Argentina's Macri signed secret pact for training of forces at "successor to School of the Americas"

[sandensea]

Documents leaked to the Buenos Aires online daily 'El Destape' revealed that Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich signed a memorandum at the request of the U.S. State Department, by which Argentine security personnel would enroll at the International Academy for Law Enforcement in El Salvador (ILEA).

The agreement was co-signed by William Brownfield, then Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.

A "school of indoctrination" for Latin American armed forces, ILEA has been denounced by human rights organizations such as School of Americas Watch as the "successor to the School of the Americas (SOA)."

The SOA (renamed WHINSEC in 2001) gained notoriety in the 1980s after activists such as Father Roy Bourgeois revealed that many of the atrocities being committed in the region - particularly El Salvador - were directed by its graduates. Over 10,000 Latin American military personnel were reportedly trained to commit abuses there, and in fact did so under the region's many dictatorships of the 1970s and since.

The document, signed on April 29, 2016, but never published, states that the country "will facilitate the participation of Argentine agents with law enforcement jurisdiction in study tours in the United States of America in order to enhance collaboration on drug demand reduction through training assistance."

The agreement, the Buenos Aires-based Center for Military Officers for Democracy noted, is illegal.

Former President Raúl Alfonsín - elected in 1983 after a seven-year military dictatorship left the economy in ruins and 30,000 dissidents "disappeared" - signed a 1988 Defense Law which bars the armed forces from assuming security prerogatives, or vice versa, save with congressional approval (both of which caveats the secret agreement violated).

Former President Néstor Kirchner in 2006 moreover had specifically banned Argentine security forces from signing training agreements at ILEA or WHINSEC.

Both laws remain on the books.

The revelation comes three months after the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration had formally requested approval from the U.S. Government for the purchase of around $2.5 billion in military equipment - the largest single Argentine military order since shortly before the ill-fated Falklands/Malvinas War waged by the last dictatorship in 1982.

That request was reportedly made on June 16, 2016, through the offices of Argentine Ambassador Martín Lousteau with the stated purpose of "combating terrorism." Lousteau resigned on April 3 - one week after the disclosure.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fexclusivo-los-peligrosos-acuerdos-militares-que-argentina-firmo-eeuu-n29785&edit-text=

[Judi Lynn]

1. Welcome, welcome, new age torturers, psychological warfare operatives, etc.

It must warm the earth's heart knowing William Brownfield is right in the middle of this renewal of war plotting and scheming for the Americas, in a more gung-ho, fearless undertaking.

Everyone knows his deep love for the people of the Americas, and his abiding respect for the human race. You betcha.

Gotta combat "terrorism," don't they? Should they formally re-introduce "Operation Condor?"

Here's an article I just discovered which covers Reagan's outlook on the Dirty War, which was encouraged earlier by Henry Kissinger. It may be useful to people who are not quite acquainted with his position on these fascist maniacs:


Reagan and Argentina’s Dirty War
May 17, 2013

Exclusive: The 87-year-old ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Videla died Friday in prison where he was serving sentences for grotesque human rights crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. But one of Videla’s key backers, the late President Ronald Reagan, continues to be honored by Americans, writes Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

The death of ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, a mastermind of the right-wing state terrorism that swept Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, means that one more of Ronald Reagan’s old allies is gone from the scene.

Videla, who fancied himself a theoretician of anti-leftist repression, died in prison at age 87 after being convicted of a central role in the Dirty War that killed some 30,000 people and involved kidnapping the babies of “disappeared” women so they could be raised by military officers who were often implicated in the murders of the mothers.

The leaders of the Argentine junta also saw themselves as pioneers in the techniques of torture and psychological operations, sharing their lessons with other regional dictatorships. Indeed, the chilling word “disappeared” was coined in recognition of their novel tactic of abducting dissidents off the streets, torturing them and then murdering them in secret sometimes accomplishing the task by chaining naked detainees together and pushing them from planes over the Atlantic Ocean.

With such clandestine methods, the dictatorship could leave the families in doubt while deflecting international criticism by suggesting that the “disappeared” might have traveled to faraway lands to live in luxury, thus combining abject terror with clever propaganda and disinformation.

To pull off the trick, however, required collaborators in the U.S. news media who would defend the junta and heap ridicule on anyone who alleged that the thousands upon thousands of “disappeared” were actually being systematically murdered. One such ally was Ronald Reagan, who used his platform as a newspaper and radio commentator in the late 1970s to minimize the human rights crimes underway in Argentina and to counter the Carter administration’s human rights protests.

More:
https://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/17/reagan-and-argentinas-dirty-war/

(I just hate it when active idiots trying to spread stupidity in order to promote fascism claim "there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats." One only has to start trying to grasp simple history to know that's a lie.)

Thank you, sandensea, for the giant news. It's important to people who didn't know this has been building behind every ones' backs, with the help from concealment by our own corporate media. There is NO good part about it.

[sandensea]

2. And thank YOU, Judi, for sharing your encyclopedic knowledge and for your tireless research.

It's no longer a secret that Macri will impose a harsh new round of austerity once the October mid-term elections are out of the way.

There is a growing sense in Argentina that, by the same token, he'll become more authoritarian in cracking down on the protests and strikes that will surely follow - and that some form of an Isabel Perón-style state of emergency decree may follow.

His sudden interest in returning Argentine forces to dictatorship training schools like SOA/WHINSEC/ILEA - plus his unauthorized attempt to purchase $2.5 billion in war theater weaponry - adds real fuel to these suspicions.

Thanks again!