Chile priest charged over deaths

[demoleft]

Source: BBC

Twelve people in Chile - including a Catholic priest - have been charged over death squad killings during the military rule of Augusto Pinochet.

It is the first time a Catholic priest has been charged over abuses committed during Gen Pinochet's dictatorship.

Luis Jorquera - whose whereabouts are not known - is accused of covering up the deaths of 28 dissidents.

...
Mr Jorquera was quoted by a newspaper in the Chilean capital of Santiago as denying his involvement in the operation, known as the Caravan of Death.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6973614.stm

---

No surprise, if it was true.

Many dictators are "religious" and have/had friends and supporters in the clergy.
And an Italian Pope blessed the black shirts of the fascists - which was high school to many later priests fascists in the heart...

In the present case, we'll have to wait and see.

[Judi Lynn]

1. You will want to find out more about Chilean singer, Victor Jara, most likely.

Starting to look around for information about Chile and the Caravan of Death, I ran across this song written about famous Chilean singer, Victor Jara, who was taken to the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile, as a political prisoner, tortured, and killed.

I never have heard about him until a year or two ago, doing research on Chile. Here is a link to the song written about him:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7752029236805925100&q=Chile&total=73304&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=9

Or it can be heard here, sung in person by Christy Moore:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-694731422082656807&q=Victor+Jara&total=743&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=6

I remembered hearing a song he wrote and sang, which became very famous, which carried his daughter’s name, Amanda. I discovered there’s a video Jara singing this song:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094363298509241474&q=Victor+Jara&total=743&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

You really, really will find it amazingly beautiful.

Here are the lyrics to that song, in Spanish, and in English:
http://www.lrc.salemstate.edu/spanishlyrics/jara.htm#amanda

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Víctor Jara: Vamos por Ancho Camino

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1538572608678033032&q=Victor+Jara&total=743&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=9

http://www.allthelyrics.com/song/1045150/
Lyrics in Spanish

Here’s a very clumsy, crude, imperfect translation I got from Google translation:
We go by wide way
Lyrics, Victor Rockrose

They see, they see, with me see,
they see, they see, with me see.
We go by wide way,
a new destiny will be born, see.

They see, they see, with me see,
they see, they see, with me see.
to the Earth heart
we will germinate with her, see.

Hatred I am back
you never return,
it follows towards the sea
your song is river, sun and wind
bird that announces La Paz.

Friend your son goes,
brother your mother goes,
they go by the wide way
they are galopando in the wheat, go

They see, they see, with me see,
they see, they see, with me see.
The hour arrived from the wind
bursting the silencios, they see.





A social criticism:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8473876340778331425&q=Victor+Jara+Las+casitas+del+barrio+alto&total=5&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Lyrics in Spanish and English:
http://www.lrc.salemstate.edu/spanishlyrics/jara.htm#casitas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I learned recently that he has actually been celebrated all over the world, including by some American musicians for years. I'm embarrassed I never heard until lately, but very glad to have learned at all. He's just one more murdered guy, unlucky enough to have been the target of a Nixon-engineered coup in Chile preparatory to placing a true fiend on the throne there who ruled wickedly, greedily, and brutally for decades, and whom is STILL beloved by the American right-wing lunatic fringe.

[demoleft]

4. Beautiful!

Thank you Judi Lynn. I listened to Christy Moore's live performance and that together with the pics slide show makes something moving, really.

I had never heard of him, either.
I got an old record with an interview to Allende. Popular songs are included.
But nothing about Jara.
Thank you really.

[Judi Lynn]

5. For when you have a moment, another video song:

Song: Vientos del pueblo

Vietos del Pueblo (Winds of the People)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1538572608678033032

His wife, Joan, translated part of the song:

Artist: Victor Jara

Joan Jara:
"Now I want to live
together with my son and brother
in the new world that all of us
are building day by day
your threats do not intimidate me
patrons of poverty
the star of hope
will continue to be ours

Winds of the people are calling me
winds of the people are carrying me
they scatter my heart
and blow through my throat
so will a poet sing
as long as my spirit lives
through the roads of the people
now and forever"
(snip)

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/v/victorjara7249/vientosdelpueblo1005717.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To tell you the truth, demoleft, I'm not sure I've ever heard a more moving, expressive voice than this one which was silenced by the dictator who was quoted saying, "Not a blade of grass moves in Chile without my permission."

