John-Paul Ferguson - Our Own Private Pinochet: Prosecuting Henry Kissinger
SAIS Review 22.1 (2002) 245-253
Book Review Our Own Private Pinochet: Prosecuting Henry Kissinger John-Paul Ferguson
Does America Need a Foreign Policy?By Henry Kissinger (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001). 288 pp.
The Trial of Henry Kissinger. By Christopher Hitchens (New York: Verso, 2001). 150 pp.
In 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger, then Richard Nixon's special assistant for national security affairs, was invited to Johns Hopkins University-SAIS to speak on the conflict. Given the school's long ties to the national security establishment, Kissinger doubtlessly expected a fawning reception. What he got instead surprised everyone. A group of students interrupted his introduction, rising from the audience to read a prepared statement about their opposition to the war in general and Kissinger's handling of it in particular. Taking the podium, the bemused potentate muttered, "I'll just go straight to the questions." He called upon one of the students who had risen moments before. The kid rose and asked Kissinger if he considered himself a war criminal. An understandably awkward silence followed. Kissinger finally turned to the emcee, said, "Get your people under control," and strode from the auditorium. For more than twenty years after that day, he refused to set foot inside the school. In 2001, the SAIS graduating class...
Operation Condor
It has been argued that while the US was not a key member, it "provided organizational, intelligence, financial and technological assistance to the operation."
Material declassified in 2004 states that
"The declassified record shows that Secretary Kissinger was briefed on Condor and its 'murder operations' on August 5, 1976, in a 14-page report from Shlaudeman. 'Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys,' Shlaudeman cautioned. 'We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good.' Shlaudeman and his two deputies, William Luers and Hewson Ryan, recommended action. Over the course of three weeks, they drafted a cautiously worded demarche, approved by Kissinger, in which he instructed the U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone countries to meet with the respective heads of state about Condor. He instructed them to express 'our deep concern' about 'rumors' of 'plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad.'"
Ultimately, the demarche was never delivered. Kornbluh and Dinges suggest that the decision not to send Kissinger's order was due to a cable sent by Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman to his deputy in D.C which states "you can simply instruct the Ambassadors to take no further action, noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme." McSherry, adds, "According to [U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay Robert] White, instructions from a secretary of state cannot be ignored unless there is a countermanding order received via a secret (CIA) backchannel." Kornbluh and Dinges conclude that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Shlaudeman's deputy Hewson Ryan later acknowledged in an oral history interview that the State Department was "remiss" in its handling of the case. "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. … Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know," he stated in reference to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing. "But we didn't."
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well aware of the Condor plan. According to the French newspaper L'Humanité, linked with the French Communist Party, the first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Juan Perón and Isabel Martínez de Perón's "personal secretary" José López Rega, and Rodolfo Almirón (arrested in Spain in 2006).
On May 31, 2001 French judge Roger Le Loire requested that a summons be served on Henry Kissinger while he was staying at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. Loire wanted to question Kissinger as a witness for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor and for possible US knowledge concerning the "disappearances" of 5 French nationals in Chile during military rule. Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department.
In July 2001 the Chilean high court granted investigating judge Juan Guzmán the right to question Kissinger about the 1973 killing of American journalist Charles Horman, whose execution at the hands of the Chilean military following the coup was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing. The judge's questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but were not answered.
In August 2001 Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory to the US State Department, in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), requesting a deposition by Kissinger to aid the judge's investigation of Operation Condor.
On September 10, 2001 a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, murdered former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger ordered Schneider's murder because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt, but U.S. involvement with the plot is disputed, as declassified transcripts show that Nixon and Kissinger had ordered the coup "turned off" a week before the killing, fearing that Viaux had no chance. As part of the suit Schneider's two sons are attempting to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for $3 million.
On September 11, 2001, the 28th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian general and president Hugo Banzer, former Argentine general and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner for alleged involvement in Operation Condor. The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean.
In late 2001 the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in São Paulo because it could not guarantee his immunity from judicial action.
On February 16, 2007 a request for the extradition of Kissinger was filed at the Supreme Court of Uruguay on behalf of Bernardo Arnone, a political activist who was kidnapped, tortured and disappeared by the dictatorial regime in 1976.
