Argentine court sentences ex-dictator for Operation Condor

DEBORA REY, Associated Press
LUIS ANDRES HENAO, Associated Press


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Reynaldo Bignone, the last military president in Argentina's dictatorship, was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison for the forced disappearance of more than 100 people during the Operation Condor conspiracy to hunt down dissidents across South America.

In the landmark trial, 14 other former military officials received prison sentences of eight to 25 years for criminal association, kidnapping and torture. Two of the accused were absolved.

Operation Condor was launched in the 1970s by six South American dictators who used their secret police networks in a coordinated effort to hunt down their leftists and opponents across the region and eliminate them. Some leftist dissidents had fled to exile in neighboring countries.

Bignone, 88, was accused of being part of an illicit association, kidnapping and abusing his powers in office. The former general who ruled Argentina in 1982-1983 is already serving life sentences for multiple human rights violations during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Friday's sentences are seen as a milestone because they mark the first time a court has proved that the criminal conspiracy called Operation Condor was carried out by the dictators of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

"Operation Condor affected my life, my family," Chilean Laura Elgueta told The Associated Press outside the court room. Her brother, Luis Elgueta, was forcibly dissapeared in Buenos Aires in 1976 as part of Operation Condor.

"This trial is very meaningful because it's the first time that a court is ruling against this sinister Condor plan."

A key piece of evidence in the case was a declassified FBI agent's cable, sent in 1976, that described in detail the conspiracy to share intelligence and eliminate leftists across South America.

Operation Condor was launched in November 1975 by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who enlisted other dictators. But the covert program went much further: the U.S. government later determined that Chilean agents involved in Condor killed the country's former ambassador Orlando Letelier and his U.S. aide Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C., in September 1976.

Operation Condor's agents also tracked other exiles across Europe in efforts to eliminate them.

-- (c) Associated Press 2016-05-28

Forgot to mention the implication of" Nobel Laureate" Kissinger and the C.I.A. who instigated this plot.

....acting on whose behalf....???

...interference of any kind in a country other than your own should obviously not be tolerated...

...oh yeah but then.....no wars....no sale of arms........

Yep, Kissinger and the CIA sponsoring the overthrow of the democratically elected leftist Chilean Govt by bombing the presidential and even the government buildings in '73 and installing Pinochet. You can bet Pinochet is not the only U.S. link to Operation Condor either, its aim of going after leftists seem to dovetail a bit too nice and neatly with the U.S.'s. So, it is rather ironic that once it is discovered that things got a bit out of hand and a few American dignitaries were killed by agents of the program that it all starts getting called crime, kidnapping and torture, yet you can scarcely raise an eyebrow, that kind of thing is the modus operandi of the Empire and no end in sight and nothing anyone can do to stop it, not even Islamic militants.

Greatest miscarriage of justice: Kissinger still free.

I lived down there in the 70s. The fear of God when the olive colored Ford Falcons coming down the street (military police). Videla and the rest of them, rot in hell.