legislation | eliminating communists from union leadership. Meanwhile USIA | aka USIS programs "to continue to condition the public to | the communist menace" should be maintained. Z Magazine, | 11/1988, p. 20 | | | Cuba: Watch List | | Cuba, 1955-57. Allen Dulles pressed Batista to establish | with CIA help, a bureau for the repression of communist | activities. Grose, P. (1994). Gentleman Spy: the Life of | Allen Dulles, p. 412 | | | Cuba: Death Squads | | Cuba, 1956-95 CIA's war against Cuba and Cuba's response. In | 1956, CIA established in Cuba the infamous Bureau for the | Repression of Communist Activities, BRAC -- secret police | that became well known for torture and assassination of | Batista's political opponents. Unclassified W/1994-1995 | 16-17 | | | Dominican Republic: Watch List | | Dominican Republic, 1965. CIA composed list of 55 communist | ringleaders of projected takeover of government. Crozier, b. | (1993). Free Agent, p. 58 | | | Dominican Republic: Death Squads | | Dominican Republic, cover, 1965. 18 public safety program | advisers, 6 of whom CIA. Police organized La Banda, a death | squad. Lernoux, P. (1982). Cry of the People, p. 187 | | | Eastern Europe: Watch List | | East Europe, USSR, 1952-93. Radio Free Europe researchers | have hundreds of thousands of file cards on prominent east | bloc citizens and a staff of 160 researchers. Washington | Post, 4/4/1993, p. A19 | | | East Timor: Death Squads | | East Timor, 1975-76. Role of U.S. Government, CIA/NSA, and | their Australian collaborators in East Timor is another | example of support for genocide which joins a long list of | similar cases. Carter and Ford administrations have been | accomplices in the massacre of anywhere between one-in-ten | (Indonesian foreign minister Mochtar's latest figure) and | one-in-two Timorese. Counterspy, Spring 1980, p. 19 | | | Ecuador: Watch List | | Ecuador, 1962. Subversive control watch list. With agent | from Social Christian party CIA will form five squads | composed of five men for investigative work on subversive | control watch list. Agee, P. (1975). Inside the Company: CIA | Diary, pp. 240, 247 | | Ecuador, 1963. The CIA maintained what was called the lynx | list, aka the subversive control watch list. This a file | that might have 50 to 500 names. People on the list were | supposed to be the most important left-wing activists whose | arrest we might effect through the local government. Would | include place and date of birth, wife's name, where they | worked, and biological data on the whole family, including | schools the children attended, etc. In Ecuador the CIA paid | teams to collect and maintain this type information. Agee, | (1981). White Paper Whitewash, p. 55 | | | Egypt: Watch List | | Egypt, Pakistan, 1993. 4/16/1993 2 teams from CIA and FBI to | Peshawar to check information given them by Egyptian | intelligence services. Egyptians reported terrorist groups | based in Peshawar belong to "Arab Afghans" with ties to | fundamentalist Muslims in U.S. CIA specialists met with | officers of Mukhabarat Al-Amat who had list of 300 Egyptians | believed to be hard inner core of Jihad led by Mohammed | Sahwky Islambuli. Names of various terrorists. On request by | CIA and others, 100 expulsions on 4/10. Intelligence | Newsletter, 4/29/1993, pp. 1,5 | | | El Salvador: Watch List | | El Salvador, 1980-89. On TV D'Aubuisson, using military | intelligence files, denounced teachers, labor leaders, union | organizers and politicians. Within days their mutilated | bodies found. Washington had identified most leaders of | death squads as members Salvadoran security forces with ties | to D'Aubuisson. Washington Post op-ed by Douglas Farah, | 2/23/1992, p. C4 | | El Salvador, 1982-84. Significant political violence | associated with Salvadoran security services including | National police, National Guard, and Treasury Police. U.S. | Government agencies maintained official relationships with | Salvadoran security establishment appearing to acquiesce in | these activities. No evidence U.S. personnel participated in | forcible interrogations. U.S. Did pass "tactical" | information to alert services of action by insurgent forces. | Information on persons passed only in highly unusual cases. | Senate Intelligence Committee, October 5, 1984, pp. 11-13 | | | El Salvador: Death Squads | | El Salvador, 1961-79. Vigilante organization called | Democratic National Organization (Orden) created early 1960s | to further control countryside. Created in 1961 but | abolished in 1979. But quickly regained and even surpassed | former vicious role. Today its members form the core of | civil defense corps. White, R.A. (1984). The Morass, p. 133 | El Salvador, 1961-84. During the Kennedy administration, | agents of the U.S. government set up two security | organizations that killed thousands of peasants and | suspected leftists over the next 15 years. Guided by | Americans, these organizations into the paramilitary units | that were the death squads: in 1984 the CIA, in violation | U.S. law, continued to provide training, support, and | intelligence to security forces involved in death squads. | Over the years the CIA and U.S. military organized Orden, | the rural paramilitary and intelligence net designed to use | terror. Mano Blanco grew out of Orden, which a U.S. | ambassador called the "birth of the death squads;" conceived | and organized Ansesal, the elite presidential intelligence | service that gathered files on Salvadoran dissidents and | gave that information to the death squads; recruited General | Medrano, the founder of Orden and Ansesal as a CIA agent; | supplied Ansesal, the security forces, and the General Staff | with electronic, photographic, and personal surveillance of | individuals who later assassinated by death squads; and, | trained security forces in the use of investigative | techniques, weapons, explosives, and interrogation with | "instruction in methods of physical and psychological | torture." The Progressive, 5/1984, pp. 20-29 El Salvador, | 1963. U.S. government sent 10 special forces personnel to El | Salvador to help General Jose Alberto Medrano set up | Organizacion Democratica Nacionalist (Orden)--first | paramilitary death squad in that country. These green berets | assisted in organization and indoctrination of rural "civic" | squads which gathered intelligence and carried out political | assassinations in coordination with Salvadoran military. Now | there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, | members of U.S. military and CIA have helped organize, | train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador. Covert | Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly), Summer 1990, p. 51 | | El Salvador, 1963. National Democratic Organization (Orden) | formed as pro-government organization with assistance from | CIA, U.S. military advisers, AID's police training program. | Orden supervised by Salvadoran national security agency, | intelligence organization of military. CIA chose "right hand | man," Jose Medrano, to direct Orden. Orden served as base | for death squad operations and sanctioned in 1970-79 all | "above ground" unions. Barry, T., and Preusch, D. (1986). | AIFLD in Central America, p. 33 | | El Salvador, 1965-85. For a report of CIA supporting death | squad activities in El Salvador see "Spark," 4/1985, pp. 2-4 | El Salvador, 1966. Developed death squads with help of green | berets. Campaign used vigilantes to employ terror. Later | called civil defense corps. White, R.A. (1984). The Morass, | pp. 101-3 | | El Salvador, 1968. AIFLD creates Salvadoran Communal Union | (UCS) which emphasized self help for rural farmers and not | peasant organizing. Initially, UCS had support military | government. By 1973 UCS seen as too progressive and AIFLD | officially expelled. U.S. funding UCS continued through | training programs and private foundations. UCS charged with | ties to Orden, organization which carried out death squad | activity. With failing pro-government union efforts, AIFLD | called back to control UCS in 1979. Barry, T., and Preusch, | D. (1986). AIFLD in Central America, p. 34 | | El Salvador, 1976-85. Attended conferences of World | Anti-Communist League: Roberto D'Aubuisson, El Salvador. | Former major in military intelligence; charged with being | responsible for coordinating nation's rightist death squads. | Established Arena political party with assistance of U.S. | new right leaders. Anderson, J. L.. and Anderson, S. (1986). | Inside the League | | El Salvador, 1979-84. House Intelligence Committee | investigation of U.S. intelligence connections with death | squad activities concluded U.S. intelligence agencies "have | not conducted any of their activities in such a way as to | directly encourage or support death squad acts." House | Intelligence Committee, annual report, 1/2/1985, pp. 16-19 | El Salvador, 1979-88. Death squads recruited under cover of | boy scouts. Boys operated as a death squad known as | Regalados Armed Forces (FAR). They murdered union officials, | student leaders and teachers accused of being guerrilla | sympathizers. Herman Torres, a death squad member, learned | that the scouts part of nationwide net based on the | paramilitary organization known as Orden and coordinated | from the main military intelligence unit known as Ansesal | run by D'Aubuisson. After coup of 1979, Orden and Ansesal | officially disbanded. In 1982, when Arena won control of the | constituent assembly, the top legislative body was turned | into a center for death squads. Another death squad called | the secret anti-communist army (ESA). Bush and North in | 12/11/1983 were sent to make it clear U.S. would not | tolerate death squads. Perez Linares boasted he killed | Archbishop Romero on 3/24/1980. Catholic Church's human | rights office reports 1991 death squad and government | killings in first half of 1988 double the number of 1987. | Mother Jones, 1/1989, pp. 10-16 | | El Salvador, 1980-84. Colonel Roberto Santivanez, former | chief of the Salvadoran Army's special military intelligence | unit, testified before U.S. Senators and Congressmen. He | charged that Roberto D'Aubuisson was the principal organizer | of the death squads, along with Colonel Nicolas Carranza, | the head of the country's Treasury Police. He said Carranza | also serves as a paid CIA informer. Other reports said | Carranza received $90,000 a year for providing intelligence | to the CIA. Washington Post, 4/1/1984 | | El Salvador, 1980-84. Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, | Robert White, said the Reagan administration covered up | information that Salvadoran rightist Roberto D'Aubuisson | ordered the killing of Archbishop Romero. Washington Post, | 2/3/1984, 2/7/1984 El Salvador, 1980. Former U.S. Ambassador | Robert White, said D'Aubuisson presided over a lottery to | select which Salvadoran military officer would assassinate | Archbishop Romero, gunned down on 3/24/1980. White said the | U.S. Embassy received an eyewitness account of the 3/22 | meeting that plotted Romero's murder. Washington Post from | Associated Press, 3/1984 | | El Salvador, 1981-83. Colonel Carranza, leader of Salvador's | infamous Treasury Police, oversaw the government reign of | terror in which 800 people were killed each month. Carranza | received $90,000 a year from the CIA from 1979-84 Reportedly | living in Kentucky. The Nation, 6/5/1988, p. 780 | | El Salvador, 1981-84. House Intelligence Committee concluded | "CIA did not directly encourage or support death squad | killings." Report added that "some intelligence | relationships with individuals connected with death squads" | may have given the impression that the CIA condoned, because | it was aware of, some death squad killings. Washington Post, | 1/14/1985, A20 | | El Salvador, 1981-84. Senate Intelligence Committee reported | several Salvadoran security and military officials have | engaged in death squads acts. Large numbers of low-level | personnel also involved. Death squads have originated from | the Treasury Police and the National Guard and police. | Washington Post, 10/12/1984 | | El Salvador, 1981-84. The CIA and military advisers have | helped organize, trained, financed and advised Salvadoran | army and intelligence units engaged in death squad | activities and torture. Information from two well-informed | sources in Salvadoran government. Christian Science Monitor, | 5/8/1984, p. 1 | | El Salvador, 1981-88. Discussion of the use of death squads | in El Salvador (No indication of direct CIA participation). | The Nation, 5/8/1989, p. 625 | | El Salvador, 1986. Despite extensive government labor clamp | down (including National Guard raid of hospital workers | strike), Irving Brown, known CIA and head AFL-CIO's | Department of International Affairs, issues report claiming | "a shift away from violent repression and an improvement in | human rights." Statement incredible in light of death squad | attacks on unionists. Barry, T., and Preusch, D. (1986). | AIFLD in Central America, p. 35 | | El Salvador, 1987. Central American death squads reported | operating in the Los Angeles area. NACLA (magazine re Latin | America), 6/1987, pp. 4-5 | | El Salvador, 1988. Americas Watch in September said the | military killed 52 civilians in first 6 months, compared | with 72 in all of 1987. In 1988 the Salvadoran rebels have | stepped up the war. Washington Post, 11/26/1988, A1&18 | | El Salvador. AID public safety advisors created the national | police intelligence archive and helped organize Ansesal, an | elite presidential intelligence service. Dossiers these | agencies collected on anti-government activity, compiled | with CIA surveillance reports, provided targets for death | squads. Many of 50,000 Salvadorans killed in 1981-85 | Attributable to death squad activity. National Reporter, | Winter 1986, p. 19 | | El Salvador. Covert Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly) | 12:14-15;12:5-13. | | El Salvador. Medrano "the father of the death squads, the | chief assassin of them all," according to Jose N. Duarte. On | 23 March 1985, Medrano was assassinated. Medrano in 1984 | admitted he had worked for the CIA in 1960-69. The | Progressive, 6/1985, p. 11 | | El Salvador. Administration sources said at height of | rightist death squad activity, Reagan administration | depended on commanders of right wing death squads. The U.S. | shared some intelligence with them. U.S. intelligence | officers developed close ties to chief death squad suspects | while death squads killed several hundred a month and | totaling tens of thousands. Washington Post, 10/6/1988, A 39 | and 43 El Salvador. Article contrasting results of Senate | Committee 1984 news accounts of official cooperation between | CIA and Salvadoran security officers said to be involved in | death squad activities. First Principles, 12/1984, pp. 2-4 | | El Salvador. CIA supplied surveillance information to | security agencies for death squads. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA | A Forgotten History, pp. 321, 327 | | El Salvador. Falange mysterious death squad comprising both | active and retired members security forces. Conducts death | squad activities. Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly), 4/1981, p. 14 El Salvador. Formation of | Organisation Democratica Nacionalista Orden Formed in 1968 | by Medrano. Forces between 50,000 and 100,000. From 1968-79, | Orden official branch of government. First junta attempted | to abolish, but group reorganized as National Democratic | Front. Example of Orden death squad acts. Covert Action | Information Bulletin (Quarterly), 4/1981, p. 14 | | El Salvador. See Dickey article re slaughter in El Salvador | in New Republic, 12/13/1983, entitled "The Truth Behind the | Death Squads." fn Dickey, C. (1985). With the Contras, p. | 286 | | El Salvador. The CIA and U.S. Armed forces conceived and | organized Orden, the rural paramilitary and spy net designed | to use terror against government opponents. Conceived and | organized Ansesal, the presidential intelligence service | that gathered dossiers on dissidents which then passed on to | death squads. Kept key security officers with known links to | death squads on the CIA payroll. Instructed Salvadoran | intelligence operatives "in methods of physical and | psychological torture." Briarpatch, 8/1984 p. 30 from the | 5/1984 Progressive El Salvador. UGB (Union Guerrilla | Blanca) (white warriors union). Headed by D'Aubuisson, who | trained at International Police Academy. D'Aubuisson claims | close ties CIA. Former ambassador White called D'Aubuisson a | "psychopathic killer." Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly), 4/1981, p. 14 | | El Salvador, 1979-88. See "Confessions of an Assassin," | article. Herman Torres Cortez is the assassin who was | interviewed and tells of death squad operations in El | Salvador. Mother Jones, 1/1989, p. 10 El Salvador, 1983. | Vice President Bush delivered an ultimatum to Salvadoran | military to stop death squad murders. Mother Jones, 8/1986, | p. 64 | | El Salvador, 1987. Assassins, certainly sponsored by and | probably members of Salvadoran security forces, murder | Herbert Ernesto Anaya, head of Salvadoran civil rights | commission and last survivor of commission's eight founders. | Prior harassment of Anaya solicited neither protest nor | protection from Duarte or U.S. administration. Contrary to | popular opinion, death squad activity has not waned. | "Selective killings of community leaders, labor organizers, | human rights workers, rural activists and others have | replaced wholesale massacres" since signing of Arias plan. | Los Angeles organization "El Rescate" has compiled | chronology of human rights abuses. The Nation, 11/14/1987, | p. 546 El Salvador. CIA took more than two years 1980-83 | begin seriously analyzing papers captured from D'Aubuisson. | ICC 242. Papers said reveal death squad supporters, | atrocities. Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. (1987). | The Iran-Contra Connection, p. 22 El Salvador, 1988. Death | squad activity surged in El Salvador in 1988 after a period | of relative decline. Amnesty International report "El | Salvador: Death Squads- A Government Strategy," noted in | NACLA (magazine re Latin America) 3/1989, p. 11 | | El Salvador, 1989. Although human rights monitors | consistently link death squad acts to the Salvadoran | government, many U.S. media report on death squads as if | they an independent or uncontrollable force. Extra, Summer, | 1989, p. 28 | | El Salvador, 1989 Member of Salvadoran army said first | brigade intelligence unit army troops routinely kill and | torture suspected leftists. First brigade day-to-day army | operations carried out with knowledge of U.S. military | advisers. CIA routinely pays expenses for intelligence | operations in the brigades. U.S. has about 55 advisers in | Salvador. Washington Post, 10/27/1989, A1,26 | | El Salvador, circa 1982-84. Ricardo Castro, a 35 year old | Salvadoran army officer, a West Point graduate, said he | worked for the CIA and served as translator for a U.S. | official who advised the military on torture techniques and | overseas assassinations. Castro personally led death squad | operations. The Progressive, 3/1986, pp. 26-30 El Salvador, | domestic, 1986-87. Article "The Death Squads Hit Home." For | decades they terrorized civilians in El Salvador, now they | are terrorizing civilians in the U.S. The FBI shared | intelligence about Salvadoran activists in the U.S. with | Salvador's notorious security services. The Progressive, | 10/1987, pp. 15-19 | | El Salvador. Office of Public Safety graduate Colonel | Roberto Mauricio Staben was, according to journalist Charles | Dickey "responsible for patrolling -- if not contributing | to -- the famous death squad dumping ground at El Payton a | few miles from its headquarters." also, Alberto Medrano, | founder of El Salvador's counterinsurgency force Orden, was | an operations graduate. Finally, Jose Castillo, who was | trained in 1969 at the U.S. International Police School, | later became head of National Guard's section of special | investigations which helped organize the death squads. The | Nation, 6/7/1986, p. 793 | | El Salvador. Former death squad member Joya Martinez | admitted death squad operations carried out with knowledge | and approval 2 U.S. military advisers. LA Weekly, 1/25/1990 | El Salvador. DCI report to House Intelligence Committee re | CIA connections with death squads. National security | archives listing. El Salvador. FBI's contacts with the | Salvadoran National Guard. Information in Senate | Intelligence Committee Report, 7/1989, pp. 104-5 El | Salvador. Former San Francisco police officer accused of | illegal spying said he worked for CIA and will expose CIA's | support of death squads if he prosecuted. Tom Gerard said he | began working for CIA in 1982 and quit in 1985 because he | could not tolerate what he saw. He and Roy Bullock are | suspected of gathering information from police and | government files on thousands of individuals and groups. | Information probably ended up with B'nai B'rith and ADL. CIA | refused to confirm Gerard's claim. Gerard said there is | proof CIA directly involved in training and support of | torture and death squads in El Salvador, Honduras, and | Guatemala during mid 1980s. Proof in his briefcase San | Francisco police seized. Gerard said several photos seized | by police show CIA agents attending interrogations, or | posing with death squad members. Washington Times, | 4/28/1993, A 6 | | El Salvador, 1963-90. In 1963 U.S. sent 10 Special Forces to | help General Madrano set up Organizacion Democratica | Nacionalista (Orden), a death squad. Evidence this sort | activity going on for 30 years. Martinez, a soldier in First | infantry brigade's department 2, admitted death squad acts. | Said he worked with two U.S. Advisers. Castro, another | soldier, talks about death squads and U.S. contacts. Rene | Hurtado, former agent with Treasury Police, gives his story. | Covert Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly) Summer 1990, | pp. 51-53 El Salvador, 1973-89. El Salvador's ruling party, | Arena, closed off fifth floor of National Assembly building | to serve as HQ for national network of death squads | following Arena's 20 March 1988 electoral victory. Hernan | Torres Cortez, a former Arena security guard and death squad | member, said he was trained and recruited by Dr. Antonio | Regalado under orders of Roberto D'Abuisson intelligence | service, Ansesal, in 1973. Official network was broken up in | 1984 following Vice President Bush's visit, but was | reinstated in 1988. Intelligence Newsletter, 1/18/1991, p. 5 | | El Salvador, 1979-90. A detailed discussion of Salvador's | death squads. Schwarz, B. (1991). American Counterinsurgency | Doctrine and El Salvador, pp. 41-3 | | El Salvador, 1980-84. Expatriate Salvadorans in U.S. have | provided funds for political violence and have been directly | involved in assisting and directing their operations. Senate | Intelligence Committee, October 5, 1984, p. 15 | | El Salvador, 1980-84. Numerous Salvadoran officials involved | in death squad activities -- most done by security | services -- especially the Treasury Police and National | Guard. Some military death squad activity. Senate | Intelligence Committee, October 5, 1984, 15 El Salvador, | 1980-89. D'Aubuisson kept U.S. on its guard. Hundreds of | released declassified documents re relationship. Washington | Post, 1/4/1994, A1,13 | | El Salvador, 1980-89. Declassified documents re 32 cases | investigated by United Nations appointed Truth Commission on | El Salvador reveal U.S. officials were fully aware of | Salvadoran military and political leaders' complicity in | crimes ranging from massacre of more than 700 peasants at El | Mozote in 1981 to murder of 6 Jesuit priests in 1989, and | thousands of atrocities in between. Lies of our Time 3/1994, | pp. 6-9 El Salvador, 1980-89. President Reagan and Vice | President Bush instituted polices re fighting communists | rather than human rights concerns. From 11/1980 through | 1/1991 a large number of assassinations -- 11/27, 5 | respected politicians; 12/4, rape and murder of 3 American | nuns and a lay workers; 2 American land reform advisers on | 1/4/1981. Archbishop Romero killed 3/1980. There clear | evidence D'Aubuisson's involvement but Reagan administration | ignored. On TV, D'Aubuisson, using military intelligence | files, denounced teachers, labor leaders, union organizers | and politicians. Within days their mutilated bodies found. | Washington had identified most leaders of death squads as | members Salvadoran security forces with ties to D'Aubuisson. | With U.S. outrage at bloodshed, U.S., via Bush, advised | government slaughter must stop. Article discusses torture | techniques used by security forces. Washington Post op-ed by | Douglas Farah, 2/23/1992, C4 El Salvador, 1980-90. COL | Nicolas Carranza, head of Treasury Police, on CIA payroll. | Minnick, W. (1992). Spies and Provocateurs, p. 32 El | Salvador, 1980-90. State panel found that mistakes by U.S. | diplomats, particularly in probing 1981 massacre of | civilians at El Mozote, undercut policy during Salvador's | civil war. Findings in 67-page study ordered by Secretary of | State Christopher. Sen. Leahy said report "glosses | over...the lies, half-truths and evasions that we came to | expect from the State Department during that period." Sen. | Dodd said "report is sloppy, anemic and basically a | whitewash..." Washington Times, 7/16/1993, A12 and | Washington Post, 7/16/1993, A16 El Salvador, 1980-91. Truth | Commission report says 19 of 27 Salvadoran officers | implicated in 6 Jesuit murders were graduates of U.S. Army's | School of Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. Almost three | quarters of Salvadoran officers accused in 7 other massacres | were trained at Fort Benning. It called school for | dictators. Since 46 it has trained more than 56,000 Latin | soldiers. Graduates include some of region's most despicable | military strongmen. Now, when U.S. wants to build democracy, | school an obstacle. Newsweek investigation turned up | hundreds of less than honorable grads. At least 6 Peruvian | officers linked to a military death squad that killed 9 | students and a professor were graduates. Four of five senior | Honduran officers accused in Americas Watch report of | organizing a death squad, Battalion 316, were trained there. | A coalition charged 246 Colombian officers with human rights | violations; 105 were school alumni. Honored graduates | include General Suarez, a brutal dictator of Bolivia; | General Callejas Ycallejas, chief of Guatemalan intelligence | in late 1970s and early 1980s, when thousands political | opponents were assassinated; and Honduran General Garcia, a | corrupt person; and, Hernandez, armed forces chief of | Colombia suspected of aiding Colombian drug traffickers. | Newsweek, 8/9/1993, pp. 36-7 | | El Salvador, 1980-92. "Secret of the Skeletons: Uncovering | America's Hidden Role in El Salvador." Pathologists | uncovered 38 small skeletons in El Mozote. In 1981 soldiers | of ACRE, immediate reaction infantry battalion created by | U.S., herded children into basement and blew up building. | U.S. officials denied any massacre had taken place and kept | on denying for years. About 800 residents killed. Armed | service leaders said they conducted war on part of Reagan | and Bush administrations with bi-partisan support Congress | since 1984; received daily assistance from State Department, | DOD and CIA. Truth Commission investigating via U.S. | Government interagency committee. State and CIA not | cooperating with commission. CIA not giving one document on | formation of death squads, prepared in 1983 for | congressional intelligence committees. Kidnap-for-profit | ring against Salvadoran business community. With U.S. | Encouragement, Salvadoran government arrested several | members of ring. One was a death squad assassin, Rudolfo | Isidro Lopez Sibrian, who implicated in deaths of 2 American | labor advisers. Washington Post, 11/15/1992, C1,2 El | Salvador, 1980-93. 11/5/1993 release of thousands pages of | intelligence reports shows every U.S. diplomat, military | officer, and intelligence operative who worked with El | Salvador's military and political leaders in 1980s knew most | of those involved in organizing death squads. State | Department officials lied to Congress. Intelligence reports | detailed precise information on murder, kidnapping, and coup | plots, and death squad funding, involving people like VP | Francisco Merino and current Arena candidate Armando | Calderon Sol. At least 63,000 Salvadoran civilians -- | equivalent of 3 million Americans were killed -- most by | government supported by U.S. The Nation, 11/29/1993, p. 645 | El Salvador, 1980-93. Approximately 50-page article on the | massacres at El Mozote. Article by Mark Danner. New Yorker, | 12/6/1993 El Salvador, 1980-93. Article by Jared Toller, | "Death Squads Past, Present & Future." discusses recent | cases of FMLN members being murdered by resurgent death | squads. Only left is calling for full implementation of UN | Truth Commission's recommendations -- purging armed | forces, full investigation into death squads, etc. Truth | Commission had recommended U.S. make it files available. | U.S. Had refused to turn over 1983 FBI report on death | squads organization in Miami. Salvadoran government is the | death squads. Member of a death squad now imprisoned and | seeking amnesty, Lopez Sibrian, explained participation of | Arena luminaries in kidnappings, bombings and attacks on | National University. He implicated the mayor of San Salvador | in various acts. Link between phone service, Antel, and | national intelligence police. Antel records calls of left | and passes them to police. (The secret anti-communist Army, | a former death squad, were regulars of now-disbanded | Treasury Police). Upcoming elections may have generated | increase in death squad activity. Z magazine, 1/1994, pp. | 14-5 | | El Salvador, 1980-93. Colman McCarthy comments of UN's Truth | Commission report and the Reagan-Abrams "fabulous | achievement." Washington Post, 4/6/1993, D22 | | El Salvador, 1980-93. Letter to editor by Thomas Buergenthal | of law school at George Washington U., who was a member of | the Truth Commission for El Salvador. He denies news story | that there was a chapter in the report that dealt with the | structure and finances of the groups was withheld. He | bemoans the ability of the commission to thoroughly | investigate all aspects. Washington Post, 11/30/1993, A24 | | El Salvador, 1980-93. Report of UN's Truth Commission re | enormous crime of a government that killed upwards of 70,000 | civilians between 1980-92. Report refutes official | statements made by Reagan and Bush administrations -- | when officials denied leaders of Salvadoran armed forces | were using execution, rape and torture to sustain their | power -- reports says they were. We need a truth report | on our own government per Rep. Moakley. Truth report adds | growing body evidence U.S. Government officials may have | participated in perpetuation of atrocities in El Salvador. | In 1960s, CIA advisers helped create a nationwide informant | net. In 1981, team of military advisers led by Brig. Gen. | Frederick Woener sent to determine "rightist terrorism and | institutional violence." Salvadorans generally dismissed | notion that terror was a bad idea. One of Colonels, Oscar | Edgardo Casanova Vejar, was one covering up rape and murder | of four churchwomen. Woener recommended U.S. proceed and | give $300-400 million aid. U.S. officials claimed | churchwomen had run a roadblock and there was no massacre at | El Mozote. Neil Livingstone, a consultant who worked with | Oliver North at NSC concluded, "death squads are an | extremely effective tool, however odious, in combating | terrorism and revolutionary challenges." op-ed by Jefferson | Morley, an Outlook editor. Washington Post, 3/28/1993, C1,5 | | El Salvador, 1980-93. Salvador's ruling party moved to | declare amnesty for those named in United Nations.-sponsored | Truth Commission. Investigators said 85% of complaints laid | to government death squads. Discusses D'Aubuisson's | implication in Archbishop Romero's assassination. Washington | Post 3/17/1993 a25 | | El Salvador, 1980. Ten former death squad members were | ordered killed in Santiago de Maria on 27 December 1980 by | Hector Antonio Regalado, who felt they knew too much. | Intelligence Newsletter, 10/4/1988, p. 6 | | El Salvador, 1981-84. There are two versions of first page | of a CIA report, "El Salvador: Dealing With Death Squads," | 1/20/1984. CIA released first version in 1987, among | congressional debate over aid to El Salvador. Second | version, which contradicts first, declassified by CIA in | 11/1993. As recently as 10/1992, CIA continued to release | censored version in response to FOIA requests. Redacted | version implies death squad problem overcome -- non | censored version show this is not true. New York Times, | 12/17/1993, A19 | | El Salvador, 1981-89. Salvadoran atrocity posed agonizing | choice for U.S. COL Rene Ponce, chief of staff of Salvador's | armed forces, has been accused of ordering murder of six | Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at | Central American University. Newly available U.S. documents | show U.S. knowingly and repeatedly aligned themselves with | unsavory characters during 1980s while defending them to | U.S. Public. Diplomatic cables found among more than 10,000 | recently declassified State, Pentagon and CIA documents, | reveal extent U.S. policy makers chose to overlook Ponce's | brutality. U.S. officials long labeled Ponce a right-wing | extremist tied to death squads. But documents make clear | U.S. played down unsavory side of Ponce. Details from | correspondence between Ambassador Walker and Baker. In | 10/1983, CIA prepared a "briefing paper on right-wing | terrorism in El Salvador" that described Ponce as a | supporter of death squads. Impact Bush's visit in 1984 to | push for human rights was minimal. By 7/1989, CIA reported | that Ponce "espouses moderate political views." Ponce | refused repeated requests to pursue those responsible for | deaths of Jesuits. Washington Post, 4/5/1994, A13 El | Salvador, 1981-90. Government operation at El Mozote | consisted of Army, National Guard and the Treasury Police in | operation rescue. By early 1992, U.S. spent more than 4 | billion in civil war lasting 12 years and that left 75,000 | dead. New Yorker, 12/6/1993, p. 53 El Salvador, 1981-90. In | 1981 over 10,000 political murders committed by Salvadoran | military and its death squads. In 1990 there were 108 such | murders. Schwarz, B. (1991). American Counterinsurgency | Doctrine and El Salvador, p. 23 | | El Salvador, 1981-92. Article "Death-Squad Refugees," | discusses case of Cesar Vielman Joya Martinez, extradited by | Bush to El Salvador to face murder charges for being part of | a death squad that he claims operated with knowledge of | defense minister Ponce and other top officials. FOIA | documents show U.S. helping prepare extradition request for | Salvadoran government. Truth Commission's report vindicates | Joya. Texas Observer (magazine), 3/26/1993, pp. 9-10 | | El Salvador, 1981-92. Some U.S. special operations soldiers | in El Salvador during civil war want Pentagon to admit they | more than advisers. They say they also fought. Army memo | given Newsweek says, "most personnel serving in an advisory | capacity were directly engaged in hostile action." Newsweek, | 4/5/1993 | | El Salvador, 1981-92. Truth Commission report implicates top | Salvadoran officials in ordering or covering up murders of | four U.S. churchwomen and six Jesuit priests; and Salvadoran | troops massacred many hundreds at El Mozote. Four Dutch | journalists killed 3/17/1982 were deliberately ambushed by | Salvadoran army. Denials by then top U.S. government | officials now exposed. U.S. government supported war with $6 | billion. The Nation, 4/12/1993, p. 475 | | El Salvador, 1981-93. 12 years of tortured truth on El | Salvador -- U.S. declarations undercut by United Nations. | Commission report. For 12 years, opponents of U.S. policy in | Central America accused Reagan and Bush administrations of | ignoring widespread human rights abuses by the Salvadoran | government and of systematically deceiving or even lying to | Congress and people about the nature of an ally that would | receive $6 billion in economic and military aid. A three-man | United Nations.-sponsored Truth Commission released a | long-awaited report on 12 years of murder, torture and | disappearance in El Salvador's civil war. Commission | examined 22,000 complaints of atrocities and attributed 85 | percent of a representative group of them to Salvadoran | security forces or right-wing death squads. It blamed | remainder on guerrilla Farabundo Marti National Liberation | front (FMLN). In May 1980, for instance, when Carter was | still President, security forces seized documents | implicating rightist leader D'Aubuisson in the murder of | Archbishop Oscar Romero. In Fall of 1981, Army Brig. Gen. | Fred Woerner supervised preparation of a joint | U.S.