Henry Kissinger: the Wanted Man
Henry Kissinger's dark past seems to be enclosing around him as various countries in South America and Europe have sought to question him about actions taken by the Nixon and Ford administrations in which Kissinger was National Security Adviser and Secretary of State respectively.
The latest move to question Kissinger was by Peter Tatchell, a British human rights activist. While Kissinger was speaking in Britain at the UK's Institute of Directors annual conference on April 24, Tatchell attempted to have him arrested for committing war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act.
Kissinger Confronted in Cork
Call to arrest Kissinger on visit (Irish Times)
'War crimes' protest as Kissinger visits Cork (Irish Times)
Radio putting 'war crimes' in the dock (Irish Times)
War Criminal Met with Huge Protests in Cork (participants account) outside link
A Sad and Wicked Example of Humanity - Henry Kissinger's Proposed Visit to Cork
He won the Nobel Peace Prize and his name was once a byword for diplomacy. But Henry Kissinger may yet be called to account for the murder and mayhem the US orchestrated in the 1970s, writes Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens.
Here are some snapshots from the recent career of Henry Kissinger. In May last year, during a stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, he is visited by the criminal brigade of the French police, and served with a summons. This requests that he attend the Palais de Justice the following day to answer questions from Judge Roger Le Loire.
The judge is investigating the death and disappearance of five French citizens during the rule of General Pinochet in Chile. Kissinger declines the invitation and leaves Paris at once.
In the same week, Judge Rodolfo Corrall of Argentina invites Kissinger's testimony in the matter of "Operation Condor" - codename for a state-run death squad, operated by the secret police of six countries - Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador - during the 1970s and '80s.
Its central co-ordination was run through a US base in Panama when Kissinger was the national security adviser and secretary of state (and chairman of the committee overseeing all US covert operations). Again, Kissinger declines to answer written requests for information.
Later in the year, Judge Guzman in Santiago, Chile, sends a written summons to the State Department requesting Kissinger's testimony about the death and disappearance of an American citizen, Charles Horman, in the early days of the Pinochet dictatorship. (The Homan story was dramatised by Constantine Costa-Gavras in the award-winning movie Missing.) Once again, no reply is received to this request for testimony.
On September 10, a major civil suit is filed in the Federal Court in Washington DC by the relatives and survivors of General Rene Schneider, the former head of the Chilean general staff, who was assassinated in 1970 because of his opposition to a military coup.
The lawsuit charges Kissinger with ordering and arranging Schneider's murder. The attorney for the plaintiffs, Professor Michael Tigar, announces that every document in the indictment comes from declassified government sources.
Recently, Judge Balthazar Garzon of Spain, supported by other judges in France, asks Interpol to detain Kissinger for questioning during his visit to London.
In Chile, the courts announce that if they continue to meet with no response to their requests for co-operation, they may seek Kissinger's extradition.
At the same time, the government of Brazil asks Kissinger to cancel a proposed visit to the city of Sao Paolo, saying that it cannot guarantee he will be immune from attempts to indict him.
Earlier this month, a petition for Kissinger's arrest is filed in the High Court in London, citing the destruction of civilian populations and the environment in Indochina during the years 1969-75. The High Court rules in such a manner as to leave room for a further application.
This is not a complete or exhaustive list of the difficulties now facing the United States' best-known former secretary of state. Recently, I was informed via the former Spanish ambassador to the US that Kissinger had approached the embassy asking whether he would be safe if he visited Spain. These days he does not travel without legal advice.
In the new legal context created by the arrest of General Pinochet and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the principle of "universal jurisdiction" applies, and states that crimes against humanity are indictable and punishable everywhere in the world.
It should be noted, though, that with the exception of the lawsuit in the Federal Court in Washington, Kissinger is not being sought as a defendant. He is being summonsed or subpoenaed only as a witness. His refusal to co-operate therefore licenses the suspicion that he has something very unpleasant to hide.
Parallel disclosures only help to materialise this same suspicion.The State Department recently declassified the verbatim conversation between Kissinger and General Soeharto on the day of the invasion of East Timor in 1975. The record shows Kissinger giving warm approval to the proposed annexation, and also promising to keep a flow of weapons coming to Indonesia.
This flagrant agreement to break both international law and the law of the US (which supplied weapons on the specific condition that they be used only in self-defence) contradicts every statement so far made by Kissinger on the subject.
