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| Kissinger Watch #13 - 1 |
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| New lawsuit against Henry Kissinger / by ICAI |
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On November 13, 2002, 11 victims who suffered grave human rights violations following Pinochet's bloody September 11, 1973 coup in Chile, brought a suit against Henry Kissinger in federal District Court in the District of Columbia for, among other things, crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, and wrongful death. The suit alleges that Henry Kissinger knowingly provided practical assistance and encouragement to the Chilean repressive regime before, during, and after the coup, with reckless disregard for the lives and well-being of the victims and their families.
This lawsuit was brought pursuant to international and domestic law, including the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows non-citizens to sue human rights violators in U.S. courts for violations of the law of nations. As a civil lawsuit, liability rests on, among other things, well-established federal common law tort principles of third-party liability as well as international law principles of aiding and abetting and accomplice liability.
Recently declassified U.S. government documents and Congressional reports provided the plaintiffs with the information necessary to bring this suit against Kissinger. The documents show that with the practical assistance and encouragement of the United States and the official and Kissinger's extra-official acts, the Chilean terror apparatus conducted systematic human rights violations against the plaintiffs and their relatives. The documents illustrate, for example, that on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military, with Kissinger's ongoing and continuous knowledge, funding, assistance and encouragement, conspired to stage a coup d'état that overthrew the democratically-elected President of Chile, Dr. Salvador Allende, forcing the nation of Chile into the foreseeable and actual period of widespread violence and terror that lasted for seventeen years. Kissinger's assistance to the repressive regime continued in the years following the coup. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are victims of that violence and terror.
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| OVERVIEW - Kissinger Watch #13 |
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