There's no doubt in this world, or any other which one was the better man, the good man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The man named by survivors as Jara's killer:

Published on Tuesday, August 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Who Killed Victor Jara? SOA Graduate Exposed in Chile
by Joao Da Silva

Among the thousands of political dissidents detained and executed in Chile during the days following the Military coup of 1973 which overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende (also known as the Unidad Popular), Victor Jara’s brutal death is probably one of the most emblematic. The story of his detention, torture and assassination at the Estadio Chile (a sports arena which was converted into a detention and torture center to hold thousands of political dissidents) has been told and retold for decades, always with some variation, adding to the myth and further strengthening his mystique as a symbol of struggle against military oppression and injustice across Latin America.

Victor Jara was a popular Chilean folk singer/songwriter, educator, theatre director, poet, and political activist. He was involved in the development of the “Nueva Canción Chilena” (New Chilean Song Movement) which gained considerable popularity during the Unidad Popular government which he actively supported. On the morning of September 12 1973, Jara was detained, along with thousands of Chileans, and then held prisoner at the Estadio Chile (renamed “Estadio Víctor Jara” in September 2003) where he was repeatedly beaten and tortured, resulting in the breaking of bones in his hands and upper torso. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors, as he lay on the ground after the beating, mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them. Defiantly, he sang part of a hymn supporting the Unidad Popular.

He was murdered on September 15 after further beatings were followed by being machine-gunned (34 bullet wounds were found on his body) and left dead on a road on the outskirts of Santiago. His body was found the next day and was taken to a city morgue. Before his death, he wrote a poem about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium, the poem was written on a paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend. The poem was never named, but is commonly known as “Estadio Chile”.

Jara's wife (a British citizen), Joan, was allowed to come and retrieve his body from the site (and was able to confirm the physical abuse he had endured). After holding a funeral for her husband, Joan Jara fled the country in secret.

Those responsible for the detention, torture and death of Victor Jara benefited from immunity during the remaining 17 years of dictatorship and from the Amnesty Law decreed by the Military Junta before Chile’s return to Democracy. In December 2004, Chilean judge Juan Carlos Urrutia prosecuted the then retired Lieutenant-Colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo for the murder of Victor Jara. Lt. Bravo was the highest commanding officer in charge at the National Stadium during 1973, but the identity of the Jara's actual killer remained unknown.

In recent months, and after various testimonies from ex-prisoners, Victor Jara’s alleged killer was identified as Edwin Dimter Bianchi. A Chilean military officer with a bad reputation (he was also known as “El Loco Dimter”) who in 1970 attended the School of the Americas (SOA), then located in Panama, and completed a one month course in “Combat Arms Orientation”. Shortly after his stint at the SOA, Dimter participated in the failed coup attempt against Salvador Allende in June of 1973 known as the “Tanquetazo” led by a rouge military brigade. Dimter and his fellow conspirators were arrested and then set free shortly after the successful coup of September 11, 1973. Upon his release, he was assigned to serve in the Estadio Chile.

Survivors of the detention center have testified that on his arrival at the stadium he was full of spite and vengeful due to his recent imprisonment under the Unidad Popular and quickly gained a reputation as a sadist. Due to his good looks and arrogant swagger he received the nickname “The Prince”. An ex-prisoner, Chilean attorney Boris Navia, described “the Prince’s” modus operandi: “He would make rounds through the different levels of the Stadium screaming insults and intimidating prisoners. He would show up unexpectedly in a section of the Stadium and the prisoners had to remain silent in his presence. He behaved like a frustrated stage actor. He always carried a leather club and when he walked through the rows of prisoners who were waiting to be brought into the stadium and had been on their knees for hours and hours with their hands on their heads he would hit and insult them”. In another episode described by ex prisoners, “The Prince”, ordered another soldier to kill a prisoner by beating him with his rifle after he tripped and stumbled over his legs. According to testimonies such as these, Dimter was directly involved in the beating and death of Victor Jara.
(snip/...)