Only a few weeks ago, documents released by the State Department also proved beyond doubt that Kissinger had urged the apartheid regime in South Africa to intervene in Angola before any Cuban soldier had landed in that disputed colony. Again, the disclosure represented a complete negation of everything ever said or written by Kissinger.
Without exaggeration, it can be said that these legal and investigative initiatives represent the highest point ever attained by the long campaign to enforce international law on human rights. Never before has so senior a figure in a government victorious in war been asked to answer questions about what he did, what he ordered, and what he covered up.
If the drive to put Kissinger in the witness box, let alone the dock, should succeed, then it would rebut the taunt about "victor's justice" in war crimes trials. It would demonstrate that no person, and no society or state, is above the law. Conversely, if the initiative should fail, then it would seem to be true that we have woven a net for the catching of small fish only.
Much hinges on this distinction. The International Criminal Court has won more than the 60-nation vote which was required for its establishment. Almost all Western and democratic nations, with the exception of the US, have "signed on".
Once again, it has to be inferred that there are matters, past and present, which American administrations would prefer not to submit to impartial judgement. Certainly, Kissinger himself has been prominent in the campaign against Congressional ratification of the treaty (which was signed by Bill Clinton as president but which still awaits confirmation).
Quite rightly, the new court will not be allowed to revisit atrocities which took place before it was set up. Unlike the exceptional case of Nuremberg, the accusation of retroactive justice cannot be hurled around.
However, this may not be as obvious in application as at first appears. There are many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Latin Americans, Greek Cypriots, Bangladeshis and Timorese, Cambodians and Vietnamese, who seek to know what happened to their "missing" family members.
In the absence of a proof of death, these cases might be adjudicated as "live" and therefore as contemporary and relevant. If so, Kissinger would be the most embarrassed man on the planet. He sat in the secret meetings during which the coups in Cyprus and Chile, the slaughter by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh, the carpet-bombing of Cambodia and the invasion of East Timor were discussed and (without the knowledge or consent of the US Congress) were approved.
Of the original group that formed the core of the Nixon regime and that took part in the many violations of the US constitution, by means of illegal bugging and illegal covert action, Richard Nixon had to accept a pardon in order to avoid prosecution, his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, had to resign in a flurry of indictments and his attorney-general, John Mitchell, became the first holder of that position to go to jail. Only Kissinger has so far avoided a full investigation of his abuses of power.
Of the despots on the international scene with whom he enthusiastically co-operated, Brigadier Ioannidis of Greece is in prison, as is General Videla of Argentina. Pinochet of Chile and Soeharto of Indonesia have avoided trial and condemnation by claiming that they are too sick to face prosecution (and more humane successor governments have spared them the kind of treatment they would have meted out to their own foes).
Only the senior partner in all this has evaded any inconvenience. Until now. We are once again forced to ask ourselves if we speak the truth when we say that no man is above the law.
FRANCE CALLS FOR ARREST OF CONTRERAS AND OTHER PINOCHET OFFICIALS
Thierry Leveque, Reuters, October 25, 2001
Earlier this year, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declined to be questioned by Le Loire on the alleged part played by the United States in the killing of Chilean opposition figures during Pinochet's rule.
Le Loire still hopes to question Kissinger and has sent a delegation to Washington to seek permission to do so.
MICHAEL TIGAR'S SPEECH AT THE 25TH ANNUAL LETELIER-MOFFITT EVENT
Note: Michael Tigar, of the American University's Washington College of Law, won the Letelier-Moffitt award in 1992 for his work with partner Sam Buffone in representing the Letelier and Moffitt families. He is currently leading a team of lawyers that recently filed a suit in the US courts against Henry Kissinger for his alleged role in the murder of Chilean General Rene Schneider.
Manhattan's Milosevic
How You Can Do What the Government Won't: Arrest Henry Kissinger
You might have to be crazy. Or at least foolhardy. But you could try to bring Henry Kissinger to justice for crimes against humanity. Consider, though, what happened to the last people to talk even jokingly about plans for a citizen's arrest of the real-life model for Dr. Strangelove.