-Salvadoran internal military "Report of the El Salvador | Military Strategy Assistance Team," which noted that "the | (Salvadoran) armed forces are reluctant to implement | vigorous corrective actions for abuses in the use of force." | One reason so many people found it hard to believe U.S. | officials could not have known more about rights abuses and | acted more aggressively to curb them is that the U.S. was | deeply involved in running the war, from intelligence | gathering to strategy planning to training of everyone from | officers to foot soldiers. By 1982, U.S.. military advisers | were assigned to each of the six Salvadoran brigades, as | well as each of 10 smaller detachments. The U.S. put tens of | millions of dollars into developing the ultra-modern | national intelligence directorate to coordinate intelligence | gathering and dissemination. U.S. military and CIA officials | participated in almost every important meeting. Most | brigades had a U.S. intelligence officer assigned to them, | as well as a U.S. liaison officer. U.S. advisers regularly | doled out small amounts of money, usually less than $1,000 | at a time, for intelligence work. The U.S. was not informed | of arrests or captures Unless they specifically asked. "They | never asked unless there was a specific request because | someone in Washington was getting telegrams." El Mozote, the | report said, was work of U.S.-trained Atlacatl battalion, | part of a days-long search-and-destroy sweep known as | "Operation Rescue." In fact, the report said, the soldiers | massacred more than 500 people in six villages. In El | Mozote, where the identified victims exceeded 200, "the men | were tortured and executed, then women were executed and | finally, the children" Washington Post, 3/21/1993 | | El Salvador, 1981-93. A discussion of the media's treatment | of the El Mozote massacres and the U.S. media's treatment of | that story. Lies of our Time, 6/1993, pp. 3-4 | | El Salvador, 1981-93. Thomas Enders, former Assistant | Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs from 1981-83, | writes op-ed defending U.S. officials' testimony re massacre | at El Mozote as now confirmed by UN's Truth Commission | report. Washington Post, op-ed 3/29/1993, A19 El Salvador, | 1981-93. United Nations. Commission on Truth to release | report on crimes committed against civilians in Salvador's | 12-year civil war. Defense Minister Ponce already resigned. | Washington Post Outlook, 3/14/1993, C1,2 | | El Salvador, 1981-94. Armando Calderon Sol considered | shoo-in to win Presidency in impending elections. Calderon | began his political career as a member of a seven-man, | neo-fascist group under D'Aubuisson's guidance that | supported death squad operations. Calderon has all worst | elements of D'Abuisson without any redeeming qualities. When | D'Abuisson running death squads out of his office, Calderon | was his private secretary and a loyal soldier in a terrorist | cell -- Salvadoran National Movement (MNS). In 1981, | D'Abuisson unified MNS into Arena party. Washington Post, | Outlook, 4/17/1994, C1,3 | | El Salvador, 1981. Detailed article on "The Truth of El | Mozote," by Mark Danner. New Yorker, 12/6/1993, pages 51 and | ending on page 103 El Salvador, 1981. Skeletons verify | killing of Salvadoran children of El Mozote, El Salvador. | Washington Times, 10/21/1992, A9 and Washington Post, | 10/22/1992, A18 | | El Salvador, 1982-84. Significant political violence | associated with Salvadoran security services including | National police, National Guard, and Treasury Police. U.S. | government agencies maintained official relationships with | Salvadoran security establishment appearing to acquiesce in | these activities. No evidence U.S. personnel participated in | forcible interrogations. U.S. did pass "tactical" | information to alert services of action by insurgent forces. | Information on persons passed only in highly unusual cases. | Senate Intelligence Committee, October 5, 1984, pp. 11-13. | | El Salvador, 1982-84. "Recent Political Violence in El | Salvador," Report of Senate Intelligence Committee. | Committee found ample evidence that U.S. policy was to | oppose political violence. U.S. government accorded high | priority to gathering intelligence on political violence. | President Bush and his demarche in 1983. P8. U.S. government | Relationship with Robert D'Aubuisson -- bio on him. U.S. | Government contact with him limited. Roberto Santivanez, | director of Ansesal 1978-79. He claimed he himself had | engaged in death squad activity and had a relationship with | U.S. through CIA and that COL Carranza had ties to CIA. | Colonel Nicolas Carranza had extensive ties to Arena and | National Conciliation (PCN) parties. He involved in various | activities of interest to U.S. in various positions. Senate | Intelligence Committee, October 5, 1984, pp. 1-11 | | El Salvador, 1983-90. Former Salvadoran army intelligence | agent who applied for political asylum in U.S. convicted in | court of entering country illegally. Joya-Martinez's request | for political asylum still pending. Washington Post, | 9/19/1990, A5 | | El Salvador, 1985. In 2/1985, CIA reported that behind | Arena's legitimate exterior lies a terrorist network led by | D'Aubuisson using both active-duty and retired military | personnel..." main death squad was "the Secret | Anti-communist Army," described by CIA as the paramilitary | organization of Arena -- from the National Police and | other security organizations. These were funded directly | from Washington. Death squads became more active as 1994, | election approached. Columbia, possibly leading terrorist | state in Latin America, has become leading recipient of U.S. | military aid. Since 1986, more than 20,000 people have been | killed for political reasons, most by Colombian authorities. | More than 1,500 leaders, members and supporters of the Labor | Party (UP) have been assassinated since party established in | 1985. Pretext for terror operations is war against | guerrillas and narcotraffickers. Former a partial truth, | latter a myth concocted to replace the "communist threat." | Works hand-in-hand with drug lords, organized crime, and | landlords. National Police took over as leading official | killers while U.S. aid shifted to them. Targets include | community leaders, human rights and health workers, union | activists, students, members of religious youth | organizations, and young people in shanty towns. Sale of | human organs. Case of Guatemala. Shift of 1962, under | Kennedy administration from hemispheric defense to "internal | security:" war against the internal enemy. Doctrines | expounded in counterinsurgency manuals. Internal enemy | extends to labor organizations, popular movements, | indigenous organizations, opposition political parties, | peasant movements, intellectual sectors, religious currents, | youth and student groups, neighborhood organizations, etc. | From 1984 through 1992, 6,844 Colombian soldiers trained | under U.S. International Military Education and Training | Program (MET). Z Magazine, 5/1994, 14 pages El Salvador, | 1986-87. See article "Death Squad Update, Investigating | L.A.'s Salvadoran Connection." Los Angeles Weekly, 8/7/1987 | El Salvador, 1986-89. Joya Martinez, former death squad | member, who said two U.S. advisers attached to his unit and | gave funds of 9500 month. Article names other Salvadoran | death squad members. Unclassified, 7/1990 | | El Salvador, 1986. In 1986, Salvadoran authorities, with | help of FBI, cracked a kidnap-for-hire ring in which death | squads posing as leftist rebels kidnapped some of nation's | wealthiest businessmen. Schwarz, B. (1991). American | Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador, p. 28 | | El Salvador, 1987-89. Jesuit labeled ardent communist two | years before by Salvadoran, U.S. officials. Religious News | Service, 5/9/1990, p. 1 | | El Salvador, 1987-89. Salvadoran woman defecting to U.S. | said she worked for death squad and provided information on | six people who killed. Her claims back up those of her | supervisor, Cesar Joya Martinez, who linked death squad acts | to U.S. funding. Boston Globe, 3/16/1990, in First | Principles, 4/1990, p. 10 | | El Salvador, 1988-89. Joya Martinez, former member | intelligence department 1st army Brigade of Salvador's army. | Said U.S. advisers funded their activity, but unaware of | death squad. Washington Post, 11/19/1989, F2 | | El Salvador, 1988. Amnesty International report of 26 | October 1988 noted "black list" are supplied to Salvadoran | media by Salvadoran intelligence services. During first six | months of 1988, number of murders by death squads tripled | over same period of previous year. Most prominent victim was | Judge Jorge Alberto Serrano Panameno who was shot in May | 1988. Increase reflects rise to power of 1966 class from | national military school. Class members include Colonel Rene | Emilio Ponce, new chief of staff of armed forces as well as | director of Treasury Police. They command five of country's | six brigades, five of seven military detachments, three | security forces as well as intelligence, personnel and | operations posts in high command. Intelligence Newsletter, | 11/16/1988, pp. 5,6 | | El Salvador, 1989-91. According to confidential Salvadoran | military sources, decision to murder six Jesuit priests was | made at a 15 November 1989 meeting of senior commanders (CO) | at the Salvadoran military school. Those allegedly present | were: Colonel Benavides, CO of the school; General Juan | Rafael Bustillo, then CO of Salvadoran Air Force -- in | 1991 assigned to embassy in Israel; General Emilio Ponce, | then chief of staff -- in 1991 minister of defense; and | Colonel Elena Fuentes, CO of 1st brigade. Initiative for | murders came from Colonel Bustillo. For a listing of direct | and circumstantial evidence supporting allegation, see | statement of Rep. Joe Moakley, Task Force on El Salvador, | 11/18/1991 El Salvador, 1989. CIA officer visited bodies of | dead priests. Officer was senior liaison with (DNI) the | national intelligence directorate. U.S. probably knew | Salvadoran military behind assassinations but did not say | anything for seven weeks. State Department panel did not | review actions of CIA or DOD. Washington Post, 7/18/1993, | C1,4 | | El Salvador, 1989. Congressman criticized a 11/ 1987 report | in which Latin American and U.S. military leaders accused | Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria and several other theologians of | supporting objectives of communist revolution. Father | Ellacuria, Rector of Jesuit university in San Salvador, was | murdered on 11/16/ 1989. Religious News Service, 5/11/1990, | p. 1 | | El Salvador, 1989. Joya Martinez and Jesuit murders. | Martinez says his unit which played major role in 12/1989 | murder of Jesuit priests had U.S. government advisors. INS | trying to deport Martinez. Unclassified, 9/1990, p. 6 | | El Salvador, 1989. Salvadoran Archbishop Rivera accused U.S. | officials of subjecting a witness to the slaying of 6 Jesuit | intellectuals to brainwashing and psychological torment. | Washington Post, 12/11/1989, A23,24 | | El Salvador, 1989. U.S. military adviser Benavides told FBI, | later recanted, that Salvadoran army chief of staff and | others knew of plan to kill six Jesuit priests. Washington | Post, 10/29/1990, A17,21 El Salvador, 1990. Amnesty | International reported a significant surge in number of | killings by army-supported death squads this year. 45 people | killed between January and August this year, compared with | 40 reported in 1989. Washington Post, 10/24/1990, A14 El | Salvador, 1990. Cesar Vielman Joya-Martinez, former member | Salvadoran First brigade death squad, sentenced to 6 months | in jail for illegally reentering U.S. 6 years after he | deported. Washington Post, 12/8/1990, A22 | | El Salvador, 1991. Salvadoran minister of defense and other | top generals attended 1989 meeting where decision was made | to murder six Jesuit priests, according to confidential | sources. Allegation was made by an attorney working for Rep. | Moakley (D-MA), whose task force released a six page | statement directly linking Salvadoran high command to | slayings. Washington Times, 11/18/1991, A2 | | El Salvador, 1991. Summary executions continued in El | Salvador despite the presence of Onusal, the UN observer | mission monitoring human rights violations. In a 1991 | report, Onusal noted government made few attempts to | investigate slayings. Report also accused FMLN for | recruiting fifteen-year-olds. Washington Times, 12/3/1991, | A8 El Salvador, 1992. Cesar Vielman Joya Martinez, former | Salvadoran death squad member, to be deported. Washington | Post editorial, 10/23/1992, A20 | | El Salvador, 1993. Right-wing death squads undermining | fragile peace per UN chief in campaign for March 1994 | elections. Washington Times, 11/25/1993, A15 | | El Salvador, Central America, 1981-1993. Salvadoran death | squads set up as a consequence of Kennedy administration | decisions. Killers were Treasury Police and the military who | were trained in intelligence and torture by U.S. U.S. | personnel staffed military and intelligence apparatus. | Generals selected and trained by U.S. were most notorious | killers. 1984 FBI report on death squads never released. For | savage expose of School of Americas' killers, see Father Roy | Bourgeois's School of the Americas Watch, Box 3330, Columbus | Ga. 31903; (706) 682-5369. The Nation, 12/27/1993, p. 791 | | El Salvador, 1989-1990. Joya Martinez testified role played | by U.S. officials in death squad killings carried out by | U.S. trained first infantry Brigade's intelligence unit. Two | U.S. military advisers controlled intelligence department | and paid for unit's operating expenses. His unit performed | 74 executions between April and July 1989. Washington Post | confirmed U.S. advisers work in liaison with First brigade | and CIA pays expenses for intelligence operations in the | brigades. Martinez said his first brigade unit attached to | U.S.-trained Atlacatl battalion, which slaughtered the | Jesuit priests. Member of his unit, Oscar Mariano Amaya | Grimaldi has confessed to slayings. In These Times, | 8/14/1990, p. 17 | | | Europe: Watch List | | Europe, 1945-92. Operation Gladio. First scandal was | discovery of assassination teams in 1952 linked to Bundes | Deutscher Jugend -- a right-wing political organization | in Hesse, Germany. They prepared list of German politicians | who [might cooperate with Soviets]. BBC (1992). Gladio -- | Timewatch (Transcript of 3 part program), pp. 19-20 | | | Georgia: Watch List | | Georgia, 1993. Woodruff worked for 2 months as CIA's Tbilisi | station chief posing as a State Department regional-affairs | officer. He to help Guguladze upgrade Georgian intelligence | service and to monitor factional struggle. Newsweek | 8/23/1993, p. 18 | | | Germany: Watch List | | Germany, 1950-54. In about 1950 pacifist ideas to be | eradicated. U.S. formed German youth league (Bund Deutscher | Jugend (BDJ)) in Frankfurt. Psychological indoctrination | given by Paul Luth. BDJ was a militant organization, a | counterweight to communist-run free German youth (FDJ) run | from East Berlin to infiltrate W. German youth. BDJ passed | letters and brochures through Iron Curtain and pasted | slogans on walls. Chancellor Adenauer wanted cold war and | wanted to use the BDJ. Otto John told by State official Zinn | that it had uncovered neo-Nazi unit BDJ run by Peters, that | was organizing secret firing exercises and training for | partisan warfare in the Odelwald. BDJ had drawn up a | blacklist of left-wing socialists who were to be arrested or | even murdered in event of attack from east. [early version | of Gladio political and staybehind operation]. John, O. | (1969). Twice Through the Lines: the Autobiography of Otto | John, pp. 210-15 Germany, 1950-90. Bonn officials said | government to disband secret resistance net Operation | Gladio. Section consisted of former Nazi SS and Waffen-SS | officers as well as members of an extreme right-wing youth | group that drew up plans to assassinate leading members of | Socialist Democratic Party in event of USSR-invasion. | "Statewatch" compilation filed June 1994, p. 11 | | Germany, 1952-91. CIA's stay-behind program caused scandal | in 1952 when West German police discovered CIA working with | a 2,000-member fascist youth group led by former Nazis. | Group had a black list of people to be liquidated in case of | conflict with the USSR. Lembke case. The Nation, 4/6/1992, | p. 446 | | Germany, 1953. (Stay-behind operation Gladio?). In 1953 mass | arrests of neo-Nazi militant organization within ranks of | German youth fellowship (BDJ) discovered. Group held secret | night maneuvers in Odenwald with CIA instructors. They | preparing for war with East Germany and prepared lists of | communists, left-wing sympathizers and pacifists who were to | be arrested in case of emergency. Members encouraged to | infiltrate East German youth league (FDJ). Operation exposed | in press and scores of youths arrested in East Germany as | spies, propagandists or provocateurs, and sentenced to terms | of up to nine years of hard labor. Hagan, l. (1969). The | Secret War for Europe, p. 78 Germany, 1953. U.S. | Intelligence officer told Otto John, head of BFV, one of its | agents in East Germany to defect with a list of East German | agents in West. 35 Communist spies arrested after Easter. | Later it found many of those arrested were innocent. Arrests | followed with apologies. Disaster caused by over-zealous | U.S. intelligence officer. West German businessmen as | consequence afraid to do business with east. This a goal of | U.S. Policy -- was this a deliberate "mistake?" Hagan, l. | (1969). The Secret War for Europe, p. 81 | | | Greece: Watch List | | Greece, 1967. After CIA-backed coup, the army and police | seized almost 10,000 prisoners, mostly left-wing militants, | though political leaders of all shades taken including prime | minister Kanelopoulos and members of his Cabinet, trade | union members, journalists, writers, etc. The lists had been | provided by the sympathizers in the police and the secret | service. Final lists kept up to date by COL George Ladas. | Details of fate of the arrestees. Tompkins, P. (Unpublished | manuscript). Strategy of Terror, pp. 13-8 | | | Guatemala: Watch List | | Guatemala, 1954. Death squads and target lists. Schlesinger, | S., & Kinzer, S. (1983). Bitter Fruit 197, pp. 207-8, 221 | Guatemala, 1954. Goal of CIA was apprehension of suspected | communists and sympathizers. At CIA behest, Castillo Armas | created committee and issued decree that established death | penalty for crimes including labor union activities. | Committee given authority declare anyone communist with no | right of defense or appeal. By 11/21/1954 committee had some | 72,000 persons on file and aiming to list 200,000. | Schlesinger, S., & Kinzer, S. (1983). Bitter Fruit, p. 221 | | Guatemala, 1954. The U.S. Ambassador, after overthrow of | Arbenz government, gave lists of radical opponents to be | eliminated to Armas's government. NACLA 2/1983, p 4. The | military continued up to at least 1979 to use a list of | 72,000 proscribed opponents, drawn up first in 1954. NACLA | (magazine re Latin America) 2/1983, p. 13 Guatemala, 1954. | After Armas made president, labor code forgotten and worker | organizers began disappearing from united fruit plantations. | Hersh, B. (1992). The Old Boys, p. 353 | | Guatemala, 1954. Department of State Secretary Dulles told | Ambassador Peurifoy to have the government scour the | countryside for communists and to slap them with criminal | charges. A few months later the government began to | persecute hundreds for vague communist crimes. The Nation, | 10/28/1978, p. 444 | | Guatemala, 1954 U.S. Ambassador Peurifoy, after Arbenz | resigned, gave Guatemalan army's chief of staff a list of | "communists" to be shot. The chief of staff declined. The | Nation 6/5/1995, pp. 792-5 Guatemala, 1981-89. Israeli | Knesset member General Peled said in Central America Israel | is 'dirty work' contractor for U.S. Helped Guatemala regime | when Congress blocked Reagan administration. Israeli firm | Tadiran (then partly U.S.