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Uruguay is the country where Nixon sent U.S. torturer, Dan Mitrione, to "educate" the local police in ways to torture any rebels they could locate. See this video with comments by former US CIA guy, Phillip Agee, and an excellent author, A.J. Langguth. A little over 4 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIodEJ_EcY8The Tupamaros Interrogate Dan Mitrione: Rare Audio Recording (1970) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyUk_YRdiXU&feature=relatedCosta-Gavras made a movie based on his story, "State of Siege," and it was scheduled to open in a premier at the Kennedy Center, and it was abruptly cancelled. It did NOT show widely in the U.S. It was not covered by critics. It was suppressed. It's virtually impossible to run down a copy to see at home. Daniel A. Mitrione (August 4, 1920–August 10, 1970) was an Italian-born<1> American police officer, FBI agent and a United States government security advisor for the CIA in Latin America.
Career
Mitrione was a police officer in Richmond, Indiana from 1945 to 1947 and joined the FBI in 1959. In 1960 he was assigned to State Department's International Cooperation Administration, going to South American countries to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." A.J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, claimed that Mitrione was among the US advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them<2> Langguth also claimed that older police officers were replaced "when the CIA and the U.S. police advisers had turned to harsher measures and sterner men."<3> and that under the new head of the U.S. Public Safety program in Uruguay, Dan Mitrione, the United States "introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil… torture had become routine at the Montevideo jefatura." <4>
From 1960 to 1967, Mitrione worked with the Brazilian police, first in Belo Horizonte then in Rio de Janeiro. A trainer in torture classes given to Brazilian police in Belo Horizonte, he led "practical demonstrations" of torture techniques using prisoners and beggars taken off the streets. According to a former student, Mitrione has insisted, in agreement with the CIA manual, that effective torture was science. He returned to the US in 1967 to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (AID), in Washington D.C.. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under the AID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety. Screenwriter Franco Solinas, a member of the Italian Communist Party, claims Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 US intervention.<5>
Uruguayan posting and death
In this period the Uruguayan government, led by the Colorado Party, had its hands full with a collapsing economy, labor and student strikes, and the Tupamaros, a left-wing urban guerilla group. On the other hand, Washington feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende, in 1970. <6> The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practiced since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine.<7> He is quoted as having said once: "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect." <8> Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives claimed Mitrione had taught torture techniques to Uruguayan police in the cellar of his Montevideo home, including the use of electrical shocks delivered to his victims' mouths and genitals.<9> He also helped train foreign police agents in the United States in the context of the Cold War. It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were allegedly executed once they had served their purpose.<10>
As the use of torture grew and the tensions in Uruguay escalated, Mitrione was eventually kidnapped by the Tupamaros on July 31, 1970. They proceeded to interrogate him about his past and the intervention of the U.S. government in Latin American affairs. They also demanded the release of 150 political prisoners.<11> The Uruguayan government, with U.S. backing, refused, and Mitrione was later found dead in a car, shot twice in the head and with no other visible signs of maltreatment (beyond the fact that, during the kidnapping, Mitrione had been shot in one shoulder—for which he had evidently been treated while in captivity).<12>
After being released from prison the leader of the Tupamaros, Raul Sendic, revealed that Mitrione had not been suspected of teaching torture techniques to the police. He had trained police in riot control and was targeted for kidnapping as retaliation for the deaths of student protestors. <13>
Nixon Administration accolade
For its part, the Nixon Administration through spokesman Ron Ziegler affirmed that Mitrione's "devoted service to the cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world will remain as an example for free men everywhere" <14>.
Personal life
Mitrione was married and he had nine children. His funeral was largely publicised by the U.S. media, and it was attended by, amongst others, David Eisenhower and Richard Nixon's secretary of state William Rogers. Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis held a benefit concert for his family in Richmond, Indiana.<15> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mitrione~~~~~~~~~~~~Daniel Mitrione was born in Italy on 4th August, 1920. The family emigrated to the United States and in 1945 Mitrione became a police officer in Richmond, Indiana.
Mitrione joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1959. The following year he was assigned to the State Department's International Cooperation Administration. He was then sent to South America to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." His speciality was in teaching the police how to torture political prisoners without killing them.
According to A.J. Langguth of the New York Times, Mitrione was working for the CIA via the International Development's Office of Public Safety (OPS). We know he was in several foreign countries but between 1960 and 1967 he spent a lot of time in Brazil and was involved in trying to undermine the left-wing president João Goulart, who had taken power after President Juscelino Kubitschek resigned from office in 1961.
João Goulart was a wealthy landowner who was opposed to communism. However, he was in favour of the redistribution of wealth in Brazil. As minister of labour he had increased the minimum wage by 100%. Colonel Vernon Walters, the US military attaché in Brazil, described Goulart as “basically a good man with a guilty conscience for being rich.”
The CIA began to make plans for overthrowing Goulart. A psychological warfare program approved by Henry Kissinger, at the request of telecom giant ITT during his chair of the 40 Committee, sent U.S. PSYOPS disinformation teams to spread fabricated rumors concerning Goulart. John McCloy was asked to set up a channel of communication between the CIA and Jack W. Burford, one of the senior executives of the Hanna Mining Company. In February, 1964, McCloy went to Brazil to hold secret negotiations with Goulart. However, Goulart rejected the deal offered by Hanna Mining.