It happened 30 years ago, when Kissinger was at his Strangelovian heights. A group of anti-war protesters sought to raise the spirits of that estimable Catholic priest Phil Berrigan, then in prison for destroying draft records. The group got drunk one night, as Daniel Ellsberg recalls, and dashed off a letter to Berrigan humorously suggesting they nab Kissinger for war crimes in Vietnam. Prison authorities intercepted the mail and the FBI swooped down, charging the writers with conspiracy to kidnap the secretary of state. Dubbed the Harrisburg 6, the friends soon found themselves in a knock-down drag-out to stay out of jail.
[ ... ]
But could an average person really collar Manhattan's Milosevic? "It would surely be possible to do so, and to end up quickly in jail or a mental institution," says the noted linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. "A 17th-century English popular poet wrote that laws are like spider webs: 'Lesser flies are quickly ta'en, while the great break out again.' Not 100 percent true, of course, but a strong tendency, for reasons too obvious to discuss."
Some suggest Kissinger, now an aging Manhattanite, is just too cuddly. "After all, he's the darling of the establishment," says the historian Howard Zinn. "These are all people who have had dinner with him. They don't want to say they've had a war criminal for dinner."
Others question why Hitchens—or his readers—would bother with busting Kissinger. "He was very much a No. 2 man, subordinate to Richard Nixon," recalls Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame. "It's absurd to say he's the principal architect. Of course he's deserving of trial. But some people imagine that Nixon didn't have the wit to think up those crimes on his own, and that's quite mistaken. Kissinger was simply a very loyal, opportunist subordinate."
Nonetheless, there is a growing movement to put him in the dock as the perp—or at least a witness—in crimes against humanity. The old Harvard professor has to watch his step. Though he still moves freely about the streets of New York, this "war criminal" had to slip out of Paris in May when French police tried to serve him with a court summons. Activists from the East Timor Action Network have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours, but again the former secretary of state either didn't answer or disappeared. Demonstrators have also hounded him at speeches around the country. This month, an Argentine judge ordered Kissinger to testify in a human rights trial concerning a plan by Latin American governments to kidnap and kill leftists during the 1970s.
And in July, a judge in Chile sent questions to Kissinger as a witness in a suit brought by Joyce Horman, the widow of Charles Horman, a young journalist killed during the Pinochet coup. Not amused, an administration source told the London Telegraph, "It is unjust and ridiculous that a distinguished servant of this country should be harassed by foreign courts in this way."
Kissinger, who didn't respond to Voice questions, shows some signs of knowing the heat is on. In his mounting campaign to protect his image, he recently agreed to release 10,000 pages of his papers kept under seal at the Library of Congress. Such goodwill gestures may not be enough to save the self-styled Dr. K. from a citizen's arrest, in which he could legally be plucked off the sidewalk and deposited at a nearby precinct station for booking.
Will Henry Kissinger be Brought to Trial?
World's number one state terrorist at large? Is he above the law? A defining case for the West's credibility
Intelligence officers confirm Kissinger role in Turkish invasion
Release of CIA's 'Family Jewels' provides insight into political juggernaut and Bush Administration adviser
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pushed for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara for an attack on that island in reaction to a coup sponsored by the Greek junta, according to documents and intelligence officers with close knowledge of the event.
Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.
However, the National Security Archive had previously obtained four related documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them public Friday.
“In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid,” Kissinger declares in one of those documents, a White House memorandum of a conversation from Feb. 20, 1975. On the surface, the comment seems innocuous, but the context as well as the time period suggests Kissinger had abetted illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey for its 1974 Cyprus invasion.
In July and August of 1974, Turkey staged a military invasion of the island nation of Cyprus, taking over nearly a third of the island and creating a divide between the south and north. Most historians consider that Kissinger – then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford – not only knew about the planned attack on Cyprus, but encouraged it.
Some Greek Cypriots believed then, and still believe, that the invasion was a deliberate plot on the part of Britain and the US to maintain their influence on the island, which was particularly important as a listening post in the Eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the October 1973 War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
According to columnist Christopher Hitchens, author of the book "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," "At the time, many Greeks believed that the significant thing was that [Prime Minister Bulent] Ecevit had been a pupil of Kissinger's at Harvard."
Several intelligence sources, who wished to remain anonymous to maintain the security of their identity, confirmed to RAW STORY that Kissinger both pushed for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara.