-owned) supplied Guatemalan | military with computerized intelligence system to track | potential subversives. Those on computer list had an | excellent chance of being "disappeared." It was "an archive | and computer file on journalists, students, leaders, | leftists, politicians and so on." Computer system making up | death lists. Cockburn, A. & Cockburn, L. (1991). Dangerous | Liaison, p. 219 Guatemala, 1985-93. CIA collected | intelligence re ties between Guatemalan insurgents and Cuba. | CIA passed the information to U.S. military, which was | assisting Guatemalan army extinguish opposition. Washington | Post, 3/30/1995, A1,10 | | Guatemala, 1988-91. CIA station chief in Guatemala from 1988 | to 1991 was a Cuban American. He had about 20 officers with | a budget of about $5 million a year and an equal or greater | sum for "liaison" with Guatemalan military. His job included | placing and keeping senior Guatemalan officers on his | payroll. Among them was Alpirez, who recruited for CIA. | Alpirez's intelligence unit spied on Guatemalans and is | accused by human rights groups of assassinations. CIA also | gave Guatemalan army information on guerrillas. New York | Times, 4/2/1995, A11 | | | Guatemala: Death Squads | | Guatemala, 1953-84. For 30 years the CIA has been | bankrolling a man reported to be behind right-wing terror in | Central America. The CIA's protégé, Mario Sandoval Alarcon, | former Vice President Of Guatemala, now heads the National | Liberation Movement (NLM) founded in 1953 by CIA as a | paramilitary force to overthrow Arbenz. By mid-1960s | Sandoval emerged as head of the organization. The White Hand | or La Mano Blanco with close ties to the NLM was responsible | for as many as 8000 deaths in the 1960s plus more in the | 1970s. Sandoval a pillar of the World Anti-communist League. | The CIA still funds Sandoval. Jack Anderson, Washington | Post, 1/30/1984 | | Guatemala, 1954-76. Effect of CIA coup organized labor all | but wiped out. Union membership dropped 100,000 to 27,000 | immediately and continued decline thereafter, in part due to | death squad activity. Barry, T., and Preusch, D. (1986). | AIFLD in Central America, p. 21 Guatemala. Police trained by | AID public safety program murdered or disappeared 15,000 | people. Lernoux, P. (1982). Cry of the People, p. 186 | | Guatemala, 1954-84. See Jack Anderson column "Links Reported | Among Latin Death Squads." Washington Post, 1/12/1984, N. | VA., p. 15 Guatemala, 1970-72. Under Arana presidency, with | Mario Sandoval Alarcon and others involved in right-wing | terrorism, Arana unleashed one of the most gruesome | slaughters in recent Latin American history (only in Chile, | following the coup against Allende was the degree of | violence greater). The New York Times reported in June 1971 | that at least 2000 Guatemalans were assassinated between | 11/1970 and 5/1971; most corpses showed signs of torture. | Most of killing attributed to the officially supported | terrorist organizations Ojo Por Ojo (an eye for an eye) and | Mano Blanca. Jones, S., and Tobis, D. (Eds.). (1974). | Guatemala, pp. 202-3 | | Guatemala, 1970-87. Violence by security forces organized by | CIA, trained in torture by advisors from Argentina, Chile. | Supported by weapon, computer experts from Israel. Marshall, | J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. (1987). The Iran-Contra | Connection, p. 133 Guatemala. 1960-82. Trained military | death squads who used "terror tactics" from killing to | indiscriminate napalming of villages. Special Forces almost | certainly participated in operations despite Congressional | prohibition. Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. | (1987). The Iran-Contra Connection, p. 193 | | Guatemala, 1954. The U.S. ambassador, after overthrow of | Arbenz government, gave lists to Armas of radical opponents | to be eliminated. NACLA (magazine re Latin America) 2/1983, | p. 4 | | Guatemala, 1985. The World Anti-communist League's point | man, Mario Sandoval Alarcon, remains a League member even | after exposed as a death squad patriarch who was on the CIA | payroll. Jack Anderson, Washington Post, 8/9/1986 | | Guatemala, 1989. Climate of terror grips Guatemala. Killers, | bombers said to target civilian rule. Washington Post, | 9/29/1989, A 45 Guatemala, circa 1968-70. U.S. | counterinsurgency program turned area into bloody war zone | taking the lives of thousands of peasants. Formed Mano | Blanca or White Hand. Plan used through out country in 1970. | NACLA (magazine re Latin America), 3/74, p. 19 Guatemala. | Article by Gary Bass and Babette Grunow on the Guatemalan | counterinsurgency forces. Lies of our Time, 6/1993, pp. | 11-13 | | Guatemala. At least three of recent G-2 chiefs were paid by | CIA. Crimes are merely examples of a vast, systematic | pattern; [the guilty] are only cogs in a large U.S. | government apparatus. Colonel Hooker, former DIA chief for | Guatemala, says, "it would be an embarrassing situation if | you ever had a roll call of everybody in Guatemalan army who | ever collected a CIA paycheck." Hooker says CIA payroll is | so large that it encompasses most of Army's top | decision-makers. Top commanders paid by CIA include General | Roberto Matta Galvez, former army chief of staff, head of | presidential General Staff and commander of massacres in El | Quiche department; and General Gramajo, defense minister | during the armed forces' abduction, rape and torture of | Dianna Ortiz, an American nun. Hooker says he once brought | Gramajo on a tour of U.S. Three recent Guatemalan heads of | state confirm CIA works closely with G-2. Gen. Oscar | Humberto Mejia Victores (military dictator from 1983 to | 1986) how death squads had originated, he said they started | "in the 1960s by CIA." General Efrain Rios Montt (dictator | from 1982 to 1983 and the current congress president), who | ordered main high-land massacres (662 villages destroyed, by | army's own count), said CIA had agents in the G-2. CIA death | squads by Allan Nairn. The Nation, 4/17/1995 Guatemala. CIA | works inside a Guatemalan army unit that maintains a network | of torture centers and has killed thousands of Guatemalan | civilians. G-2, since at least 60s, has been advised, | trained, armed and equipped by U.S. undercover agents. One | of American agents who works with G-2, is Randy Capister. He | has been involved in similar operations with army of | neighboring El Salvador. A weapons expert known as Joe | Jacarino, has operated through out Caribbean, and has | accompanied G-2 units on missions into rural zones. Jacarino | [possibly a CIA officer]. Celerino Castillo, a former agent | of DEA who dealt with G-2 and CIA in Guatemala, says he | worked with Capister as well as with Jacarino. Colonel | Alpirez at La Aurora base in Guatemala Denied involvement in | deaths of Bamaca and Devine. He said CIA advises and helps | run G-2. He praised CIA for "professionalism" and close | rapport with Guatemalan officers. He said that agency | operatives often come to Guatemala on temporary duty, and | train G-2. CIA gives sessions at G-2 bases on | "contra-subversion" tactics and "how to manage factors of | power" to "fortify democracy." During mid-1980s G-2 officers | were paid by Jack McCavitt, then CIA station chief. CIA | "technical assistance" includes communications gear, | computers and special firearms, as well as collaborative use | of CIA-owned helicopters that are flown out of piper hangar | at La Aurora civilian airport and from a separate U.S. Air | facility. Guatemalan army has, since 1978, killed more than | 110,000 civilians. G-2 and a smaller, affiliated unit called | Archivo have long been openly known in Guatemala as the | brain of the terror state. With a contingent of more than | 2,000 agents and with sub-units in local army bases, G-2 | coordinates torture, assassination and disappearance of | dissidents. CIA Death Squads by Allan Nairn. The Nation, | 4/17/1995 Guatemala, 1954-95. For at least five years, | Colonel Alpirez was also a well-paid agent for CIA and a | murderer, a U.S. Congressman says. Alpirez has been linked | to the murder of Michael Devine, an American innkeeper who | lived and worked in the Guatemalan jungle, and the torture | and killing of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a leftist guerrilla | who was the husband of Jennifer Harbury. CIA ties began in | 1954, when Alpirez was about five years old. The CIA | engineered a coup in Guatemala that overthrew a leftist | president and installed a right-wing military regime. CIA's | station in Guatemala began recruiting young and promising | military officers who would provide information on the | left-wing guerrillas, the internal workings of Guatemala's | intertwined military and political leadership, union | members, opposition politicians and others. Alpirez was sent | in 1970 to School of the Americas (SOA), an elite and | recently much-criticized U.S. Army academy at Fort Benning, | Ga. Human-rights groups and members of congress point out | that SOA's graduates include Roberto D'Aubuisson, leader of | death squads in El Salvador; 19 Salvadoran soldiers named in | the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests and three | soldiers accused of the 1980 rape and murder of four U.S. | church workers; Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedars and other leaders of | the military junta that ran Haiti from 1991 to 1994; General | Hugo Banzer, dictator of Bolivia from 1971 to 1978, and | General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama, now imprisoned in | U.S. In 1970s Alpirez was an officer in a counterinsurgency | unit known as Kaibiles. Kaibiles became notorious in the | early 1980s, known as scorched earth years, when tens of | thousands of Indians were killed as military swept across | rural Guatemala, systematically destroying villages. | Guatemalan government's own count, campaign left 40,000 | widows and 150,000 orphans. In late 1980s, Alpirez served as | a senior official of an intelligence unit hidden within the | general staff and became a paid agent of CIA who paid him | tens of thousands of dollars a year. Intelligence unit, | known as "Archivo," or archives, stands accused of | assassination, infiltration of civilian agencies and spying | on Guatemalans in violation of the nation's Constitution. | Archivo works like the CIA. "It was also working as a death | squad." New York Times, 3/25/1995 | | Guatemala, 1954-95. U.S. Undercover agents have worked for | decades inside a Guatemalan army unit that has tortured and | killed thousands of Guatemalan citizens, per the Nation | weekly magazine. "working out of the U.S. Embassy and living | in safe houses and hotels, agents work through an elite | group of Guatemalan officers who are secretly paid by CIA | and implicated personally in numerous political crimes and | assassinations ''unit known as G-2 and its secret | collaboration with CIA were described by U.S. and Guatemalan | operatives and confirmed by three former Guatemalan heads of | state. Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, Guatemalan officer | implicated in murders of guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca | Velasquez -- husband of an American lawyer -- and | rancher Michael Devine discussed in an interview how | intelligence agency advises and helps run G-2. He said | agents came to Central American country often to train G-2 | men and he described attending CIA sessions at G-2 bases on | "contra-subversion" tactics and "how to manage factors of | power" to "fortify democracy" the Nation quoted U.S. and | Guatemalan intelligence sources as saying at least three | recent G-2 chiefs have been on CIA payroll -- General | Edgar Godoy Gatan, Colonel Otto Perez Molina and General | Francisco Ortega Menaldo. `It would be embarrassing if you | ever had a roll call of everybody in Guatemalan army who | ever collected a CIA paycheck,'' report quoted Colonel | George Hooker, U.S. DIA chief in Guatemala from 1985 to | 1989, as saying. Human rights group Amnesty International | has said Guatemalan army killed more than 110,000 civilians | since 1978 with G-2 and another unit called Archivo known as | main death squads. Reuters, 3/30/1995 | | Guatemala, 1960-90. Human rights groups say at least 40,000 | Guatemalans "disappeared" in last three decades. Most were | poor Indians. Anthropologists, led by Clyde Snow, dug away | at a village site. Maria Lopez had a husband and a son in | one grave. She said on morning of Valentine's Day 1982, | members of anti-guerrilla militia took her husband and | others. They had refused to join militias known as civil | self-defense patrols and were killed. Six unknown | clandestine graves in San Jose Pacho. Human rights groups | blame most disappearances on army-run civil self-defense | patrols set up under presidencies of General Lucas Garcia | and Brig. Gen. Rios Montt. There are hundreds of clandestine | graves filled with victims of the militias, right-wing death | squads and brutal counterinsurgency campaigns. Washington | Times, 8/5/1992, p. A9 | | Guatemala, 1970-95. Jennifer Harbury's story. Time, | 4/3/1995, p. 48 Guatemala, 1981-95. DIA reports re MLN | particularly disturbing, as they raise grave questions about | extent of U.S. knowledge of MLN activities in earlier years | when MLN leader Mario Sandoval Alarcon was tied to Reagan | Administration's efforts to support Contras. Having come to | power in 1954 with the CIA-backed overthrow of Colonel | Jacobo Arbenze, MLN leader Sandoval was accused in 1980 by | Elias Barahona, former press secretary to the Guatemalan | Interior Minister, of having worked for CIA. Head of | National Congress from 1970 to 1974, at which time he was | made vice president, a position he kept until his term | expired in 1978, Sandoval is widely regarded as father of | Latin America's "death squads." In 1970's, he had a close | relationship with Roberto D'Aubuisson, deputy chief of El | Salvador's national security agency (Anseal). D'Aubuisson | reportedly was behind El Salvador's death squads. Sandoval | was so close to Reagan administration that he was one of | only two Guatemalans invited to attend Reagan's | inauguration. Intelligence -- a computerized intelligence | newsletter published in France, 4/24/1995, p. 1 | | Guatemala, 1984-95. Article, "Murder as Policy." Washington | was supporting Guatemalan army in a number of ways: green | berets trained Kaibul massacre force, the army's | self-proclaimed "messengers of death." U.S. openly sold | weapons to Guatemala -- used in massacre in Santiago | Atitlan. Hundreds of U.S. troops (mostly National Guard) | helped civic action and road building in massacre zones. The | Nation, 4/24/1995, pp. 547-8 | | Guatemala, 1985-93. CIA collected intelligence re ties | between Guatemalan insurgents and Cuba -- CIA passed the | information to U.S. military, which was assisting Guatemalan | army extinguish opposition. Washington Post, 3/30/1995, | A1,10 | | Guatemala, 1985-95. Bombings against military-reformist | Christian Democratic Party (DCG) of then President Vinicio | Cerezo to topple Cerezo, who perceived as being too soft on | rebels. A 10/1988 DIA intelligence report alerted American | authorities that MLN, which was involved in "plotting a coup | against Cerezo in the past," is "now apparently prepared to | use violent tactics to undermine DCG government." MLN "is | reportedly planning a bombing campaign directed against | members of ruling DCG. MLN intends to use recently obtained | explosives to target personal vehicles of DCG Congressional | representatives in order to frighten them. After assessing | their impact, MLN will consider initiating a second stage of | its anti-DCG campaign that will include killing of various | individuals. MLN has selected potential targets in Guatemala | city. U.S. Army and DIA, getting regular, high-level | intelligence from senior Guatemalan army officers and other | sources about crimes, notably murder, being committed by | Guatemalan army personnel. Source and depth of intelligence | raises questions about what U.S. Government actually knew | about Guatemalan army complicity in civilian murders in that | country throughout the 1980s, including alleged involvement | of Guatemalan Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, then a CIA | agent, in 1990 and 1992 murders of American innkeeper | Michael Devine and guerrilla fighter Efrain Bamaco | Velazquez, husband of an American, Jennifer Harbury." | Intelligence -- a computerized intelligence newsletter | published in France, 4/24/1995, p. 1 | | Guatemala, 1988-91. CIA station chief in Guatemala from 1988 | to 1991 was a Cuban American. He had about 20 officers with | a budget of about $5 million a year and an equal or greater | sum for "liaison" with Guatemalan military. His job included | placing and keeping senior Guatemalan officers on his | payroll. Among them was Alpirez, who recruited others for | CIA. Alpirez's intelligence unit spied on Guatemalans and is | accused by human rights groups of assassinations. CIA also | gave Guatemalan army information on the guerrillas. New York | Times, 4/2/1995, A11 Guatemala, 1989. 