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0808-30.htm

~~~~~~~~~

Here are photos of the day a crowd, containing Victor Jara's daughter, Amanda, went to confront the killer. I can't really understand too much of the Spanish in the article, so I can't tell what the hell happened, but the look on his face would indicate he wasn't happy. Good!



http://trincheradelaimagen.blogspot.com/2006/05/edwin-dimter-bianchi.html

I hope to find out more about this as time goes by, and I also would hope it means there's the chance of the people involved in torturing and murdering people in the present of having to face the world in the days and years ahead. Justice is so rare, anymore!

[mitchtv]

9. I am a HUGE fan

I have his album on vinyl
lots of good ones
"El Derecho de Vivir en Paz" one of my all time favorites
Joan Baez does a great "Amanda"

[Judi Lynn]

11. Wow! I found the song playing behind a slide show of Diego Rivera paintings.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8602436899953438515&q=Victor+Jara+%22%22El+Derecho+de+Vivir+en+Paz%22%22&total=14&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4

His voice is simply tremendous.

I'll look forward to hearing Joan Baez's recording of "Amanda." Thanks for mentioning both songs.

[mitchtv]

12. Thanks for that

It made my day. Remember Sept 11 (Chile's)

[Judi Lynn]

2. Personal remarks by a Caravan participant, may he burn in hell.

Colonel Benavente reveals that his former subordinate, Captain Antonio Palomo Contreras, participated in secret missions to eliminate political prisoners.

"Yes, and it was Palomo who had the orders to make them disappear, using his helicopter. Some of these bodies were dropped into the ocean; others were thrown on the high peaks of the Andes. Palomo should remember this perfectly well."
There are still more nauseating secrets to be unravelled from the Pinochet's period, that veritable Pandora's box. The latest came to light in the Chilean paper La Tercera of 25th June 1999 which published declarations of retired Colonel Oglanier Benavente that are very damaging for two retired Chilean generals, both under arrest; Augusto Pinochet in England and Sergio Arellano Stark in Chile. The former does not need introduction. Arellano Stark was the infamous officer who, shortly after the coup of September 1973, presided over a delegation which went to different provinces to put pressure on commanders who were considered to be excessively lenient in handling the defeated Allende's supporters. Arellano Stark's delegation, known as the Caravan of Death, illegally executed 72 political prisoners in October of 1973, a deed that heralded the sinister character of the newly born regime.

Colonel Benavente, now 70 years old, was then the Governor of Talca Province, 150 miles south from Santiago, the capital of Chile. "I have nothing to hide," he said, thus breaching a tacit pact of silence regarding the atrocities committed during the Pinochet era 1973-1990. For the first time, an ex-army officer has confirmed the method used in Chile to eliminate political prisoners. An undetermined number of disappeared detainees were dropped from helicopters during the military dictatorship. Colonel Benavente revealed that his former subordinate, Captain Antonio Palomo Contreras, participated in secret missions to eliminate leftist prisoners.

Captain Palomo, as Benavente's subordinate, never found any difficulty in disclosing to him "all the crimes". Palomo belonged to the Air Command of the Chilean Army based at the Tobalaba airport, on the outskirts of Santiago. He was also one of the pilots of the Caravan of Death, and told Benavente that he participated in the "disappearances and killings" of prisoners in Santiago's Tacna Regiment and was in charge of the secret disposal of the bodies.
(snip/...)

http://www.remember-chile.org.uk/inside/benavente.htm

[Cleita]

3. Yes, this sorry episode in Chilean history was brought to you

courtesy of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Now Nixon has died without being brought to trial like Pinnochet, but shouldn't Henry Kissinger be brought to justice somehow, some way? As long as these demagogues and demagogue makers don't get tried and punished, they will continue to wreak havoc across the globe. Now we can't bring them all to justice, nor should we like we did Saddam. That was plainly wrong and we were out of line there, but we should take care of our own, like Kissinger and eventually Bush and his cabal. I would like to see all of them whisked off to the Hague for trial. If the gods are listening, please make it happen.

[Judi Lynn]

8. No doubt Kissinger's travel is limited, since people in Chile want to sue him for participating

in the planning of their father's (General René Schneider) murder.

Here's a Wikipedia version of some of the problems with these two murderous clowns:

A CIA group was set up in Langley, Virginia, with the express purpose of running a "two track" policy for Chile: one the ostensible diplomatic one and the other - unknown to the State Department or the US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry - a strategy of destabilisation, kidnap and assassination, designed to provoke a military coup. On October 15, 1970, Kissinger was told of an extremist right-wing officer named General Roberto Viaux, who had ties to Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Liberty, a quasi-fascist group intent on defying the election results) and who was willing to accept the secret US commission to remove General Schneider. Kissinger's Track Two group authorised the supply of machine guns as well as tear gas grenades to Viaux's associates.