However, a former CIA officer who was working in Turkey at the time, suggests that Kissinger's statement in the memorandum about Turkish aid likely means the Ford administration, following Kissinger's advice, conducted business under the table with right-wing ultra-nationalist General Kenan Evren, who later dissolved Parliament and became the dictator of Turkey in a 1980 coup.
“The implication is that the US government was dealing directly with General Evren and circumventing the [democratically elected] Turkish government,” the former CIA officer said. “This was authorized by Kissinger, because they were nervous about Ecevit, who was a Social Democrat.”
[ ... ]
Kissinger, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, then and now
Though no longer a government official, Kissinger remains a powerful force in Washington – particularly within the Bush Administration. Dr. Kissinger was the first choice by President Bush to lead a blue ribbon investigation into the attacks of September 11, 2001. He was, however, quickly removed by the White House after the 9/11 Family Steering Committee had a private meeting with him at his Kissinger and Associates Inc. New York office and asked him point blank if he had any clients by the name of Bin Laden.
According to Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband Richard in the attacks and who was present as part of the 12-member 9/11 Family Steering Committee during the private meeting, the White House seems to have overlooked Dr. Kissinger's apparent conflict of interest.
"We had the meeting with him... the whole Steering Committee, all 12 of us. Because we are basically doing our due diligence and asking for his client list to be released to see if there was a conflict of interest between his client list and potential areas of investigation," said Gabrielle during a Tuesday morning phone conversation, recounting the events of December 12, 2002. "We went back and forth with him, discussing his client list... asking him who was on it, if there were conflicts and so forth," she continued.
"Lorie [Van Auken] asked, do you have any Saudi clients on your list? And he got a blank look. Then Lorie asked, do you have any clients by the name of Bin Laden? And he was stuttering and mumbling, and finally said he would maybe, possibly consider releasing the client list to an attorney but not for the public."
Dr. Kissinger did not reveal his client list, and the very next day the White House withdrew his name without public explanation.
In Bob Woodward's State of Denial, Kissinger says he met regularly with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice about the war in Iraq. “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy,” Kissinger said.
Cheney, along with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, first came to prominence during the administration of President Ford. Rumsfeld had served in various posts under Nixon before being sent to Europe as the US ambassador to NATO in 1973, a period that included the Cyprus coup. When Ford became president on August 9, 1974, immediately preceding the second wave of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Rumsfeld returned to Washington to serve as his chief of staff, while Cheney became deputy assistant to the president.
Rumsfeld and Cheney gained increasing influence under Ford, reaching their apex of power in November 1975 with a shakeup that saw Rumsfeld installed as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney as White House chief of staff, and George H.W. Bush replacing William Colby as CIA director...
WATCHING THE SHADOWS
1. U.S. BOYCOTTS WAR CRIMES COURT, WANTS BLANKET IMMUNITY
The International Criminal Court to judge war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide was officially created April 11--despite strong opposition from the US, which boycotted the ceremony at the UN. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "The long-held dream of the International Criminal Court will now be realized. Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow." But the Bush administration argues the court will open US officials to frivolous or politically motivated suits. The US signed the treaty calling for the court in Dec. 2000, in the last days of the Clinton administration, but Bush officials say it will never be sent to the Senate for ratification. Five members of Congress, led by Henry Hyde (R-IL), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell requesting he ask the UN Security Council to write into every future peacekeeping proposal a grant of absolute immunity from the Court for all US forces and officials. Evan Davis, president of the New York Bar Association, said opposition to the treaty would "weaken US international standing at the very time we need international cooperation for the war against terrorism." (NYT, April 12) [top]
2. HENRY KISSINGER: WANTED IN CHILE, SPAIN, FRANCE
With a trial against Gen. Augusto Pinochet now unlikely in Chile, victims of the country's 17-year military dictatorship are pressing legal actions in both Chilean and US courts against Henry Kissinger and other Nixon administration officials who cooperated in the bloody coup d'etat that brought Pinochet to power on Sept. 11, 1973. Judge Juan Guzman has formally asked Kissinger, former US national security adviser and secretary of state, to answer questions about the killing of a US citizen, Charles Horman, after the military rebellion against Chile's Socialist president Salvador Allende. Pinochet, who ruled until 1990, was arrested in London in 1998 on a Spanish warrant charging him with human rights violations. After 16 months in custody, he was released by British authorities because of declining health. Arrested in Chile in 2000, he was ruled incompetent to stand trial. The death of Horman, a young journalist, was the subject of the 1982 movie "Missing." A suit brought by his widow Joyce Horman in the US was withdrawn after she was denied access to relevant US government documents. But the new legal action against Pinochet and the declassification of some US documents led her to file a new suit in Chile. Relatives of Gen. Rene Schneider, Chilean armed forces commander assassinated in Oct. 1970, have also filed a $3 million civil suit in Washington against Kissinger, ex-CIA chief Richard Helms and other Nixon-era officials.