25 students in two | years killed by squads. Entire university student | association has been silenced. U.S. backed governments in | virtual genocide have more than 150,000 victims. AI called | this genocide a "government program of political murder." | The Nation, 3/5/1990, cover, p. 308 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Member of House Intelligence Committee, | Robert G. Torricelli (D- NJ.) said, in letter to President | Clinton, that a Guatemalan military officer who ordered | killings of an American citizen and a guerrilla leader | married to a North American lawyer was a paid agent of CIA. | CIA knew of killings, but concealed its knowledge for years. | Another member of House Intelligence Committee confirmed | Torricelli's claims. Torricelli wrote in letter to President | that the "Direct involvement of CIA in the murder of these | individuals leads me to the extraordinary conclusion that | the agency is simply out of control and that it contains | what can only be labeled a criminal element." Colonel Julio | Roberto Alpirez, Bamaca, and Michael Devine. Tim Weiner, New | York Times, 3/23/1995 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Article, El Buki's Tale -- Murder of | Michael Devine. Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly), Summer 1995, pp. 32-37 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Article, The Agency, Off Target. Two | Deaths, a Rogue CIA Informant and a Big Pot of Trouble. Re | deaths of Michael Devine and Efrain Bamaca Velasquez -- | Harbury's husband. CIA paid Colonel Alpirez $43,000 after it | learned of cover up of deaths. U.S. News & World Report, | 4/10/1995, p. 46 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Assassin of Michael Devine and of the | husband of Jennifer Harbury, Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, | was on CIA's payroll and had attended School of Americas | (SOA) on two separate occasions. In January 1995 when State | and NSC pieced together what CIA knew, the ambassador | demanded removal of CIA's station chief. CIA fought to stop | disclosure of its relationship with the Colonel. | Administration officials began to mistrust what CIA was | saying about the case. The Colonel first came to U.S. In | 1970 as an army cadet at SOA. He returned to SOA in 1989, to | take year long Command and General Staff course when he was | already on CIA payroll. In 1990, Michael Devine, who ran a | hotel, apparently stumbled on a smuggling operation | involving Guatemalan military. He was killed. New York | Times, 3/24/1995, A3 Guatemala, 1990-95. CIA last month | removed its station chief in Guatemala for failing to report | promptly information linking a paid CIA informer to the | slaying of a Guatemalan guerrilla fighter married to | Jennifer Harbury. Guatemalan army Colonel Julio Roberto | Alpirez, was paid $44,000 by CIA in 1992 for secretly | supplying intelligence on the civil war. At time of payment | CIA had evidence linking him to the slaying of U.S. citizen | Michael Devine (after he found about a military smuggling | operation or because he had a weapon). Washington Post, | 3/25/1995, A1,20 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Clinton has threatened to fire anyone in | CIA who withheld information from him about activities of | its informant in Guatemala, Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez. | What is more likely to be agency's undoing is its failure to | tell congress that only six months after he graduated from | command-level courses at School of Americas Colonel Alpirez, | a member of military intelligence on agency's payroll, | ordered murder of a U.S. citizen, William Devine, and then | torture-murder of husband of an American woman. White House | officials, and President Clinton in particular, were very | angry about Guatemalan affair but NSC Anthony lake was | arguing that there is no evidence that CIA tried to deceive | president. Los Angeles Times reported that late last year | State Department found information about Devine murder in | its files that appeared to have originated with CIA and had | not been passed on to White House. This discovery prompted | State Department and White House to ask CIA for more | information. State initially asked CIA for information on | rebel Commandante Efrain Bamaca Velasquez and received a few | modest files. Several weeks later, State again asked CIA for | information but this time on "Commandante Everardo," which | was Commandante Bamaca's well-known nom de guerre. Only then | did CIA produced incriminating data that it held solely | under that name. CIA has tried to ease situation with a rare | "leak" about itself to press. On 3/24, Los Angeles Times | quoted "CIA sources" as saying Agency was only told after | the fact that its Guatemalan informant, Colonel Alpirez, was | present at killing in 1990 of Devine, a U.S. citizen who ran | a popular tourist resort in Guatemala. CIA insisted to the | paper that it cut ties with Colonel at that point, but, | significantly, sources did not put a date on rupture. That | gave it "wiggle room" to say it didn't find out about | Colonel's involvement in March 1992 torture-murder of Bamaca | until early this year. CIA gave Colonel Alpirez a "final | payment" of $44,000 at about time of Bamaca's murder. Per | National public radio commentator Daniel Schorr, CIA station | chief in Guatemala has been fired for failing to relay | information. But New York Times says he was reassigned to | Langley in January, after U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala | accused him of withholding information. CIA has assigned its | inspector General, Fred Hitz, to investigate. CIA station | chief in Switzerland, who held a top position at Department | of Operations (DO) Latin American Division from 1990 to | 1992, is now being questioned, as is Jack Devine, who headed | division from January 1983 until last October. He was | appointed Associate Deputy Director of Operations in October | after John MacGaffin was removed from that post for secretly | giving an award to a senior operative who had just been | disciplined in Ames case. Devine's successor is a woman, | first to direct a DO division. She is in her 50s, was | previously station chief in El Salvador, and is said by | officials outside CIA to be very forthcoming about case. | Intelligence -- a computerized intelligence newsletter | published in France, 3/27/1995, p. 30 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Guatemalan soldiers killed Michael | Devine under orders from Colonel Mario Garcia Catalan, per | convicted soldier, Solbal. He killed as the army convinced | he had bought a stolen rifle. They tortured him before | killing him. Solbal says Colonel Alpirez gave food and | shelter to the killers. Washington Times, 5/15/1995, A13 | Guatemala, 1990-95. Letter from Congressman Torricelli to | President Clinton about involvement of CIA in two murders in | Guatemala. 3/22/1995 Guatemala, 1990-95. Rep. Robert | Torricelli, D-NJ., who is on the HPSCI, has requested an | investigation from the Justice Department on role of the CIA | in the murder of Michael Devine and Efrain Bamaca Velasquez. | Request was made in a letter to President Clinton. | Guatemalan intelligence officer who ordered the murders, | Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, was a paid agent of the CIA. | Torricelli claims that the NSA, CIA, State Department., and | NSC covered up the involvement of a paid agent in the | murders. Devine, who was killed in 1990, was an American | citizen and Velasquez, who was killed in 1992, was married | to an U.S. Citizen. CNN Headline News, 3/23/1995 and AP, | 3/23/1995 Guatemala, 1990-95. Revelations about a CIA | informer linked to two murders (Devine and Bamaca) in | Guatemala helped exhume embarrassing relationship between | U.S. military and intelligence personnel and a Central | American regime notorious for human rights violations. | Washington Post, 4/2/1995, A29 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Tim Weiner article "A Guatemalan Officer | and the CIA." Colonel is recalled as a "good soldier" and a | murdering spy. New York Times, 3/26/1995 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Two colonels suspended in Guatemala for | covering up 1990 killing of Michael Devine. One was a paid | CIA informant at time of killing. Colonel Mario Garcia | Catalan also suspended. Washington Post, 4/27/1995, A29 | | Guatemala, 1990-95. Wife of Michael Devine discusses slaying | of her husband. New York Times, 3/28/1995, A1,6 | | Guatemala, 1991-94. State Department reported in 1991, that | "military, civil patrols and police continued to commit a | majority of major human rights abuses, including | extrajuridicial killings torture and disappearances." | Guatemalan counterinsurgency campaign devised by U.S. | counterinsurgency experts Caesar Sereseres and Colonel | George Minas. Former served as a consultant to RAND | Corporation and State Department's Office of Policy | Planning. Minas served as military attache in Guatemala in | early 1980s. Both encouraged population control such as | Vietnam-style military-controlled strategic hamlets and | civilian defense patrols. Today Guatemala is largest | warehouse for cocaine transshipments to U.S. Drug trade run | by military which tries to blame the leftists. Covert Action | Information Bulletin (Quarterly), Spring 1994, pp. 28-33 | Guatemala, 1991-95. U.S. Had information in 10/1991 linking | a paid CIA informer in slaying of a U.S. citizen. Colonel | Roberto Alpirez was dropped from CIA's payroll but remained | a contact through 7/1992 -- when he allegedly ordered | another killing of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez -- husband of | Jennifer Harbury. Washington Post, 3/24/1995, A1,27 | Guatemala, 1992. Rights abuses in Guatemala continue, | paramilitary civilian patrols -- self defense patrols -- | accused of campaign of terror, control rural areas. | Patrols answer to military. Washington Post, 10/4/1992, A35 | | Guatemala, 1995. President Clinton said he would dismiss any | CIA official who withheld information on death of Jennifer | Harbury's husband. Rep Torricelli said CIA withheld | information for years. Washington Times, 3/25/1995, A3 | | Guatemala, 1970-95. Discussion of Torricelli, Harbury, | Devine, Bamaco, etc. The death of husband of Harbury not a | rogue operation. This was standard operating procedure in El | Salvador and Guatemala and elsewhere around the globe. CIA | organized death squads, financed them, equipped them, | trained them, etc. That's what the CIA does. Once in a | decade the U.S. public hears about this. CIA should be | abolished. The CIA mislead Congress about the Devine case. | Getting rid of CIA is not enough -- the CIA did not act | alone. The National Security Agency and the Army may have | been involved in Guatemala. The Progressive, 5/1995, pp. 8,9 | | | Haiti: Watch List | | Haiti, 1986-93. In 1986 the CIA funded the national | intelligence service (SIN) under guise of fighting narcotics | -- but SIN never produced drug intelligence and used CIA | money for political operations. Sin involved in spying on | so-called subversive groups...they doing nothing but | political repression...they targeted people who were for | change. CIA used distorted data to discredit Aristide. NACLA | (Magazine re Latin America), 2/1994, p. 35 | | Haiti, 1990-94. Emannuel Constant, leader of Haiti's FRAPH | hit squad, worked for CIA and U.S. intelligence helped | launch FRAPH. Haiti's dreaded attaches paid for by a U.S. | Government-funded project that maintains sensitive files on | Haiti's poor. The Nation, 10/24/1994, 458 Haiti, 1990-94. | U.S. officials involved in refugee policy have backgrounds | suggestive of Phoenix-like program activities. Luis Moreno, | State Department, has background in counterterrorism. | Gunther Wagner, senior intelligence officer at INS's | southwest regional office, assigned to investigate | repression against repatriated refugees. Wagner had served | as public safety adviser to Vietnamese National Special | Branch for 5 years and later advised Somoza's National | Guard. INS database on all asylum interviews at Guantanamo. | INS, on demand, gave State Department unrestricted access to | all interview files. U.S. Officers hand Haitian authorities | computer print-outs of names of all Haitians being | repatriated. CIA funded service intelligence nacionale | (SIN), who's de facto primary function was a war against | popular movement -- including torture and assassination | -- a fact admitted by a CIA officer to an official in | Aristide's government. U.S. shares "anti-narcotics | intelligence" with Haitian military. The Progressive, | 4/1994, p. 21 Haiti, 1991-94. Asylum-promoting project gets | family information that fed into a computer project that | could be used to target for repression. The Progressive, | 9/1994, pp. 19-26 | | Haiti, 1991-94. Seven chief attaches arranged killings and | brought victims to houses. Four of the seven worked for | Centers for Development and Health (CDS), funded by U.S. | AID. One was Gros Sergo, and other was Fritz Joseph who | chief FRAPH recruiter in Cite Soleil. Two others are Marc | Arthur and Gors Fanfan. CDS files track every family in Cite | Soleil. The Nation, 10/24/1994, p. 461 | | Haiti, 1994. AID programs for Haitian popular groups; | Immigration and Naturalization service, with computerized | files on 58,000 political-asylum applicants and army | intelligence S-2 section of 96th Civil Affairs Battalion | assigned to monitor refugees at Guantanamo Bay. Per Capt. | James Vick, unit develops networks of informants and works | with marine corps counterintelligence in "identifying | ringleaders of unrest and in weeding out troublemakers." | 96th's files enter military intelligence system. Gunther | Wagner, a former Nazi, served with U.S. In Phoenix operation | in Vietnam, and in Nicaragua -- now heads State | Department's Cuba-Haiti task force. Pentagon's Atlantic | command commissioned Booz, Allen, Hamilton, to devise a | computer model of Haitian society. Results of study given. | Priority of study to build an "organized information | bank...." no change expected in ruling clique of Haiti. | Article by Allan Nairn. The Nation, 10/3/1994, pp. 344-48 | | | Haiti: Death Squads | | Haiti. CIA officer assigned 1973-75 Coordination with | Ton-Ton Macoute, "Baby Doc" Duvalier's private death squad. | Covert Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly), 9/1980, p. | 16 | | Haiti, 1985-93. CIA created an intelligence service in | Haiti: National Intelligence Service, (SIN) from its | initials in French, to fight cocaine trade, but unit became | instrument of political terror whose officers engaged in | drug traffic, killings and torture. Unit produced little | drug intelligence. U.S. cut ties to group after 1991 | military coup. New York Times, 11/14/1993 pp. 1,12 Haiti, | 1986-93 INS database on all asylum interviews at Guantanamo. | INS, on demand, gave State Department unrestricted access to | all interview files. U.S. officers hand Haitian authorities | computer print-outs of names of all Haitians being | repatriated. CIA funded service intelligence nacionale | (SIN), who's de facto primary function was a war against | popular movement -- including torture and assassination | -- a fact admitted by a CIA officer to an official in | Aristide's government. U.S. shares "anti-narcotics | intelligence" with Haitian military. The Progressive, | 4/1994, p. 21 | | Haiti, 1990-94. Clinton administration denied report CIA | helped set up Haiti's pro-army Militia -- FRAPH. | Officials refused to comment whether FRAPH leader Emmanuel | Constant was a paid CIA informant. "Nation" article said | Constant worked for both the CIA and the DIA. Colonel | Collins of DIA and Donald Terry of CIA were his contacts. | Collins urged Constant to set up FRAPH. Mr. Constant, per | Washington Times, was a paid U.S. Informant on Haitian | political activities and assisting anti-drug efforts. | Relationship broken off early this year. FRAPH has been | linked to murders, public beatings and arson. CIA officers | in past worked with Haiti's national intelligence service. | Washington Times, 10/7/1994, A16 | | Haiti, 1990-94. Emannuel Constant, leader of Haiti's FRAPH | hit squad, worked for CIA and U.S. Intelligence helped | launch FRAPH. Haiti's dreaded attaches paid for by a U.S. | Government-funded project that maintains sensitive files on | Haiti's poor. In 10/3/1994, issue of Nation carried Nairn's | article "The Eagle is Landing," he quoted a U.S. official | praising Constant as a young republican that U.S. | Intelligence had encouraged to form FRAPH. Constant | confirmed that account. He first said his handler was | Colonel Patrick Collins, DIA attache in Haiti, and later | claimed another U. S. official urged him to form FRAPH. | Collins first approached Constant while he taught a course | at HQs of CIA-run national intelligence service (SIN) and | built up a computer data base at Bureau of Information and | Coordination. FRAPH originally was called Haitian Resistance | League. Constant was working for the CIA at SIN while it | attacked the poor. The Nation, 10/24/1994, p. 458 Haiti, | 1991-94. Emmanuel Constant (son of a Duvalier general), who | had been on the CIA payroll since the mid-'1980s. With U.S. | intelligence advice, formed FRAPH, a political front and | paramilitary death squad offshoot of the Haitian army, that | began to systematically target democratic militants and hold | the country hostage with several armed strikes. On | 10/11/1993, day U.S.S. Harlan County and U.S. and Canadian | soldiers were to land, even though CIA had been tipped off, | FRAPH organized a dockside demonstration of several dozen | armed thugs. Ship turned around. U.S. asylum processing | program hand-picked and exported almost 2,000 grassroots | leaders. In three years after coup, 7,000-man army and its | paramilitary assistants killed at least 3,000 and probably | over 4,000 people, tortured thousands, and created tens of | thousands of refugees and 300,000 internally displaced | people. Covert Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly), | Winter 1994/1995, pp. 7-13 Haiti, 1991-94. Haitian | paramilitary chief spied for CIA. Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, | head of Haiti's notorious FRAPH, secretly provided | information to U.S. intelligence while his group killed | people. Constant paid by CIA for giving intelligence | officers information about Aristide beginning shortly after | Aristide ousted in 9/1991 coup. CIA dropped him last Spring. | Constant's organization blamed for killing hundreds of | supporters of Aristide -- and organizing demonstration | that drove off U.S. troop-carrying Harlan County last | October. In "Nation" article, U.S. Defense Attache, Colonel | Patrick Collins, had encouraged Constant to form FRAPH. U.S. | intelligence agencies had extensive penetration of Haitian | military and paramilitary groups. Using Constant as source | may explain why CIA's reporting on Aristide was skewed. | FRAPH not formed until 8/1993, 9 months after Collins left | Haiti. Washington Post, 10/9/1994, A1,30 | | Haiti, 1993. Young men kidnapped by armed thugs seldom | reappear. Under de facto government, as many as 3000 may | have been killed. Aristide negotiating his return with UN. | The Nation, 5/3/1993, p. 580 Haiti, 1995. Interview with | Allan Nairn, April 1995 "Criminal Habits." Z Magazine | 6/1995, pp. 22-9 | | | Honduras: Death Squads | | Honduras, 1981-87. Florencio Caballero, who served as a | torturer and a member of a death squad, said he was trained | in Texas by the CIA. He said he was responsible for the | torture and slaying of 120 Honduran and other Latin American | citizens. The CIA taught him and 24 other people in a army | intelligence unit for 6 months in interrogation. | psychological methods -- to study fears and weaknesses of | a prisoner, make him stand up, don't let him sleep, keep him | naked and isolated, put rats and cockroaches in his cell, | give him bad food, throw cold water on him, change the | temperature. Washington Post, 6/8/1988, B3 Honduras, circa | 1982-87. Army Battalion 3/16, a special counterinsurgency | force which many considered a kind of death squad, was | formed in 1980. Florencio Caballero, a former battalion | member, described a clandestine paramilitary structure for | repressing leftists. Caballero, who studied interrogation | techniques in Houston, said the CIA was extensively involved | in training squad members. NACLA 2/1988, p. 15, from New | York Times, 5/2/1987 | | Honduras, March 1986. Apart from CIA training of a battalion | implicated in death squad activities and torture, Honduran | army defector said CIA arranged a fabricated forced | "confession" by kidnapped prisoner that he headed a | guerrilla front and had planned attacks against U.S. | installations. This in operation truth. Chomsky, N. (1988). | The Culture of Terrorism, p. 239 | | Honduras. General G. Alvarez Martinez, CIA-Contra point man | in Honduras, had death squad operation run by Ricardo Lau. | Alvarez godfather to new CIA Chief of Station's daughter. | Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. (1987). The | Iran-Contra Connection, pp. 78-9 Honduras, 1982-86. Zuniga | told congressional staffers about the 316 Battalion | established with the knowledge and assistance of the U.S. | Embassy. By 1984 more than 200 Honduran teachers, students, | labor leaders, and opposition politicians had been murdered. | The CIA had knowledge of the killings. Zuniga killed in | 9/1985. Mother Jones, 4/1987, p. 48 | | Honduras. Capt. Alexander Hernandez, a graduate of U.S. | International Police services training program, has played a | central role in Honduran death squad activities and the war | in Nicaragua. Early 1986 New York Times reports that CIA was | providing "training and advice in intelligence collection" | to Hernandez' unit "as part of a program to cut off arms | shipments from Nicaragua to leftist rebels in Honduras and | El Salvador." New York Times also says that CIA knew of the | assassinations but "looked the other way." The Nation, | 6/7/1986, p. 793 Honduras, circa 1981-84. Honduran | government established a secret unit that seized, | interrogated, tortured, and murdered more than 130 people | between 1981-84. Unit named Battalion 316. Unit operated | with CIA supervision and training and received U.S. | instruction in interrogation, surveillance and hostage | rescue. Commander of unit in first years was a graduate of | International Police Academy. NA, 2/20/1988, pp. 224-5 The | clandestine houses and command post of 316 were visited by | CIA agents. NA, 1/23/1988, p. 85 | | Honduras, Nicaragua, 1982. A Contra commander with the FDN | admitted he helped organize a death squad in Honduras with | the approval and cooperation of the CIA. Honduran government | agreed to host the death squad and provide it with cover, | since the group would kill Honduran dissidents at the | government's request. The commander admitted he participated | in assassinations. CIA "Colonel Raymond" congratulated the | squad. The Progressive, 8/1986, p. 25 | | Honduras, Nicaragua, 1984-85. Honduran army investigators | report that Contras have been involved in death-squad | killings in Honduras. At least 18 Hondurans and an unknown | number of Salvadorans and Nicaraguans have been killed by | the Contras. Washington Post, 1/15/1985, A12 Honduras, | 1980-83. Agents of Battalion 316, a Honduran death squad, | received interrogation training in Texas from CIA in 1980. | CIA agents maintained contact with unit in early 1980's, | visiting detention centers during interrogation and | obtaining intelligence gleaned from torture victims. See | Americas Watch "Human Rights in Honduras" (May 1987). | Dillon, S. (1991). Commandos, p. 101 | | Honduras, 1980-83. Gustavo Alvarez, formerly head of police, | in 1981 a general running entire armed forces. Worked | closely with U.S. on Contras. Alvarez had organized military | intelligence Battalion 316 -- first Honduran death squad. | Argentines sent 15-20 officers to work with Alvarez on | Contras. Senior officer Osvaldo Riveiro. Garvin, G. (1992). | Everybody Has His Own Gringo, p. 41 | | Honduras, 1980-89. CIA and State Department worked with a | Honduran military unit called Battalion 316 during the | 1980s. Unit was responsible for cracking down on dissidents. | AP, 6/12/1995. Honduran special prosecutor for human rights | asking the U.S. to turn over classified information on | Ambassadors John Negroponte and Chris Arcos and several CIA | agents connected to the disappearance of dissidents in the | 1980s. AP, 6/13/1995 | | Honduras, 1980-89. Colonel Gustavo Alvarez Martinez shot to | death in 1989. Alvarez spent years networking with fascists | and ultra right terrorists who in World Anti-communist | League and its sister organization, the Latin American | Anti-communist Confederation, or CAL. He most famous for | streamlining Honduras's death squads and uniting them under | his control. Alvarez gathered together the National Front | for the Defense of Democracy, the Honduran Anti-communist | Movement (MACHO), and the Anti-communist Combat Army -- | death squads all -- and combined them with several | governmental forces, including the Fuerzas de Seguridad | Publica (FUSEP), Departmento Nacional de Investigaciones | (DIN), and Tropas Especiales Para Selva y Nocturnas (TESON). | With Director of Central Intelligence Casey, Alvarez and | Negroponte turned Honduras into a staging ground for Contra | incursions into Nicaragua. Honduran Congress issued Decree | 33, which declared terrorist anyone who distributed | political literature, associated with foreigners, joined | groups deemed subversive by the government, damaged | property, or destroyed documents. Alvarez's forces murdered | upwards of 500 people. He ousted as Honduras's dictator in | 1984 and became special consultant to RAND Corporation. Lies | of our Time, 3/1994, pp. 3-5 | | Honduras, 1980-89. Eleven senior officers who are believed | to have been involved with Battalion 316 have been convicted | on charges of kidnapping, torturing and attempting to murder | six students in 1982. Officers include one general, nine | colonels, and one captain. AP, 7/25/1995 | | Honduras, 1980-89. See entry in Liaison from Baltimore Sun, | 6/11-18/1995 | | Honduras, 1980-93. CIA-trained death squad issue in | presidential campaign. In early 1980s, Battalion 3-16, of | Honduran military whose members instructed by and worked | with CIA "disappeared" scores of activists. Both candidates | accusing other of connections to Battalion 3-16. In 1980 | 25-Honduran officers to U.S. for training per sworn | testimony in International Court by Honduran intelligence | officer who participated -- Florencio Caballero. Group | trained in interrogation by a team from FBI and CIA. | Training continued in Honduras. U.S. Trainers joined by | instructors from Argentina and Chile -- sessions focused | on surveillance and rescuing kidnap victims. Battalion 3-16 | engaged in a program of systematic disappearances and murder | from 1981 to 1984. By March 1984, 100-150 students, | teachers, unionists and travelers picked up and secretly | executed. Squads, according to Inter-American Court of Human | Rights, belonged to 3-16. Squads modus operandi included | weeks of surveillance of suspects followed by capture by | disguised agents using vehicles with stolen license plates, | interrogation, torture in secret jails followed by execution | and secret burial. CIA's connection to 3-16 confirmed by | General Alvarez, who created and commanded squad from 1980 | through 1984. He later became chief of police and then head | of the armed forces. Alvarez said CIA "gave good training, | lie detectors, phone-tapping devices and electronic | equipment to analyze intelligence." CIA men informed when | 3-16 abducted suspected leftists. When bodies found, 3-16 | put out story they killed by guerrillas. CIA looked other | way. Ambassador Negroponte in 1982 denied existence of death | squads. State Department was attacking as communist, | anti-democratic and a terrorist group, Committee for Defense | of Human Rights in Honduras that was exposing 3-16. In a | barracks coup, Alvarez forced into exile in Miami and became | paid consultant to Pentagon writing study on low-intensity | conflict. Members of 3-16 still in positions of power in | government. Congressional intelligence committee in 1988 | looked into CIA's role with 3-16, but findings never | published. Op-ed by Anne Manuel. Washington Post, | 11/28/1993, C5 | | Honduras, 1982-83. Ex-guard Benito "Mack" Bravo reportedly | killed dozens of Contra recruits at his La Ladosa training | base near El Paraiso. Mack suspected many were Sandinista | infiltrators. In one case, FDN ordered four ex-guardsmen | executed for insubordination and allegedly selling arms to | El Salvador's FMLN. They also had been accused of killing | recruits. Honduran military participated in the execution. | Dillon, S. (1991). Commandos, pp. 118-124 | | Honduras, 1988. Director human rights commission in Honduras | and associate killed by assassins. The Progressive, 2/1990, | p. 46 Honduras, 1988. Honduran human rights leader Ramon | Custodio Lopez accused Battalion 3-16 of murdering a | politician and a teacher on 14 January 1988. Custodio relied | on testimony by former battalion member sergeant Fausto | Caballero. In 11/30/1988. Honduras was condemned by | Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 1988 for | disappearance of Angel Manfredo Velazquez. Battalion 3-16, | along with DNI (Directorate of National Intelligence), and | FUSEP (National Police) were implicated, all of which have | received training from CIA. Intelligence Parapolitics, | 9/1988, p. 8 | | Honduras, 1988. Jose Isaias Vilorio, an intelligence officer | and former death squad member, was shot dead on 1 January | 1988. Isaias was to testify before Inter-American Court on | Human Rights (New York Times, 20 January 1988). Human rights | leader and legislator Miguel Pavon was killed on 14 January | 1988 after testifying before Inter-American Court. Also | killed was Moises Landaverde, a teacher who was riding in | Pavon's car at the time of attack. Intelligence | Parapolitics, 3/1988, p. 12 Honduras, Argentina, 1980-89. A | survivor tells her story: treatment for a leftist -- | kicks and freezing water and electric shocks. In between, a | visitor from CIA. CIA worked closely with the Honduran | military while the military tortured and killed dissidents | during the 1980s, human rights groups said. A government | official also said Argentine military advisers, with U.S. | support, were brought in to help monitor leftist activism. | "At least nine Argentine military (officers), supported by | the CIA, trained many Honduran officers to prevent communism | from entering Honduras," said Leo Valladares of the | government's human rights commission. Bertha Oliva, head of | committee of relatives of the disappeared, claimed CIA knew | of disappearances by Honduran security forces and that "the | U.S. Embassy had absolute power in this country." in the | first of a series of four articles, the Baltimore Sun | reported Sunday that CIA and the State Department | collaborated with a secret Honduran military unit known as | Battalion 316 in the 1980s in cracking down on Honduras | dissidents. Following a 14-month investigation. In order to | keep up public support for Reagan administration's war | efforts in Central America, U.S. officials misled congress | and the public about Honduran military abuses. Collaboration | was revealed in classified documents and in interviews with | U.S. and Honduran participants. Among those interviewed by | the Sun were three former Battalion 316 torturers who | acknowledged their crimes and detailed the battalion's close | relationship with CIA. Ramon Custodio, president of | non-government human rights commission, said a former member | of Battalion 316, Florencio Caballero, disclosed that CIA in | early 1980s took 24 soldiers to the U.S. for training in | anti-subversive techniques. At the time, Custodio said, | "Honduras' policy was oriented to detaining and summarily | executing those who did not please the government or the | military." Battalion 316 was created in 1984 and its first | commander was General Luis Alonso Discua, current armed | forces chief. A government report subsequently blamed it in | the cases of 184 missing people. Baltimore Sun, 6/15/1995 | | Honduras, Israel. During Contra war Honduran military | intelligence officers on double salary from CIA and | Colombian drug cartels, who saw advantage of using Honduran | airstrips for transiting cocaine under cover of war effort. | Israelis also trained Honduran death squads. Cockburn, A. | and Cockburn, L. (1991). Dangerous Liaison, p. 225 Honduras, | Assassinations, 1980-84. CIA and Contras accused of running | Honduran death squads, killing over 200. CIA officials | "looked the other way" when people disappeared. Violence | tapered off after ouster of CIA backed military commander | Alvarez. Ricardo Lau running Contra intelligence, also death | squads. Accused arranging assassination Archbishop Romero in | El Salvador. Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. | (1987). The Iran-Contra Connection, pp. 132-3 | | | Indonesia: Watch List | | Indonesia, 1963-65. U.S. trained unionist spies laid | groundwork for post 1965 coup gestapu massacre of leftists | by gathering intelligence on leftist unionists. Counterspy, | Winter 1979, p. 27 Indonesia, 1965-66. "U.S. officials' | lists aided Indonesian blood bath in '60s." U.S. officials | supplied the names of thousands of members of Indonesian | Communist Party (PKI) to the army that was hunting them down | and killing them in a crackdown branded as one of the | century's worst massacres, former U.S. Diplomats and CIA | officials say. Robert J. Martens, Former member of embassy's | political section said, "it really was a big help to the | army.... They probably killed a lot of people..." Martens | said. He headed an embassy group of state Department and CIA | officials that spent two years compiling the lists. He said | he delivered them to an army intermediary. The lists were a | detailed who's who of the leadership of the PKI that | included names of provincial, city and other local PKI | members and leaders of mass organizations. Ambassador | Marshall Green, his deputy Jack Lydman, and political | section chief Edward Masters admitted approving the release | of the names. Army intermediary was an aide to Adam Malik. | The aide, Tirta Kentjana Adhyatman, confirmed that he had | met with Martens and received lists of thousands of | names...given to Sukarno's HQs. Information on who captured | and killed came to Americans from Suharto's HQs, according | to former CIA deputy chief of station Joseph Lazarsky. | Lazarsky said "we were getting a good account in Jakarta of | who was being picked up,"..."the army had a 'shooting list' | of about 4,000 to 5,000 people." Lazarsky said the check-off | work was also carried out at CIA's intelligence directorate | in D.C. By end of January 1966, "the checked off names were | so numerous the CIA analysts in Washington concluded the PKI | leadership had been destroyed." Washington Post, 5/21/1990, | A5 Indonesia, 1965-66. In response to Kathy Kadane's May 21 | article in Washington Post, Robert J. Martens responds "it | is true I passed names of PKI leaders and senior cadre | system to non-communist forces during the six months of | chaos between the so-called coup and the ultimate downfall | of Sukarno. The names I gave were based entirely on | Indonesian communist press and were available to everyone. | This was senior cadre system of the PKI few thousand at most | out of the 3.5 millions claimed party members. I | categorically deny that I headed an embassy group that spent | two years compiling the lists." Washington Post, 6/2/1990, | A18 | | Indonesia, 1985. Indonesia: years of living dangerously. | CIA's role in bloody coup in Indonesia in 1965. Utne Reader. | 2/1991, p. 38, two pages | | | Indonesia: Death Squads | | Indonesia, 1965-66 Indonesian generals approached U.S. for | equipment "to arm Moslem and nationalist youths for use in | central Java against the PKI." Washington responded by | supplying covert aid, dispatched as "medicines." Washington | Post, 6/13/1990, A 22 Indonesia, 1965-66. Kathy Kadane's | story for States News Service disclosed part played by CIA | and State Department officials in 1965-66 blood bath in | Indonesia. Kadane reported that U.S. officials in Jakarta | furnished names of about 5,000 communist activists to the | Indonesian army and then checked off the names as the army | reported the individuals had been killed or captured. The | Nation, 7/9/1990, p. 43 Indonesia, 1965. CIA and State | Department officials provided name lists to Indonesian army | that killed 250,000. The Progressive, 7/10/1990, p. 9 | | Indonesia, 1965. Ex-agents say CIA compiled death lists for | Indonesians. San Francisco Examiner, 5/20/1990 | | Indonesia, 1965-66. Article by Michael Vatikiotis and Mike | Fonte; Rustle of Ghosts. (1965 Indonesian coup). Far Eastern | Economic Review, 8/2/1990, 2 pages | | Indonesia, 1965-85. Death squads roam at will, killing | subversives, suspected criminals by thousands. Blum, W. | (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 221 | | | Iran: Watch List | | Iran, 1953-54. CIA gave Shah intelligence on Tudeh party | facilitate anti-Tudeh Campaign. Gasiorowski, M.J. (1990). | "Security Relations Between the United States and Iran, | 1953-1978," p. 150 Iran, 1953-64. CIA station chiefs in | regular contact with Shah and working level liaison | relationship with SAVAK established by 5-man training team | and smaller unit in SAVAK HQs for several years after | training team left. CIA and SAVAK exchanged intelligence | including information on Tudeh party. Gasiorowski, M.J. | (1990). "Security relations between the United States and | Iran, 1953-1978," pp. 255-56 Iran, 1953. CIA prepared an | arrest list for the overthrow operation. Copeland, M. | (1989). The Game Player, p. 190 | | Iran, 1953. U.S. Army colonel working for CIA under cover of | military attache worked to organize and train intelligence | organization for Shah. Trained on domestic security, | interrogation. Primary purpose of (Bakhtiar's intelligence | unit later to become SAVAK) to eliminate threats to Shah. | Gasiorowski, M.J. (1990). "Security Relations Between the | United States and Iran, 1953-1978" p. 150 Iran, 1954. Year | after coup American cryptographic experts and CIA agent | played important part in rooting out conspiracy army | officers linked to Tudeh Party. Kwitny, J. (1984). Endless | Enemies, p. 165 Iran. During Shah's reign, thousands people | killed. Many killed at Shah's directive. Rafizadeh, M. | (1987). Witness, p. 134 Iran, 1983. CIA identifies to | Iranian government 200 leftists who were then executed. The | Nation, 12/13/1986, p. 660 Iran, 1983. In 1983, when the | Tudeh party was closed down, the CIA gave the Khomeni | government a list of USSR KGB agents operating in Iran. Two | hundred suspects were executed, 18 USSR diplomats expelled | and Tudeh party leaders imprisoned. Washington Post, | 1/13/1987, A1,8 Iran, 1983. To curry favor with Khomeni, the | CIA gave his government a list of USSR KGB agents and | collaborators operating in Iran. The Khomeni regime then | executed 200 suspects and closed down the communist Tudeh | party. Khomeni then expelled 18 USSR diplomats, and | imprisoned the Tudeh leaders. Washington Post, 11/19/1986, | A28 | | | Iraq: Watch List | | Iraq, 1963. CIA supplied lists of communists to Baath party | group that led coup so that communists could be rounded up | and eliminated. Cockburn, A. and Cockburn, L. (1991). | Dangerous Liaison, p. 130 | | | Israel: Death Squads | | Israel. