13 December 2016 — — National Security Archive
OPERATION CONDOR: Officials of Amnesty International Targeted for ‘Liquidation’
New Documents Shed Light on OPERATION CONDOR, planned missions in Europe
Tag: Death Squads
OPERATION CONDOR: National Security Archive Presents Trove of Declassified Documentation in Historic Trial in Argentina
7 May 2015 — National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2015 – The National Security Archive today posted key documents on Operation Condor, presented by its Southern Cone analyst, Carlos Osorio, at a historic trial in Buenos Aires of former military officers. During 10 hours on the witness stand recently, Osorio introduced one hundred documents into evidence for the court proceedings. His testimony was profiled on May 3 in a major feature article published in the Buenos Aires daily, Pagina 12.
French TV documentary: “Shoah by Shooting—SS Death Squads in Ukraine” By Clara Weiss
22 April 2014 — WSWS
Earlier this year, the 2008 French television documentary “Shoah by Shooting—SS Death Squads in Ukraine,” by Romain Icard, was released on DVD with German subtitles by Absolut Medien. The documentary describes the journey of the French Catholic priest Patrick Desbois through Ukraine in his search for the mass graves of some 1.5 million murdered Jews.
Counterinsurgency, Death Squads, and the Population as the Target: Empire Under Obama, Part 4 By Andrew Gavin Marshall
1 November 2013 — The Hampton Institute
Part 1: Political Language and the ‘Mafia Principles’ of International Relations
Part 2: Barack Obama’s Global Terror Campaign
Part 3: America’s “Secret Wars” in Over 100 Countries Around the World
While the American Empire – and much of the policies being pursued – did not begin under President Obama, the focus of “Empire Under Obama” is to bring awareness about the nature of empire to those who may have – or continue – to support Barack Obama and who may believe in the empty promises of “hope” and “change.” Empire is institutional, not individual. Continue reading
Egypt’s Junta Has Nothing to Lose By Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
16 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The appointment of Robert Ford as the new American ambassador to Egypt was indeed an ominous sign that the Obama administration expected civil war conditions to arise in Egypt. Ford’s forte during his hugely successful «diplomatic» assignment in Baghdad in the middle of the last decade was to organize the notorious death squads, which tore Mesopotamia apart and destroyed Iraq almost irreparably.
US-Backed Death Squads Massacre Hundreds of Syrian Kurds By Stephen Lendman
9 August 2013 — Global Research
Western leaders are silent. The mainstream media ignore what demands headlines. Cold-blooded murder doesn’t matter. It’s too insignificant to report. Managed news misinformation substitutes.
Syria is America’s war. It was planned years ago. Death squads were recruited. Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and other terrorists are Washington’s shock troops.
Why Do Poor People Living in an Abandoned Skyscraper So Outrage the New Yorker? By Jim Naureckas
25 January 2013 — FAIR Blog
Jon Lee Anderson is a reporter I’ve long admired–since reading Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League, which he co-wrote in 1986. But his latest piece for the New Yorker, “Slumlord: What Has Hugo Chavez Wrought in Venezuela?” (1/28/13–subscription required), reads almost like a parody of corporate media coverage of an official enemy state.
GR Week in Review 29 December 2012 – 6 January 2013: America’s Death Squads and Dirty Tricks
6 January, 2013 — Global Research
Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
4 January 2013 — Global Research
Image: El Salvador Death squads
The recruitment of death squads is part of a well established US military-intelligence agenda. There is a long and gruesome US history of covert funding and support of terror brigades and targeted assassinations going back to the Vietnam war.
As government forces continue to confront the self-proclaimed “Free Syrian Army”(FSA), the historical roots of the West’s s covert war on Syria –which has resulted in countless atrocities– must be fully revealed.
Black Agenda Report 23 November 2011: Van Jones Is Not OWS / Black Income Segregation / Brazil Death Squads
23 November 2011 — Black Agenda Report • News, commentary and analysis from the black left
Gridlock is a Blessing: To Hell With Obama and His Van Joneses
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
As BAR predicted, gridlock – which has finished off the congressional SuperCommittee – was the last, best hope to prevent Barack Obama from consummating his marriage with the Republicans over the past year. In the interim, a new social movement has arisen. But it, too, is threatened by Obamite cooptation. Van Jones, says an organizer of Occupy DC, “is doing the dirty work of a Democratic operative and while he and other Dem front groups pretend to support Occupiers, their real mission is to co-opt it.” Gridlock has bought time for the overarching mission: “The Sword of Damocles that hovers over the planet, is Wall Street’s $600 trillion-plus derivatives, financial nuclear bombs invented by Wall Street.”
Read more
REMAINS OF TWO OF GUATEMALA’S DEATH SQUAD DIARY VICTIMS FOUND IN MASS GRAVE
22 November 2011 — National Security Archive
Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala identifies them through DNA
For more information contact: Kate Doyle – 646/670-8841
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington, D.C., November 22, 2011 – The bodies of two men whose disappearance in 1984 was recorded in the notorious Guatemalan “death squad diary” have been located on a former military base outside the capital and positively identified through DNA testing, according to the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, which announced its findings in a press conference this morning.
National Security Archive Update, June 8, 2011: “Del Silencio a la Memoria: Acto para celebrar el Informe del AHPN”
8 June 2011 — National Security Archive
Contacto: Kate Doyle – 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Hoy, el National Security Archive publica en su sitio de web una copia del informe “Del Silencio a la Memoria: Revelaciones del Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional”. Además del informe, el Archivo publica una copia del discurso de Kate Doyle (directora del Proyecto de Documentación de Guatemala) que ella dio durante la ceremonia del anuncio de la publicación del informe. La ceremonia se celebró en la Universidad de San Carlos en Guatemala City, Guatemala en el 7 junio 2011.