The CIA in Santiago kept contact with two groups inside the military and provided guns and money for kidnapping Schneider, but the fact that he was killed during the operation effectively put an end to any further direct attempts for the time being. It is unclear whether the U.S. State Department sanctioned CIA assistance to Viaux, as declassified documents show that National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon had expressed intentions to withhold support over concerns that the coup would fail a week before it actually took place.

In the October 15 memo, Kissinger and Karamessines developed last-minute second thoughts about Viaux, who as late as October 13 had been given $20,000 in cash from the CIA station and promised a life insurance policy of $250,000. This offer was authorised directly from the White House. However, with only days to go before Allende was inaugurated, and with Nixon repeating that "it was absolutely essential that the election of Mr Allende to the Presidency be thwarted", the pressure on the plotters became intense. As a direct consequence, especially after the warm words of encouragement he had been given, General Viaux felt himself under some obligation to deliver also, and to disprove those who had doubted him.<3>
(snip)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Schneider

[Cleita]

10. That whole CIA operation was to protect the interests

of Anaconda Copper and Kennecott Copper, which they pretty much lost anyway. It didn't change the suffering the Chilean people had to endure though with the destruction of their democracy. Kissinger really needs to go on trial for war crimes IMHO. I think Nixon and any of the others complicit in the various coups orchestrated in Latin American countries in the last century should also go on trial as well even if it's posthumously. I hope some country or countries or even the UN tries to do it one of these days. Let's not forget Ollie North either. None of these people are loyal American citizens but tools of international corporate interests.

[mitchtv]

13. I was in Lima the day they assasinated Gral Schneider

Everyone ther knew it was CIA, but somehow it took years for that knowledge to arrive here. Maybe because of the condition of news reporting in Latino America.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Caravan of death discussed: "Pinochet in Winter:he General Blacks Out"

March 1, 2001
Pinochet in Winter
The General Blacks Out

~snip~
On January 7, Chilean president Ricardo Lagos made a nationally televised speech detailing new evidence of the atrocities committed during Pinochet's reign of terror. Lagos described how Chilean military intelligence agents dumped more than 120 bodies of murdered Chileans (many of them members of the Chilean Communist Party) into "the ocean, lakes and rivers of Chile." Lagos said that the government had also located a mass grave inside Santiago, containing more than 20 bodies. Other evidence emerging from the files of the Chilean military describes summary executions, torture, and how bodies were blown up with dynamite. It has been suggested that the military, under the leadership of Gen. Ricardo Izurieta, has cooperated in order to secure the purchase of a fleet of F-16 fighters.

Then on January 27, Pinochet's old friend, Gen. Joaquin Lagos Osorio, implicated him in the assassinations committed by the Caravan of Death unit. It was payback, of a sort, since only the week before Pinochet had told his interogators that Lagos was person behind the killings and that he had acted without his authority. "I am not a criminal," Pinochet exclaimed.

But Lagos had evidence to undermine the general: a list of political prisoners on which Pinochet had marked which ones were to be killed. Lagos told his story to an interviewer with Chile's Television Nacional on January 27, when he also disclosed a copy of the list. "In the last conversation I had with Pinochet, he did something I never expected. He ordered me to 'Never mention the list,' and for me to sign it. In that case, I would be the only one responsible, as the crimes were committed in my jurisdiction. I told him that, and he said he would fix it. I said, 'What are you going to fix? They are all dead!'"

Then Lagos described in gruesome detail how the murders took place. "They were torn apart," he said. They were no longer human bodies. I wanted to at least put the bodies back together again, to leave them more decent. But you couldn't. They cut eyes out with daggers. They broke their jaws and legs. Even at the firing squad, the killed them slowly. They shot them to pieces, first the legs, then the sexual organs, then the heart, all with machine guns."

His friends in the US government have also proved less than stalwart. After Pinochet was placed under house arrest in London following his indictment by a Spanish court, Bill Clinton, in one of his few honorable acts, instructed the CIA and the State Department to open their files on Chile from the Allende government through the Pinochet regime. Documents released in November revealed a direct Pinochet link to the assassination on September 11, 1976 of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean diplomat in the Allende governemt who, along with his American associate, Ronni Moffitt, was killed by a car bomb in on Sheridan Circle in Washington DC.