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir headed a special hit | squad during his ten years in Mossad. Shamir headed the | assassination unit from 1955-64 that carried out attacks on | perceived enemies and suspected Nazi war criminals. Shamir | recruited former members of the Stern Gang. Washington | Times, 7/4/1992, A8 | | Israel, 1992. Article, "How Israeli Commandos Are Waging an | Undercover War In Occupied Territories." In January 1992, | Israeli army launched all-out offensive to end "Red | Intifadeh." Undercover units "Arabized" produced a rash of | deaths under controversial circumstances leading to claims | commando units are death squads. Since Intifadeh began in | 1987, 775 Palestinians killed; 680 more slain by their | brethren mostly for collaboration. Human-rights | organizations contend Sayarot shoot first and ask questions | later. Time 8/31/1992, pp. 49-50 Israel, 1992. Israel's | assassination squad, Duvdevan or Cherry has killed one of | its own by mistake. Intelligence Newsletter, 7/23/1992, p. 5 | | Israel, 1992. Israeli army had discharged commander of | undercover unit for issuing orders to shoot at Palestine | activists. Unit code-named Samson has had three commanders | fired or placed on trial within three years. More than 30 | Palestinians killed this year by undercover troops, who | usually dress as Arabs. Washington Post, 8/26/1992, A14 | Israel, Honduras, 1981-89. In 1981 Leo Gleser, "co-owner" of | International Security and Defense Systems (ISDS) -- a | leading Israeli "security" firm (Israeli Foreign Affairs | 2/1987, 5/1987, /1987, 2/1988, 3/1989) identified repeatedly | as an Israeli entity -- began building Battalion 316, a | unit of Honduran military intelligence which disappeared, | tortured, then killed its victims. Honduran General Walter | Lopez Reyes who C-I-C Honduran armed forces 1984-86, said | "we had Israeli advisers in Special Forces. They seconded to | Special Forces by Israeli mod, although they came officially | as non-governmental." Their front [was] they [were] training | security groups but [they really gave] special operations | courses on how take over buildings, planes, | hostages...Contras also taking courses... coordination | between them and CIA. Israeli Foreign Affairs, 4/1989, p. | 1,4 | | Israel, South Africa, 1986-91. Israel trained members of | Inkatha hit squads aimed at African National Congress, a | disillusioned former leader of Zulu organization has | revealed. Israeli Foreign Affairs, 2/20/1992, p. 3 | | Israel. Ranks as fifth largest exporter of arms in world, | according CIA estimates, and has become essential element | global counterinsurgency business. "Hit lists" used by death | squads in Guatemala have been computerized with Israeli | assistance and Uzi machine guns the standard weapon of death | squads. Covert Action Information Bulletin (Quarterly), | Summer 1988, p. 5 | | | Italy: Watch List | | Italy, 1950-59. All Italian "SIFAR" counterespionage | officers collected biographies on every deputy and senator. | List increased to include Ecclesiastics: 45,000 dossiers on | them alone, 157,000 altogether, 30,000 dealing with Italians | in world of business and industry. Drop copies went to CIA. | De Lorenzo's outfit to become a tool for CIA. Tompkins, P. | (Unpublished manuscript). Strategy of Terror, pp. 8-12 | | Italy, 1959-67. Carabinieri drew up plan Piano Solo -- | for paramilitary to intervene in order to restore public | order. Secret services had massive program of surveillance | of Italian political and business figures. This partly | intended to identify left-wing suspects who would be rounded | up and imprisoned in concentration camps on Sardinia. | Investigation revealed creation of personal intelligence | dossiers began in 1959 and 157,000 files amassed. SIFAR | (military intelligence) dossiers emphasized unfavorable | significance. SIFAR dossiers routinely deposited at CIA HQs. | SIFAR planed microphones in Papal apartments and President's | Rome residence. Operation ordered by de Lorenzo at request | of CIA station chief Colby. Some years earlier Rome CIA | station chief Thomas Karamessines had asked General de | Lorenzo, then head of SIFAR, for dossiers on [left-leaning] | politicians and in particular for Moro's circle of | collaborators. Willan, P. (1991). Puppetmasters, pp. 35-7 | | Italy, 1960-70. General de Lorenzo, whose SIFAR became SID, | implemented new Gladio project to neutralize subversive | elements. Known as parallel SID, it reached into nearly | every institution. Group set up at request of Americans and | NATO. Knights of Malta, as well as freemasonry, and its most | notorious lodge -- Propaganda Due, or P-2, far more | influential. Licio Gelli, a knight. Joined U.S. Army's CIC. | To ferret out dissidents, they prepared watch lists on | thousands. 157,000 files found in Ministry of Interior. CIA | obtained duplicates. Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly), Summer 1994, p. 24 Italy, 1960-70. Operation | Solo -- a planned coup against a leftist government did | not occur -- but it was based on Operation Gladio. | Giovanni de Lorenzo, as chief of secret services, compiled | dossiers, including tapes and photos, on some 150,000 people | -- priests, politicians and unionists. He drew up plan to | arrest many politicians, take over radio and TV, seize | offices and newspapers of left-wing parties. De Lorenzo was | organizing a duplicate of Operation Gladio in case left | gained too much power. "Statewatch" compilation, filed June | 1994 | | | Latin America: Death Squads | | Latin America, labor. AIFLD collected detailed information | about Latin American labor leaders under pretext surveys | necessary for AID-financed worker's housing projects. AIFLD | able obtain personal and political history union members, | with address and photos. Given CIA role in Chile, Uruguay | and Brazil coups, among others, it probable this information | passed to military regimes and their secret police. DL p. | 238 from Lernoux, P. (1982). Cry of the People. pp. 212, 220 | Liaison, 1960. Target lists maintained by all Western | Hemisphere division stations. Maintain in case local | government asks for assistance in preventive detention of | dangerous persons. Agee, P. (1975). Inside the Company: CIA | Diary, p. 114 | | Latin America. CIA organizes right wing terrorist | organizations that attack and assassinate leftist | politicians and others without implicating foreign | governments. Groups include "La Mano Blanco" and "Ojo Por | Ojo" (Guatemala), "La Banda" (Dominican republic), and | "Death Squad" (Brazil). Counterspy, 3/1973, p. 4 | | Latin America. CIA trained assassination groups such as | Halcones in Mexico, the Mano Blanca in Guatemala, and the | Escuadron de la Muerte in Brazil. NACLA (magazine re Latin | America) 8/1974, p. 11 Latin America, 1953-84. The | activities of the death squads, formed under CIA sponsorship | in 1954 Are loosely controlled by an international | organization known as La Mano Blanco (the White Hand). The | front group is the CAL, Latin American Anti-communist | Federation, the Latin American affiliate of the World | Anti-communist League. Jack Anderson, Washington Post, | 1/13/1984 | | Latin America. Terrorist groups created in most countries. | Groups such as "La Mano Blanco" attack and assassinate | leftist politicians and others feared by military | governments, doing so without implicating police or | military. CIA implicated in attempts to organize the right | into terrorist organizations. Counterspy, __/1973, p. 4 | Latin America, 1960-95. Colonel Alpirez accused killer of | American innkeeper and guerrilla leader, graduated from | School of Americas in 1989. Other notable alumni include: | Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos, former Panamanian | strongmen; Roberto D'Aubuisson, leader of Salvadoran death | squads; Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, leaders of | argentine dirty war; Michael Francois, former Haitian police | chief; 19 of 27 Salvadoran officers cited for murder of six | Jesuit priests; 10 of 12 Salvadoran officers involved in El | Mozote massacre; 105 of 247 Colombian officers cited for | human rights violations in 1992; and, former dictators of | Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Time. 4/10/1995, p. 20 Latin | America, 1976. An Argentinean told Scherrer, legal attache | (FBI) Santiago, that Operation Condor, a nascent program | among military intelligence services of some Latin American | countries designed to locate and eliminate one another's | fugitive terrorists and exiled dissidents. Ambitious leader | of Chilean DINA trying to institutionalize process. Branch, | T. and Proper, E. (1983). Labyrinth, p. 123 Latin America, | Operation Condor, Paraguay, 1970-92. 12/1992 a Paraguayan | judge in a police station found documentary history of | decades of repression and U.S. intelligence cooperation with | Paraguay and other regional dictatorships. Archives detail | fates of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Latin Americans | secretly kidnapped by right-wing regimes of the 1970s. Paper | trail revealing elusive conspiracy among security services | of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay | to eliminate foes without regard to borders. Sketchy | outlines of Operation Condor, can be partially filled in. | Some of documents already disappeared. Finders had unearthed | jumbled mountain of papers outlining police and military | intelligence activities during recently overthrown | Stroessner regime. HQs of Paraguayan technical police | revealed more documents. 4 tons records. Data confirmed | arrest and killing of politicians and exchange of prisoners | with Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Discovered documents a | bombshell that led to arrest of some of Stroessner's old | regime. Southern Cone repression killed 50,000, disappeared | 30,000 -- the majority in Argentina and 400,000 | imprisoned. U.S. gave inspiration, financing and technical | assistance for repression. CIA's technical services division | (TSD), provided electrical torture equipment. Covert Action | Information Bulletin (Quarterly), Fall 1994, pp. 7-13 | | Latin America, 1993. James Carroll wrote editorial about | U.S. Army's School of Americas in Fort Benning. It is "the | U.S. school that teaches militaries how to torture." Among | renowned alumni are various Latin American strongmen, | including dictators in Bolivia, Argentina, El Salvador and | Panama. In Peru 6 of army officers charged with recent | murders of 9 students were School of Americas alumni. In | Honduras, 4 of the high-ranking officers who helped create | "Battalion 316" death squad graduated from the school. In | Columbia, the list of officers designated by human rights | organizations as worst offenders reads like an honor roll | from Fort Benning. In El Salvador, 2 of 3 officers cited for | the assassination of Archbishop Romero, 3 of 5 convicted of | killing 3 Maryknoll nuns and their lay associate, and 19 of | the 26 officers implicated by United Nations. "Truth | Commission" investigation of murder of Jesuits, were | graduates. "For decades alumni of the School of Americas | have helped fill morgues and mass graves of an entire | continent." Colonel Louis Michel Francois has been most | closely linked to Haiti death squads, and he is an alumni of | the school just as is General Raoul Cedars one of those CIA | agents. Z Magazine, 2/1994, p. 24 | | | Mexico: Death Squads | | Mexico, 1957-89. The Mexican DFS (Federal Security | Directorate) like many Western-hemisphere intelligence | organizations was creation of CIA. DFS has state of the art | computer and records systems. Through DFS CIA able to keep | tabs on all embassies in Mexico City. DFS works closely with | U.S. In the suppression of leftists and political parties. | In early 1970s, Nazar created the Brigada Blanca, a | right-wing death squad that killed hundreds, probably | thousands of Mexican students and political activists. | Zacaris Osorio Cruz, a member of death squad, testified in | Canada that, between 1977-82, he part of team that killed | between 60-150 people. Penthouse, 12/1989 | | Mexico, 1977-89. U.S. looked the other way when Nazar, head | of DFS used his infallible (interrogation) techniques on | behalf American agencies while he carried out hundreds, | perhaps thousands of political executions of Mexican | leftists and political dissidents. DFS (Federal Security | Directorate) administering drug traffic. Penthouse, 12/1989 | | | Nicaragua: Watch List | | Joseph Adams, a former Marine intelligence officer, who | served as chief of security for Aldolfo Calero, helped | maintain a list of civilians marked for assassination when | Contra forces entered Nicaragua. The Progressive, 3/1987, p. | 24 | | | Nicaragua: Death Squads | | Nicaragua, 1983-89. Enrique Bermudez, a Contra leader, said | in Contra raids on economic targets in northern Nicaragua, | particularly coffee plantations and farming cooperatives, | any resistance brought brutal retribution. Commandantes in | field authorized to select those to die. Bermudez ordered | prisoners to have throats cut rather than waste bullets. | Terrell, J., and Martz, R. (1992). Disposable Patriot, p. | 149 Nicaragua, 1985-89. "Death squad" reports re Sandinistas | first circulated by the CIA-funded Puebla Institute in 1991 | as coming from the UN and OAS. When checked out, this proved | to be not true. Unclassified, 9/1992, p. 14 | | Nicaragua, circa 1940-79. Under name Anti-Communist League | Nicaragua. Conservative estimates say 30,000 died four | decades prior 1978-79 civil war. Lernoux, P. (1982). Cry of | the People. pp. 81, 94 | | | Norway: Watch List | | Norway, 1947-90. Operation Gladio, formed in 1947, kept | track of communists and became part of intelligence service | in 1948. Norwegian branch exposed in 1978, when an arms | cache discovered. "Statewatch" compilation filed June 1994, | p. 12 | | | Panama: Watch List | | Panama, 1989-90. U.S. says 90 prisoners now held in Panama. | Most of those detained had been picked up by U.S. Forces | based on wanted lists compiled by U.S. and Panamanian | authorities. Washington Post, 1/19/1990, A16 | | Panama, 1989. Several hundred people on list Endarra | government seeks to detain. They arrested by U.S. troops. | Most political activists and labor leaders were wanted. The | Nation, 1/29/1990, p. 115 | | | Paraguay: Watch List | | Paraguay, 1972-83. The Paraguayan government expelled an | author and released a document supplied by the U.S. Embassy. | The document, marked secret, includes the author among a | list of Paraguayans said to have visited the USSR bloc. | Washington Post 2/5/1983, A1,21 | | | Philippines: Death Squads | | Philippines. Article "Death Squads in the Philippines," by | Doug Cunningham. Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly), Winter 1988 pp. 22-3 | | Philippines. Military used hunter killer unit called scout | rangers to find enemy and either attack or report back to | battalion combat teams. Blaufarb, D.S. (1977). The | Counterinsurgency Era, p. 28 Philippines. Probable U.S. | support for vigilante death squads in the Philippines. Used | in coordination with other programs making up a total low | intensity conflict profile. National Reporter, Fall 1987, | pp. 24-30 Philippines, 1950-54. Military man who helped | Lansdale was Charles Bohannan and Lansdale's chief Filipino | associate was Colonel Napoleon Valeriano whose "skull | squadrons" beheaded suspected Huks. Karnow, S. (1989). In | Our Image, p. 350 | | Philippines, 1969-83. Marcos' land reform failed and he | approved creation of "Monkees" a group used to intimidate | and even murder Marcos' rivals. Karnow, S. (1989). In Our | Image. p.378 | | Philippines, 1973-83. In Philippines 1,166 persons were | killed from 1972-83. Human rights groups say most of victims | were opponents of President Marcos. Washington Post, | 4/12/1984, A21 Philippines, 1986-87. "Vigilante Terror" a | report of CIA-inspired death squads in the Philippines. | National Reporter, Fall 1987, pp. 24-31 Philippines, 1986. | See chapter "Direct U.S. Role in Counterinsurgency." | includes psywar operations, vigilante and death squads. USIA | anti-communist campaign of distributing films and written | materials. Film "Amerika" shown. Use of Asian-American Free | Labor Institute Operations. In 1985, AAFLI spent up to $4 | million on organizational efforts, the money coming from the | National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Bello, W. (1987). | U.S. Sponsored Low Intensity Conflict in the Philippines | | Philippines, March 1986. Reagan signs finding increasing CIA | involvement in Philippine counterinsurgency operations. New | Aquino government is allegedly perpetrating a purge of | opposition, carried out by more than 50 death squads. Ramsey | Clark, who investigated death squad activity in 1987, wrote | in June that "the victims of vigilante violence are | overwhelmingly poor farmers, workers, slum dwellers, and | others who are pushing for significant land reform, wage | increases and protection workers' rights, as well as those | who oppose U.S. military bases." Upsurge in death squad | activities are coincident with increased CIA aid and was | preceded by visit to Philippines by Maj. Gen. John Singlaub. | The Nation, 9/19/1987, pp. 259-60 | | | Puerto Rico: Watch List | | Puerto Rico. FBI has institutionalized repression. It | created "subversive" lists with names of more than 150,000 | "independentistas" who often find themselves thrown out of | work. FBI agents organized and trained death squads within | the Puerto Rican police department NACLA (magazine re Latin | America), 8/1990, p. 5 | | | Puerto Rico: Death Squads | | Puerto Rico, 1978. "Puerto Rico's Death Squad Requiem on | Cerro Maravilla: the Police Murders in Puerto Rico and the | U.S. Government Cover-up." A book by Manuel Suarez reviewed | in the Progressive, 12/1988, pp. 40-42 | | | Russia: Watch List | | Russia, 1994. FBI to open Moscow office with an eye on | nuclear trafficking. FBI has about 20 posts abroad at U.S. | Embassies with its agents serving as legal attaches. They | range in size from one agent to as many as eight, plus | support staff. FBI director Freeh said the FBI working to | set up joint police/intelligence data base with authorities | in Russia and Germany. Washington Times, 5/26/1994, A3 | | | South Africa: Watch List | | South Africa, 1962. A tip from a paid CIA informant led to | 1962 arrest of Nelson Mandela leader of the African National | Congress. A CIA officer claimed "we have turned Mandela over | to the South African security branch." Washington Post, | 6/11/1990, A18 | | | South Africa: Death Squads | | South Africa. Article, "South African Death Squad Plot: A | Missing Piece to a Puzzle the Media Won't Solve," by Jane | Hunter. Extra, 11/1992, p. 26 South Africa. See article | "South African Death Squads." Covert Action Information | bulletin (Quarterly) Summer 1990, pp. 63-66 South Africa, | 1980-89. Details of South Africa's death squads by a former | police Captain Dirk Coetzee. Group tracked and killed ANC | activists in Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho. Newsweek, | 11/27/1989, p. 56 | | South Africa, 1980-90. Apartheid's fiercest warriors in | 1980s were South Africa's army special forces, police force | known as Koevoet (crowbar), and Portuguese-speaking | "buffalo" battalion who ran a campaign of assassination and | sabotage against the African National Congress. Newsweek, | 9/14/1992, p. 45 | | South Africa, 1991-92. 75 COSATU (labor union) members | killed during past two years by security forces. Many other | attacks. Briarpatch magazine (Canada), 10/1992, pp. 55-6 | | South Africa, 1992. Slaughter in South Africa. Newsweek | 9/21/1992, p. 57 | | | South America: Watch List | | South America, 1970-79. U.S. Legal attache Buenos Aires, FBI | agent Robert Scherrer, sent cable to D.C. Describing | operation. Operation Condor the code-name for collection, | exchange and storage intelligence re leftists, communists | and Marxists. Established between cooperating intelligence | services in South America to eliminate Marxist activities. | Operation provided for joint operation against targets in | member countries...third and secret phase of operation | involves formation of special teams from member countries | who travel anywhere in world to carry out sanctions up to | assassination against terrorists from member countries. | Special team from Operation Condor could be sent to locate | and surveil target. When located, a second team would be | sent to carry out sanction. 1979 Senate Report, based on CIA | files, says "such a phase three operation planned in 1974 | and planned on killing 3 European leftists" -- one | Carlos. Plot foiled when CIA discovered it and warned host | countries -- France and Portugal. U.S. military officers | sent under auspices of AID oversaw formation of technical | police. One folder of archives has correspondence between | Paraguayan ministers and U.S. Army Colonel Robert Thierry, | who was serving as "public administration adviser," who | supervised formation of the technical police. Letters from | FBI agent Scherrer advising Paraguayan police re targets. | CIA also worked with Paraguayans. Deputy DCI, Vernon | Walters, visited country in 1976 who apparently approved | abortive effort to get false passports for 2 Chilean DINA | agents -- Armando Fernandez and Michael Townley -- who | en route to U.S. To assassinate Orlando Letelier. The case | of Eugenio Berios. Covert Action Information Bulletin | (Quarterly) 12, 57, 8, 9 | | | South America: Death Squads | | South America, 1976. Letelier killed by right wing Cuban | exiles called "Gusanos" who are paid and trained by CIA and | "Chilean Gestapo" DINA. Gusanos regularly engage in | terrorism against Cuba and Latin American and Caribbean | countries. Tactics include blowing up airplanes, embassies, | fishing boats, and kidnappings. Gusanos connected with | police of other right wing governments such as Venezuela. | Certain gusano operations directed by CIA; Other unilateral | operations of DINA. Counterspy, 12/1976, p. 10 | | | Syria: Watch List | | Syria, 1949. Following CIA coup of March 1949 CIA officer | reported over "400 Commies" arrested. Middle East Journal 57 | Syria, 1949. The Husni Za'im coup of 30 March result of | guarantee CIA that once firmly in power, the U.S. would give | de facto recognition with de jure to follow in a few days | and pointed out targets to be seized. Gave him a list of all | politicians who might be able to rally resistance. Copeland, | M. (1989). The Game Player, p. 94 | | | Thailand: Death Squads | | Thailand, 1965. Death squads. Lobe, T. (1977). United States | national security policy and aid to the Thailand police | 67-70 Thailand, 1973-76. General Saiyut Koedphon, deputy | head of CSOC and close ally of CIA, admitted that CIA was | collaborating with a variety of Thai security agencies, | including CSOC. Similarly, deputy director of police, Withun | Yasawat, said he was receiving CIA advice and reports as | late as 1974. American indoctrination of CSOC and border | patrol police during 1960's produced U.S. desired | objectives. "Nawaophon" created ISOC officers who in turn | has close contacts with CIA, employed covert tactics to | search out "subversive elements" within the Thai population. | Counterspy, Summer 1980, p. 14 | | Thailand, 1973-76. The Krathin Daeng (Red Guars), were | groups of rightist students with police support that had | over 100,000 members including government employees, | soldiers, policemen, etc. Group received support and | assistance from the internal security command (where CIA had | a presence) and the Thai Santiban aka Special Branch. The | Red Guars implicated in numerous bombings, killings, | shooting and harassment of labor leaders, peasant leaders, | etc. Indochina Resource Center Study, 1/1977 | | Thailand, 1976. A high-ranking official of Seni Pramoj | government told a foreign visitor few weeks before October 6 | coup, both Nawapon and the Red Gaurs were being financed by | CIA. Counterspy, 12/1976, p. 52 Thailand, 1976. Over 10,000 | students, professors, political figures, labor and farm | leaders arrested since coup. U.S. military aid increased. | New junta used CIA-trained forces to crush student | demonstrators during coup. 2 right-wing terrorist squads | suspected for assassinations tied directly to CIA | operations. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, v9 #3, | 9/1977, p. 2 | | Thailand, 1976. Red Gaurs, an organization of the extreme | right, staged provocations against progressive students and | assassinations of activists of farmers' federation of | Thailand. The number of assassinations by right wingers | soared in April 1976 during parliamentary elections. Defense | minister Pramarn Adireksan, leader of right wing Thai | National party, openly proclaimed the slogan "the right kill | the left." Syrokonski. (1983). International Terrorism and | the CIA, p. 117-118 | | Thailand, 1976. Thai border police, element of police most | involved in counterinsurgency and which CIA concentrated | most of its efforts, carried out an assault by fire against | essentially unarmed students, killing at least 100. | Counterspy, 12/1976, p. 52 | | | Turkey: Watch List | | Turkey, 1971. Coup carried out by counter-guerrilla, the | CIA, the Turkey military and Turkish military intelligence | (MIT). CIA solely interested in protecting American | interests. CIA assisted MIT in 1960-69 in drafting plans for | mass arrests of opposition figures similar to the pattern | followed in Thailand, Indonesia and Greece. In single night | generals ordered 4000 professors, students, teachers and | retired officers arrested. They tortured. Counterspy, | 4/1982, p. 25 | | | Uruguay: Watch List | | Uruguay. CIA agent associated with death squads. Every CIA | station maintained subversive control watch list of most | important left wing activists. Gave names families and | friends. Frankovich, A. (1980). On Company Business. TV | transcript, 5/9/1980, pp. 51-3 Uruguay, liaison, 1964. | Biographical data and photos. Uruguay has national voter | registration that effective identity card system. From | liaison service CIA station gets full name, date and place | of birth, parents names, address, place of work, etc. and id | photos. Information invaluable for surveillance operations, | for subversive control watch list and for a variety of other | purposes. CID-361 | | | Uruguay: Death Squads | | Uruguay, 1970-72. CIA operations officer used cover of AID | public safety advisor to help set up Department of | Information and Intelligence (DII). DII served as a cover | for death squad. Counterspy, 5/1979, p. 10 | | | USSR: Watch List | | USSR, 1990 KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov said KGB to | protect against anti-Communist forces. Said western | intelligence exploiting current instability in USSR. Certain | radical movements being masterminded by foreign support. | Certain groups had written "blacklists" of people who must | be neutralized. Washington Post, 12/12/1990, A18,20 USSR, | 1990. KGB's Kryuchkov accuses CIA and other western | intelligence agencies of gathering information on workers' | movements. Washington Post, 12/23/1990, A1,22 | | USSR, East Germany, 1949-57. League of Free Jurists (UFJ) | kept a blacklist of offenders against justice -- | particularly lawyers and police -- and published their | activities. Named were marked men, whether they came to West | as refugees or as accredited representatives of East | Germans. Hagan, L. (1969). The Secret War for Europe, p. 200 | USSR, Iran, 1982. Vladimir Kuzichkin, a senior KGB officer | in Tehran, defected to the British. CIA had a sharing | agreement with MI6 and became privy to contents of two | trunks full of documents. From those documents CIA prepared | name lists of more than one hundred people, mostly Iranians, | working as secret agents in Iran for the USSR. Casey allowed | this list be handed to the Iranians -- who executed them. | Persico, J. (1991). Casey, p. 301 | | | Vietnam: Watch List | | Vietnam, 1965-68. U.S./Government of Vietnam create list of | active NLF for assassination. After 1968 Tet offensive, | names centralized to Phoenix coordinators. Collect names of | tens of thousands NLF suspects. Military operations such as | My Lai use Phoenix intelligence. By 1973, Phoenix generates | 300,000 political prisoners in South Vietnam. Counterspy, | May 1973, p. 22 | | Vietnam, 1965-70. Details re Vietnam. From 1965-68 U.S. and | Saigon intelligence services maintained an active list of | Viet Cong cadre marked for assassination. Phoenix program | for 1969 called for "neutralizing" 1800 a month. About one | third of Viet Cong targeted for arrest had been summarily | killed. Security committees established in provincial | interrogation centers to determine fate of Viet Cong | suspects, outside of judicial controls. Green Berets and | Navy Seals most common recruits for Phoenix program. Green | Beret Detachment B-57 provided administrative cover for | other intelligence units. One was Project Cherry, tasked to | assassinate Cambodian officials suspected of collaborating | with North Vietnamese, KGB. Another was Project Oak targeted | against South Vietnamese suspected collaborators. They | controlled by Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and | Special Activities, which worked with CIA outside of General | Abrams's control. Stein. J. (1992). A Murder In Wartime, pp. | 360-1 | | Vietnam, 1967-73 CIA developed Phoenix program in 1967 to | neutralize: kill, capture or make defect Viet Cong | infrastructure. Viet Cong infrastructure means civilians | suspected of supporting Communists. Targeted civilians not | soldiers. Phoenix also called Phung Hoang by Vietnamese. Due | process totally nonexistent. South Vietnamese who appeared | on black lists could be tortured, detained for 2 years | without trial or killed. Valentine, D. (1990). The Phoenix | Program, p. 13 Vietnam, 1967-73 District Intelligence | Operations Coordination Center (DIOCC). Dien Ban center a | model for all of Phoenix. Bldg 10' x 40'. Manned by two U.S. | Soldiers, 2 Census Grievance, one Rural Development cadre, | and one Special Branch. DIOCC intelligence clearinghouse to | review, collate, and disseminate information. Immediate | local reaction. Americans kept files of sources, Viet Cong | infrastructure and order of battle. Reaction forces 100 | police, 1 PRU unit, guides from census grievance. Marines | screened civilian detainees using informants and DIOCC's | blacklist. Valentine, D. (1990). The Phoenix Program, p.126 | | Vietnam, 1968-69. Until late 1968, Saigon had run a program | under which 500,000 ID cards were issued. Viet Cong made | fake ones and many stolen. Viet Cong during Tet assigned | teams to go door-to-door to collect them. Saigon reissued | cards in 10/1968. By 1 May 1969, number of cards issued was | 1.5 million. Adams, S. (1994). War of Numbers, p. 181 | Vietnam, 1968. Phoenix program quota of 1800 neutralizations | per month. Viet Cong Infrastructure System (VCIS) fed 3000 | names Viet Cong infrastructure into computer at Combined | Intelligence Center political order of battle section. | Beginning of computerized blacklist. In Saigon DIA, FBI and | CIA used computers. Until 1970 computerized blacklist a | unilateral American operation. Valentine, D. (1990). The | Phoenix Program, 259 | | Vietnam, 1968. U.S. advisors worked with Government of | Vietnam counterparts to establish a list of those who were | active with the NLF and who were vulnerable to | assassination. Counterspy, 5/1973, p. 21 | | | Vietnam: Death Squads | | Vietnam. Counterterror teams aka Provincial Reconnaissance | Units (PRU). Six or dozen men carried out carefully planned | forays, capturing or killing identified communists. | Blaufarb, D.S. (1977). The Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 210-11 | | Vietnam, 1960-93. Montagnards recruited in early 1960s by | Special Forces to fight Viet Cong. Did not surrender until | 1992, when they yielded weapons to UN forces in Cambodia and | brought to U.S. About 600 live in North Carolina. Paul | Campbell, former SF who first American to recruit them. Kay | Reibold head of Vietnam highlands assistance project. | Montagnards live in small apartments around Raleigh with | low-paying jobs. In 10/1961 Campbell, then a SF Sergeant, | sent by CIA to recruit Montagnards. They to form village | security, but soon being used for long-range reconnaissance | and in highly mobile strike forces that hunted Viet Cong for | weeks at a time. "We killed many Vietnamese." Article by W. | Booth. Washington Post, 12/27/1993 | | Vietnam, 1965. CIA station helped create census grievance | units. CIA funded, trained and guided counter terror teams | who per Chief of Station de Silva, were "to bring danger and | death to Viet Cong functionaries." Corn, D. (1994). Blond | Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades, p. 175 | | Vietnam, 1966-71. Phoenix operation designed to help U.S. | military reach crossover point, where dead and wounded | exceeded Viet Cong's ability to field replacements. In April | 1967, President Johnson announced formation of Civil | Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) for | pacification. Robert Komer as deputy commander of | MACV-CORDS. CORDS budget about $4 billion from 1968-71. | CORDS the management structure for pacification programs. | Personnel both military and civilian. By 1971, 3000 | servicemen, advisers to ARVN, placed under CORDS. 1200 | civilians by 1971. U.S. AID responsible for material aid. | State and USIA also provided personnel. But CIA played the | crucial role. CORDS reinstated civic action teams under name | Revolutionary Development cadre. RD program formed teams of | 59 South Vietnamese, divided into 3 11-man security squads | and 25 civic action cadres. Teams to spend 6 months in a | village to fulfill "Eleven criteria and 98 works for | pacification." 1. Annihilation of ...cadre; 2. Annihilation | of wicked village dignitaries; etc. System placed 40,000 | two-way radios in villages. Land reform failed. (Photos of | Phoenix propaganda material). Teams helped create Regional | and Popular Forces (RF/PFs). Ruff-puffs, suffered high | casualties. They represented half of South Vietnamese | government forces, they had 55-66% of casualties. They | inflicted 30% of Communist casualties. Underground | paramilitary effort called Phoenix, which included a "census | grievance," stay-b | | | (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this | material is distributed without profit to those who have | expressed a prior interest in receiving the included | information for research and educational purposes.) |______________________________________________________________