over the years 70 and 80 in the middle of the cold war, it was orchestrated a plan that would allow coordination and support between the dictatorial governments of the American South Cone. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, with the economic, strategic and information sponsorship of the United States. Operation Condor, was the way in which the dictatorships of the south of the American continent, found to end the political and democratic opposition to become dictatorial, regressive, abusive and bloodthirsty countries. To know the how, the why and by whom, It is part of the objective of this article.
The Condor operation | What was Operation Condor?
Chile, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador are countries of the American South Cone that, in addition to sharing a continent, share the representation of a bird on their shields. Perhaps one of the largest and most beautiful birds on earth, whose habitat is found in the jungles of the south of the continent. This bird is the Condorand that is the reason why this operation was called like this, Operation Condor or Plan Condor.
Operation Condor was a repressive system devised by the intelligence services and coordinated by the security forces of the dictatorial countries of the American South Cone, made up of Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguayto a lesser extent Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.
To this list must be added the United States, which in the midst of the cold war, saw the opportunity to put an end to any outburst of leftist thoughts, and supported with its intelligence services, with the support of the CIA and with important economic contributions.
The Condor operation | Main protagonists
The US has always defined Operation Condor as the code name of the an agreement on cooperation and coordination of intelligence services of the southern countries to put an end to any Marxist activity in the area, in short, it was about ending any opposition to the regime. The main protagonists in this atrocity, called operation condor, were:
- Chile – Augusto Pinochet
- Bolivia – Hugo Banzer
- Paraguay – Alfredo Stroessner
- Brazil – Joao Figueredo
- Argentina – Rafael Videla
- Uruguay – Juan Maria Bodaberry
- USA – Henry Kissinger
The Condor operation | Background
As we have already mentioned that it was an organization in which several countries were involved, so it was international in nature, in which State terrorism prevailed, pretending through fear, kidnapping and murder, put an end to any hint of freedom or democracy.
To explain this barbarity we must place ourselves a little earlier in time, meetings between the CIA and security officials, especially Uruguayans and Argentineswhere the form of surveillance of both political exiles and the actions to be followed were discussed the death squads both Brazilians, Argentines and Uruguayans.
death squads, They were organized groups belonging to the extreme right who were dedicated to extortion, robbery, kidnappings, torture, attacks and of course murders, its main victims, the dissidents. It was really the paramilitary group, which acted according to the instructions of the dictator, so that it was legal, they would solve what could be frowned upon internationally.
always resorting to declassified CIA documentsit is known that this supplied various torture equipment to the security forces mainly, Brazilian and Argentine, as well as giving them the guidelines to improve torture techniques, techniques to know the degree of resistance to pain of a human body.
Operation Condor It can be nailed down as a criminal pact that could be carried out thanks to the network of dictatorships that began to proliferate throughout the southern cone of the continent. An operation that could not have been carried out without the help of the United States and its Intelligence service, which are mainly interested in ending any Marxist focus or socialist currents that could take place on the continent.
In order to control the entire continent it was necessary for the military to occupy high government positions, thus in 1954 Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan military man who came to power after a coup. In Brazil, the military overthrew Democratic President João Goulart in 1964, bringing to power the military Ranieri Mazzilli. The general Hugo Banzer in Bolivia in 1971, in 1973 the General Pinochet bombs the house of La Moneda overthrowing the socialist president Salvador Allende. Also in 1973 the dictatorship was installed in Uruguay, in 1976 it was Raphael Videla the one that gave the military coup d’état in Argentina.
The Condor operation | How it was executed
It all started in Chile on November 25, 1975a meeting between Manuel Contreraschief of the Chilean secret police or DINA, and the heads of the intelligence services of Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. Now it is known, and thanks to the latest files that have recently been declassified, that Manuel Contreras in 1975 was invited to visit the CIA headquarters in Langley for at least 15 days.
A year after that signing in 1976, it was already the DINA and its namesake Argentine SIDEwere the ones who carried the weight of the famous Condor Plan or Operation Condor.
Thanks to the number of documents that have recently been declassified, known as Terror Files, we can know the fate of thousands of citizens who were kidnapped to later be tortured and killed by the security services of the countries that are part of the operation. The data that these files show cannot leave us indifferent.
- 50,000 People Killed
- 30,000 disappeared
- 400,000 imprisoned
The Condor operation | Impact
The consequences are known to all, no one forgets the famous mothers of plaza de mayo, those women who keep asking to know what happened to their families. The consequences were devastating, young people who disappeared from their homes and were never seen again.
Pregnant women who disappeared and who after giving birth turned up dead, their babies delivered to military families as soon as they were born, ripped from their mothers’ arms.
murders like that of the Chilean general Carlos Prats and the former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier, they were directly orchestrated by this sinister alliance called operation condor. Other assassination attempts such as Bernard Leighton, in Italy who was seriously injured along with his wife, other Argentine political leaders suffered various attacks and bombings in Rome. Spain was not left out either, in Madrid attempts were made to kidnap different leaders of the Revolutionary Left Movement of Chile.
the condor operation It had long tentacles, the desire to put an end to any type of dissidence, it ended up acting not only in the countries that were part of the operation, but also the squads operated both in the US and in Europe.
The Condor operation: Consequences | Argentina
In 1974 the retired Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife, who lived in Argentina, seeing the situation in the country, began the procedures to leave it. A few days later, an American citizen and, for more information, a CIA agent, planted a remote activation bomb, which ended the life of the couple.
But the objective was not always to end the life of the political opponent, other times I was more interested in the capture and delivery to the countries of origin, with the excuse of considering them subversive or seditious people, more than enough excuse to justify its disappearance. Cases like that of the Zaffaroni, a married couple kidnapped and disappeared on September 27, 1976, when they were taken to the center Orletti Automotive.
Orletti Automotive, it was the name of a clandestine center to which political detainees were takenif they tortured and exterminated. The couple was never seen again, but in 1998, this case hit the media when the couple’s daughter appeared, who had been given up for adoption to a family that knew how to lead her on the right path, an agent of the Argentine Intelligence Secretariat.
The Condor operation: Consequences | Uruguay
Juan Maria Bordaberry self-proclaimed dictator of Uruguay as was normal and usual among the dictators of the time, banned the existence of any other political party. In the period from 1973 to 1985, a large number of people were murdered, kidnapped, tortured and made to disappear, the fight against the subversives was the excuse.
Behind the back of the Uruguayan government, the security services were already receiving advice from the CIA on torture methods since 1973. Uruguay was of all the countries in which the condor operation worked, the one that got to kidnap the most political prisoners.
The subject of this article is too extensive to cover it in a single publication, in a short time we will continue to expand it until it is complete.
From SobreHistoria we have thought it convenient to show you some links that may interest you.
The Condor operation | Photo gallery
Many times A picture is worth a thousand words. In this terrible photo gallery where the violence of the images and their realism can give us an idea of the magnitude of what happened in this terrible criminal conspiracy.