In his books, Kissinger says he initially followed Nixon's orders in Sept.1970 to organize a coup, but claims he ordered the effort shut down a month later. However, the released documents indicate the CIA continued to plan the coup, and provided money to military officers jailed for Gen. Schneider's death. Human rights attorneys in Chile have also filed a criminal complaint against Kissinger accusing him of helping organize Operation Condor, the regionally-coordinated program of political repression. Under Operation Condnor, military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay kidnapped and killed hundreds of exiled political opponents. Argentina has also launched a judicial investigation into US involvement in Operation Condor. Argentine Judge Rodolfo Cancioba Corral said he regards Kissinger as a potential "defendant or suspect."
During a visit to France last year, Kissinger was visited at his Paris hotel by police and served with a request from a judge to answer questions on the Chilean coup, in which French citizens also disappeared. Kissinger refused to respond to the subpoena, referred the matter to the State Department, and flew on to Italy.
The controversy may have prompted Kissinger to cancel a trip to Brazil. He was scheduled to make a speech and receive a government medal in Sao Paulo on March 13, but withdrew after rights activists pledged protests and called on prosecutors to detain him for questioning about Operation Condor. A spokesperson for Kissinger Associates in New York attributed the change of plans to a "scheduling conflict." But the organizer of the event, Rabbi Henry Sobel, said "the situation had become politically uncomfortable" both for Kissinger and local Jewish community leaders who had invited him. Rabbi Sobel told the New York Times: "This was a way to avoid any problems or embarrassment for him and for us." (NYT, March 28)
Britain rejected a request from a Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon to question Kissinger on an April visit to London. Garzon is seeking evidence against Kissinger on human rights abuses and terrorist acts by Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s. (AFP, April 23) [top]
3. NIXON TAPES REVEAL KISSINGER CHAT ON 'NAM NUKE OPTION
Among the tapes of Nixon White House banter just released by the National Archives is an April 25, 1972 conversation in which President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger mull using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. The conversation took place weeks before Nixon ordered an escalation of the war, and he told Kissinger, "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb." Kissinger cooly replied, "That, I think, would just be too much." Nixon responded matter-of-factly, "The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?" Then he closed the matter by telling Kissinger, I just want you to think big. He also said "I don't give a damn" about civilians killed by US bombing. (AP, March 1) [top]
4. FRANK CARLUCCI CENSORS SELF OUT OF "LUMUMBA"
When HBO aired the movie "Lumumba," former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci succeeded in pressuring the film's distributor to bleep out his character's identity. In 1960, Carlucci was the second secretary in the US embassy in Kinshasa, Congo, when, according to declassified State Department cables and testimony to the Senate's 1975 Church committee on assassinations, the CIA plotted with the army chief Mobutu Sese Seko and the Belgians to bring down independence leader Patrice Lumumba, just chosen as prime minister by a Brussels "roundtable" of Congo leaders. After a parliamentary investigation, the Belgian prime minister earlier this year apologized to the Lumumba family for his country's role in the assassination. Carlucci, however, appears to have no regrets. The scene he objects to shows US Ambassador Clare Timberlake and his own character in a meeting plotting the assassination. The Carlucci character makes a clearly disingenuous remark about how the US doesn't "meddle" in other nation's affairs. Carlucci claims he wasn't at the meeting, calling the scene "totally inaccurate," and insisting the US had "no role whatsoever" in Lumumba's death.
