Published on Saturday, August 28, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
Kissinger Backed Dirty War Against Left in Argentina
Transcripts show former secretary of state urged violent crackdown on opposition
by Julian Borger in Washington and Uki Goni in Buenos Aires
Henry Kissinger gave Argentina's military junta the green light to suppress political opposition at the start of the "dirty war" in 1976, telling the country's foreign minister: "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly," according to newly-declassified documents published yesterday.
State department documents show the former secretary of state urged Argentina to crush the opposition just months after it seized power and before the US Congress convened to consider sanctions.
"We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better," Mr Kissinger told Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, the foreign minister, according to the State Department's transcript.
Carlos Osorio, an analyst at the National Security Archive, a US pressure group which published the transcript, said it was likely to be seen by historians as "a smoking gun".
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0828-02.htm~~~~~ARGENTINE MILITARY BELIEVED U.S. GAVE GO-AHEAD FOR DIRTY WAR
New State Department documents show conflict between Washington and US Embassy in Buenos Aires over signals to the military dictatorship at height of repression in 1976
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part II
Edited by Carlos Osorio
Assisted by
Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance
Florence Segura, research assistance
of the National Security Archive
Natalia Federman, research assistance and Spanish translation
of CELS
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were "euphoric" over signals from high-ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Embassy reported to Washington that after Mr. Kissinger's 10 June 1976 meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti, the Argentine government dismissed the Embassy's human rights approaches and referred to Kissinger's "understanding" of the situation. The current State Department collection does not include a minute of Kissinger's and Guzetti's conversation in Santiago, Chile.
On 20 September 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill reported that Guzzetti said "When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA 'get it over quickly'."
After a second meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in Washington, on 19 October 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill wrote "a sour note" from Buenos Aires complaining that he could hardly carry human rights demarches if the Argentine Foreign Minister did not hear the same message from the Secretary of State. "Guzzetti went to U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG over that issue," wrote Hill.
More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm ~~~~~
Kissinger and The 'Dirty War'
by Martin Edwin Andersen
The Nation magazine, 10/31/87
~ ~ ~ Just three months after Argentina's generals took power in 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave that country's military a green light to continue its "dirty war," according to a State Department memorandum obtained by InterNation. This document shows that in early 1977 Robert Hill, then the U.S. Ambassador to Buenos Aires, told a top Carter Administration offi- cial that Kissinger had given his approval to the repression in which at least 9,000 people were kidnapped and secretly murdered. Kissinger, he charged, put his imprimatur on the massive disappearances in a June 10, 1976, meeting in Santiago, Chile, with Argentina's Foreign Minister, Adm. C6sar Guzzetti. Both men were attending the Sixth General Assembly of the Organization of American States, whose agenda, ironically, had been dominated by the human rights issue.
Guzzetti was one of the most outspoken advocates of the dirty war. In August 1976 he told the United Nations: "My idea of subversion is that of the left-wing terrorist organizations. Subversion or terrorism of the right is not the same thing. When the social body of the country has been contaminated by a disease that eats away at its entrails, it forms antibodies. These antibodies cannot be considered in the same way as the microbes."
The ninety-minute early morning meeting, at Santiago's Hotel Carrera, across from the Moneda Palace, came just three weeks after Hill had urgently warned Kissinger of the worsening Argentine rights record. A word from the Secretary of State would have helped rein in the generals. Although a secret analysis by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, dated April 5, 1976, noted that "human rights could become a problem area as the military clamps down on 'terrorism, " it went on: "To date, however, the junta has followed a reasonable, prudent line in an obvious attempt to avoid being tagged with a 'Made in Chile' label. " According to the records of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, Argentina's foremost human rights group, by the time Kissinger and Guzzetti met, 1,022 people had been "disappeared" forever. At least another 7,938 met the same fate afterward.
When Kissinger arrived at the Santiago conference, Hill said, the Argentine generals were nervous about the prospect of being called on the carpet by the United States for their human rights record. But Kissinger merely told Guzzetti the regime should solve the problem before the U.S. Congress reconvened in 1977. A buen entendedor, pocas patabras ("To those quick to understand, few words are needed"). Within three weeks of the meeting a wave of wholesale executions began, and hundreds of detainees were killed in reprisal for attacks by leftist guerrillas. The memo- randum shows that Hill believed the responsibility for this ballooning state terrorism to be Kissinger's.
More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/Kissinger_DirtyWar.htmlhttp://www.gwu.edu.nyud.net:8090/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB104/elclarin.jpg
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meets with
Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti,
on October 7, 1976 (Photo courtesy of Clarín.com (Argentina),
http://old.clarin.com/diario/2003/12/04/p-01001.htm)
KISSINGER TO ARGENTINES ON DIRTY WAR:
"THE QUICKER YOU SUCCEED THE BETTER"
Newly declassified documents show Secretary of State
gave green light to junta, Contradict official line that
Argentines "heard only what wanted to hear."
While military dictatorship committed massive
human rights abuses in 1976, Kissinger advised
"If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better."Washington, D.C., 4 December 2003 - Newly declassified State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and high ranking U.S. officials gave their full support to the Argentine military junta and urged them to hurry up and finish the "dirty war" before the U.S. Congress cut military aid. A post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000.
The new documents are two memoranda of conversations (memcons) with the visiting Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti - one with Kissinger himself on October 7, 1976. At the time, the U.S. Congress was about to approve sanctions against the Argentine regime because of widespread reports of human rights abuses by the junta.
The memcons contradict the official line given by Assistant Secretary of State Harry Shlaudeman in response to complaints from the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires that Guzzetti had come back "euphoric" and "convinced that there is no real problem with the USG" over human rights. Schlaudeman cabled, "Guz;etti
heard only what he wanted to hear."
According to the memcon's verbatim transcript, Secretary of State Kissinger interrupted the Foreign Minister's report on the situation in Argentina and said "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better… The human rights problem is a growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help."
More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB104/index.htm
Videla in his glory, toasting the owner of the country's largest paper,
who was only too happy to further the interests of the dictatorship.
http://momento24.com.nyud.net:8090/en/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/videla.jpg
Videla going to trial for crimes against humanity. Better late than never.
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