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| Kissinger Watch #10 - 06 | |
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| Argentina Felt U.S. 'Understood' Junta Tactics Human Rights Violations Left Over 9,000 People Dead or Missing | |
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| By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 22, 2002; Page A14 Argentina's ruling military junta believed in 1976 the U.S. government supported its war against the leftist opposition and would not make an issue of human rights violations that in the next seven years would leave more than 9,000 people dead or missing, according to recently declassified diplomatic cable traffic. A string of messages to the State Department from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires reported that the leaders of Argentina's dictatorship returned from meetings with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller with the conviction that the United States "understood" the junta's tactics and would not directly oppose them. In an October 1976 cable, U.S. Ambassador Robert Hill told his superiors that the Argentine foreign minister, Adm. Carlos Guzzetti, had expected members of the Ford administration to deliver a firm warning about Argentina's human rights violations. Instead, Hill reported, Guzzetti returned "in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG [U.S. government] over this issue." The documents are among 4,677 pages released Monday by the State Department after years of lobbying by Argentine survivors and concerned U.S. organizations. They suggest that the Ford administration did little to deter the junta and its death squads even as the U.S. Embassy was complaining to the Argentine government about the disappearance, abduction or torture of several dozen U.S. citizens, said Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive. "You've got the Argentines telling the ambassador, 'Washington understands. What's your problem?' " said Blanton, whose organization lobbied for the release of the documents. "These documents show that the Argentine military really believed that the highest levels of the U.S. government approved of their all-out attack on terrorism, no matter what the cost was in human rights." Critics of Kissinger have long charged that means were secondary to ends in his approach to geopolitics, whether in Latin America or Southeast Asia. In Chile, activists have filed a lawsuit against him and administration colleagues, charging that they helped organize Operation Condor, a covert program of repression among right-wing dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Yet a member of Kissinger's staff, in one of the declassified documents, suggested the Argentine foreign minister had heard what he wanted to hear. Last night, William Rogers, assistant secretary of state for Latin America during this period, called it "inconceivable" that Kissinger gave any signal of approval to Guzzetti. "The idea that he was giving green lights was a legend, fabricated out of whole cloth," Rogers said, adding that Kissinger's likely message was "of course we want you to end the terrorism. It's destabilizing Argentina. But you must do it within the rule of law. Murder is not an acceptable method." Hill reported that Guzzetti drew a dramatically different conclusion, that Kissinger simply wanted the Argentines to conclude their anti-terrorism campaign "as quickly as possible." In a September 1976 cable, Hill reported that he was dispatched by the State Department to tell the junta leadership of growing U.S. alarm at the repression in Argentina. Guzzetti reacted with surprise, Hill said, to news that rights abuses were the "burning issue" in U.S.-Argentine relations. "We believed murdering priests and dumping 47 bodies in the street in one day could not be seen in context of defeating terrorists quickly," Hill wrote on Sept. 24, 1976. "What USG hoped was that GOA [the Argentine government] could soon defeat terrorists, yes, but do so as nearly as possible within the law. I said if any other meaning had been placed on the secretary's remarks, I was sure it was a misinterpretation." Kissinger could not be reached for comment. © 2002 The Washington Post Company | |
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