The following month Lyndon B. Johnson gave the go-ahead for the overthrow of João Goulart (Operation Brother Sam). Colonel Vernon Walters arranged for General Castello Branco to lead the coup. A US naval-carrier task force was ordered to station itself off the Brazilian coast. As it happens, the Brazilian generals did not need the help of the task force. Goulart’s forces were unwilling to defend the democratically elected government and he was forced to go into exile. This action ended democracy in Brazil for more than twenty years. According to David Kaiser (American Tragedy) this event marks the change in the foreign policy developed by John F. Kennedy. Once again, Johnson showed that his policy was to support non-democratic but anti-communist, military dictatorships, and that he had fully abandoned Kennedy’s neutralization policy.
Mitrione remained in Brazil to help the new government deal with the supporters of João Goulart. According to Franco Solinas, Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 US intervention.
In 1967 Mitrione returned to the United States to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (AID), in Washington. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under the AID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety. At this time the Uruguayan government was led by the very unpopular Colorado Party. Richard Nixon and the CIA feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende.
The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practiced since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine. He is quoted as having said: "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect." It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were allegedly executed once they had served their purpose.
On July 31, 1970, the Tupamaros kidnapped Daniel Mitrione and an Agency for International Development associate, Claude L. Fly. Although they released Fry they proceeded to interrogate Mitrione about his past and the intervention of the U.S. government in Latin American affairs. They also demanded the release of 150 political prisoners. The Uruguayan government, with U.S. backing, refused, and Mitrione was later found dead in a car. He had been shot twice in the head but there was no evidence that he had been tortured.
The Secretary of State William P. Rogers and President Nixon's son-in-law David Eisenhower attended Mitrione's funeral. The Uruguayan ambassador, Hector Luisi, promised that the people responsible for Mitrione's death would "reap the wrath of civilized people everywhere".
A few days after the funeral, a senior Uruguayan police officer, Alejandro Otero, told the Jornal do Brasil that Mitrione had been employed to teach the police to use "violent techniques of torture and repression". The US government issued a statement calling this charge "absolutely false" and insisted he was a genuicentne member of the Agency for International Development. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmitrione.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is a whole lot more to be learned on this guy, who made trips to meet with Jim Jones (Jonestown massacre, cyanide-laced Koolaid) and I've seen multiple references to it, but I absolutely haven't had the time I would need to get in there and start tracking it all down, yet. It's in my plans. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brief summary of the Tupamaros: The Tupamaro movement was named after the Inca revolutionary Túpac Amaru II. Its origins lie in the union between the Movimiento de Apoyo al Campesino (Peasant Support Movement) and the members of trade unions funded by Sendic in poverty-stricken rural zones. It grew in proportion to the ascending powers of Uruguay's military, which culminated in a notoriously oppressive dictatorship between 1973 and 1984.
The movement began by staging the robbing of banks, gun clubs and other businesses in the early 1960s, then distributing stolen food and money among the poor in Montevideo. It took as slogan "Words divide us; action unites us" <1>.
At the beginning, it abstained from armed actions and violence; they have always made clear about not being a guerrilla group but a political movement; the eventual use of violent means would be made according to strategy and possibilities. In June 1968, President Jorge Pacheco, trying to suppress labour unrest, enforced a state of emergency and repealed all constitutional safeguards. The government imprisoned political dissidents, used torture during interrogations and brutally repressed demonstrations. The Tupamaro movement engaged then in political kidnappings, "armed propaganda" and assassinations. Of particular note are the kidnapping of powerful bank manager Pereyra Rebervel and of the British ambassador to Uruguay, Geoffrey Jackson, as well as the assassination of Dan Mitrione, the FBI agent documented to have taught techniques of torture to police forces in various Latin American countries. A very close friend to President Jorge Pacheco, the banker Pereyra Rebervel was highly unpopular, having "once killed a newsboy for selling a paper attacking him." He was released four days later, unharmed but a bit fatter. According to Langguth, the "poor in Montevideo were quoted as joking, 'Attention, Tupamaros! Kidnap me!'" <1>.
The peak of the Tupamaros was in 1970 and 1971. During this period they made liberal use of their Cárcel del Pueblo (or People's Prison) where they held those that they kidnapped and interrogated them, without using torture, before making the results of these interviews public. In 1971 over 100 imprisoned Tupamaros escaped the Punta Carretas prison. In the same year, in an uncleared episode, Pascasio Báez, a rural laborer that accidentally discovered one of their hideouts was killed.
Nonetheless, the movement was hampered by a series of events including important strategic gaffes and the betrayal of high-ranking Tupamaro Héctor Amodio Pérez, and the army's counteroffensive, which included the Escuadrón de la Muerte (Death squad), police officers who were granted repressive powers to deal with Tupamaros.
Along with police forces trained by the US Office of Public Safety (OPS), the Uruguayan military unleashed a bloody campaign of mass arrests and selected disappearances, dispersing those guerrillas who were not killed or arrested. Their usage of torture was particularly effective, and by 1972 the MLN had been severely weakened. Its principal leaders were imprisoned under terrible conditions for the next 12 years.
Despite the diminished threat, the civilian government of Juan María Bordaberry ceded government authority to the military in July, 1973 in a bloodless coup that led to further repression against the population and the suppression of all parties. The following month, the Tupamaros formed the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta with other leftwing groups pursuing urban guerrilla warfare in the Southern Cone. The following year, various South American regimes responded with the collaborative, international counterinsurgency campaign known as Operation Condor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupamaros |
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