Filmmaker Raoul Peck says he believes his portrayal is accurate. A Haitian, Peck spent 25 years in Congo/Zaire after his father fled there as an exile from Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier. His film won prizes at festivals in Los Angeles, Santo Domingo, Milan and Acapulco, and was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. The State Department's official "Analytical Chronology of the Congo Crisis" discusses a plan "to bring about the overthrow of Lumumba and install a pro-Western government... Operations under this plan were gradually put into effect by the CIA." Ludo De Witte, author of "The Assassination of Lumumba," wrote Peck that "there was a de facto collaboration and exchange of information between all important personnel in the U.S. Embassy...on efforts to get rid of Lumumba." Carlucci went on to a stellar career, including posts as ambassador to Portugal, CIA deputy director, assistant to the President for National Security affairs, and Secretary of Defense. He is now chairman of the Carlyle Group, a defense industry investment firm with close ties to the Bush administration (see WW3 REPORT #21). (Lucy Komisar for Pacific News Service, Feb. 14)
Rendition by US Authorities (non terrorism cases)
I have read today in the UK Sunday Times a report from a current legal case. It would appear that the American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the rendition law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate. During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman's nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005. Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said. He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”
Can anyone enlighten me on this subject? I would have thought that such actions would be unconstitutional on many levels, but the US legal system is rarely clear and concise!83.148.88.37 19:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm no expert but I am an American. From what I can gather, it comes down to the fact that George W. Bush is "The Decider". Therefore, laws, morals, ethics, diplomacy and rights only exist if Bush decides they exist. I don't know why this is hard to understand! It isn't relative, it's ABSOLUTE!
For my part though I hope someday G.W. Bush and his cronies come to France. If only the French had caught Kissinger! Then, the International War Crime Tribunal! I am ever ashamed of my country and the things it has done...
How The Government Blew Up Manhattan
"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond - i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion or "Terrorists" attacks, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted
to them by the World Government."
-- Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm
Is Henry Kissinger a War Criminal?
Thirty years after the death of Charles Horman inspired a bestseller and an Oscar-winning movie, his widow still pursues those she believes are really to blame -- including the former U.S. secretary of state. It's one reason the quest for international justice makes the United States so nervous.
by Marcus Gee
THE ACCUSED
Henry Alfred Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of state, national security adviser and Nobel laureate
THE ACCUSATIONS
Complicity in coup against Chilean government plus the "killing, injury and displacement" of three million people during Vietnam War.
CURRENT WHEREABOUTS
Head of Kissinger Associates, Inc., international consulting firm in Washington.
Rumsfeld Flees France, Fearing Arrest
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.
U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil.
According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld, shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, U.S. embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons".
Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against Rumsfeld was dismissed by a federal court. But activists point out that under the Schengen agreement that ended border checkpoints across a large part of the European Union, French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive.
"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest?
Already facing war crimes charges in Germany, Donald Rumsfeld—like Henry Kissinger before him—now runs into a spot of legal bother in France.
[ ... ]
The New York Times Oct. 27 also notes that the complaint was filed.
See our last posts on the torture scandal and Donald Rumsfeld.
Links from The Free Republic
Reliable Source: Hitchens vs. Kissinger--Letter Sent
The Hitchens Debate Heating Up Around Henry
The Fugative (Hitchens on Kissinger)
How You Can Arrest Henry Kissinger for War Crimes
How to Think about Henry Kissinger
State Dept. Gains Access To Kissinger Transcripts
Lawyers Without Borders? -- Kissinger, Accused of War Crimes, Decries 'Universial Jurisdiction'
US Angry as Chile Asks Kissinger About Death (Elites Want To Be Above World Govt CourtsThey Set-up!)
Chilean Court Authorizes Submitting Questions to Kissinger About Slaying of U.S. Filmmaker
Quo Vadis Wahid: Henry Kissinger and Lee Kwan Yew in Indonesia
Missing: Chileans Call on Kissinger for Answers about Killing
Chilean judge seeks to question Kissinger
Reliable Source: Hitchens vs. Kissinger--Letter Sent
The Fugative (Hitchens on Kissinger)
Chilean Judge Guzman Tapia Wants Kissinger To Talk
The Case against Henry Kissinger (Hitchens)
What sort of court would put Henry Kissinger on trial?
Kissinger Summoned in Pinochet Case
Kissinger--Why He Got Away With It (Hitchens)
Kissinger on Trial (Hitchens)
Chilean judge seeks to question Kissinger
HENRY THE K SKIPS FRANCE TO AVOID COURT APPEARANCE
Kissinger on Trial at William and Mary (Hitchens)
The Kiss of Henry
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