The State Department cables reveal that in the summer of 1976 Pinochet called Paraguyan dictator Alfredo Stroessner asking him to issue "cover" passports with phoney names for Letelier's assassins, Michael Townley and Armando Fernandez Larios, so that they could travel to the United States to complete their mission. Ultimately, the killers entered the US on doctored Chilean passports. The CIA and FBI knew the men were in Washington and probably knew their mission, yet did nothing to impede them.

Letelier and Moffitt's attorney, Sam Buffone, says that the State Department documents provide convincing proof of Pinochet's direct involvement in the assassination and should form the basis of an indictment for the murders.

The documents also show yet more blood on the hands of the CIA. Some months prior to the Letelier and Moffitt killings, the State Department had instructed its ambassador to Chile, David Popper, and the CIA to express concern about Pinochet's Operation Condor, the assassination program against dissidents run by Chilean intelligence. Popper refused, writing in a cable that Pinochet "might well take as an insult any inference that he was connected with such assassination plots."

The CIA, operating out of Popper's office, also ignored orders to raise complaints with Manuel Contreras, head of Chilean military intelligence. Contreras was ultimately convicted by a Chilean court for his involvement in the assassination of Letelier. But many believe that Contreras was on the CIA's payroll. We may never know for sure. Because the newly released files show that in 1991, the CIA destroyed a security file on Contreras, a file that almost certainly detailed Contreras' work for the agency.

At the same time, the CIA was amassing the names and addresses of Chilean dissidents who would later be hunted down and murdered by Pinochet's band of killers. There is the case of Frank Teruggi, a Leftist American journalist, who, only days after the coup in 1973, was dragged out of his home in Santiago, tortured and killed by the military. Terguggi's name and address showed up in CIA files from a year prior to the coup, leading Peter Kornbluh, director of the National Security Archives, to suggest that the CIA may have fingered Teruggi to Pinochet's men.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/pinochet.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Is everyone aware Chile lost its great Pinochet serving torturer, Osvaldo Romo, in July?

Infamous Pinochet-era torturer dies in Chile
Wed Jul 4, 2007 3:29PM EDT

SANTIAGO, July 4 (Reuters) - A notorious Chilean agent who confessed to torturing political opponents during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet died on Wednesday having served five years in prison for human rights abuses.

Osvaldo Romo, known as "El Guaton" (The fat one), died of heart failure in a prison hospital in the Chilean capital Santiago at 4:45 a.m. (0845 GMT), the hospital said in a statement. He was 69.

Romo was an officer in the DINA, the intelligence service set up by Pinochet after he seized power in a military coup in 1973.

The coup ushered in 17 years of dictatorship in Chile during which nearly 3,200 died in political violence, the vast majority killed by Pinochet's men. A further 28,000 were tortured and thousands fled into exile.

Romo worked at Santiago's Villa Grimaldi, the most notorious of the DINA's detention centers.

Michelle Bachelet, Chile's current president and a longtime opponent of the Pinochet regime, was briefly detained at the center in the 1970s.

Survivors of Villa Grimaldi described Romo as a sadistic and psychopathic torturer, and in television interviews conducted from prison in recent years, the rotund former officer openly discussed his torture techniques.

"He felt satisfied with what he'd done because his view was that at that moment in history his country needed his services, and that made him happy," Romo's former defense lawyer, Enrique Ibarra, told reporters on Wednesday.
(snip/...)

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN04371134



Romo has his own Wikipedia:

~snip~
Osvaldo Romo made himself known in working classes' neighborhoods before Pinochet's coup in 1973 as a leftist activist, member of the Partido Socialista Popular and sympathizant of the MIR <1>. Following the coup, he reappeared in these neighborhoods with a military uniform, arresting his friends and contacts. Left-wing circles still debate to know if he suddenly changed political orientation or if he always was a mole for the security services <1>.
(snip)

Excerpt from a Univision interview:

—Would you do it again? Would you do it the same way?
—Sure, I'd do the same and more. I wouldn't leave anybody alive (...) That was one of DINA's mistakes. I was always arguing with my general: don't leave that person alive, don't let that person go free. There are consequences.
—As for throwing the corpses of the prisoners into the sea...
—I think it could have happened. (...) Throwing them into the crater of a volcano would be better... (...) Who'd go looking for them in a volcano? Nobody.
—On the day you die... what would your epitaph say? "Here lies the hangman, the torturer, the murderer..."
—Logical, logical. I accept that. But for me it was a positive thing. (...) I am at peace with my conscience and my beliefs.

– Extract from the interview,
(snip)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvaldo_Romo