Today, the National Security Archive publishes a copy of the report “Of Silence to the Memory: Revelations of the Historical File of the National Police”. Besides the report, the File publishes a copy of the speech of Kate Doyle (director of the Project of Documentation of Guatemala) who gave it at the ceremony of the announcement of the publication of the report. The ceremony was celebrated in in the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 7 June 2011.
***An English version of the electronic briefing book will be posted soon.***
See the complete posting on the Archive’s web site.
The secret war between Wikileaks and the Pentagon, (and some media outlets) By Danny Schechter
25 October, 2010 — Mediachannel.org
It happened on a Friday, the anniversary of the first US casualties of the Vietnam War way back in 1957. It was also the anniversary, in 1964, of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s announcement that he was turning down the Nobel Prize. He later sat as a judge on Bertrand Russell’s Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, which indicted that conflict’s carnage and lies.
It was the day this year that the often shadowy Wikileaks, chief nemesis of the Pentagon, maybe their worst nightmare—considered perhaps even more dangerous than the Taliban– surfaced again with the largest public drop of secret military documents in history. Wikileaks is a public web site run by the Sunshine Press, a non-profit group.
For understandable reasons, the Pentagon is at war with its information war against the war—literally.
National Security Archive Update, September 29, 2010: THE UNITED STATES VS. RITO ALEJO DEL RIO
29 September, 2010 — National Security Archive
Ambassador Cited Accused Colombian General’s Reliance on Death Squads
“Systematic” Support of Paramilitaries “Pivotal to his Military Success”
Infamous General a “Not-So-Success” Story of U.S. Military Training
For more information contact:
Michael Evans – 202/994-7029
mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, September 29, 2010 – The U.S. ambassador to Colombia reported in 1998 that the “systematic arming and equipping of aggressive regional paramilitaries” was “pivotal” to the military success of Gen. Rito Alejo del Río Rojas, now on trial for murder and collaboration with paramilitary death squads while commander of a key army unit in northern Colombia.
The Secret “Biographic Note” from Ambassador Curtis Kamman is one of several documents published today by the National Security Archive pertaining to Del Río, whose trial resumes this month after years of impunity and delay. The documents are also the subject of an article published today in Spanish at VerdadAbierta.com, the leading online gateway for information on paramilitarism in Colombia. The article was also published in English today on the Web site of the National Security Archive.
“The collection is a unique and potentially valuable source of evidence in the case against Del Río, reflecting years of reports linking the senior army commander to paramilitarism,” said Michael Evans, director of the Archive’s Colombia Documentation Project. “As Del Río’s trial resumes, the court should examine the contemporaneous accounts of U.S. officials who were required by law to monitor and certify Colombia’s human rights performance.”
Other revelations include:
* The U.S. embassy takes a favorable view of Col. Carlos Alfonso Velásquez, who called for an investigation of Del Río’s ties to paramilitary groups, noting that his statements “add credibility to our human rights report.”
* A report on a conversation with Col. Velásquez, who told U.S. military officials that cooperation with paramilitaries “had gotten much worse under Del Río.”
* Documents reporting conspicuous increases in anti-paramilitary operations after Del Río’s transfer out of northern Colombia. The embassy said it was “more than coincidental that the recent anti-paramilitary actions have all taken place since the departure from northern Colombia of military personnel believed to favor paramilitaries.”
* The embassy notes a disturbing instance of possible military-paramilitary complicity in a paramilitary attack outside Bogotá just weeks after Del Río took command of the nearby military brigade.
* The shifting U.S. opinion about Del Río is clearly evident in two U.S. military reports from early 1998. In the first, Del Río, who attended the U.S. Army School of the Americas, is lauded as a U.S. military training “success story.” But a second, corrected, report from March 1998 lists Del Río instead as a “not-so-success” story, citing his alleged paramilitary ties.
Visit the Archive’s Web site or VerdadAbierta.com for more information about today’s posting.
________________________________________________________
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.
Information Clearing House 16 August, 2010: US Death Squads Roam The Globe
16 August, 2010 — Information Clearing House
What Should A Poor Warmongering Neoconservative Do?
By Juan Cole
This political grouping includes WASPS such as former CIA director James Woolsey and former UN ambassor John Bolton, but at its core is politically active and extremely wealthy Jewish former Democrats who broke with their party in the 1980s to become war hawks in Republican administrations, and most of whom are rooted in Rightwing Zionism as exemplified in the thought of prominent fascist theorist Vladimir Jabotinsky.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26158.htm
US Death Squads Roam The Globe
Secret Assault on “Terrorism” Widens on Two Continents
By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH
As American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26155.htm
Colombian Trade Unions: A Target for Intimidation and Assassination
3 August, 2009 — Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Luis Adolfo Cardona worked as a forklift operator at an American-owned bottling company that packages 50,000 cases of Coca-Cola’s famous fizzy beverages a month. On an unassuming morning, Cardona narrowly escaped death when right-wing paramilitary troops attempted to kill him. Unfortunately, not all labor union activists are so lucky. Isídro Segundo Gil, the gatekeeper and the union’s chief negotiator at another Coca-Cola bottling plant in the small, rural town of Carepa, Colombia, was gunned down by a band of paramilitary insurgents on December 5, 1996. After shooting Gil ten times, the armed men sped away from the premises on motorcycles. Not even a few hours had passed before the militants were back. They attempted to kidnap another union leader, who just barely got away, and then set fire to the union’s offices later that night. The armed group returned a week later. The workers were then gathered in the cafeteria and given an ultimatum—either quit or be killed.
For most of its modern existence, Colombia has struggled with internal violence, most recently in the form of human rights abuses and brutality against organized trade union groups carried out by paramilitary and insurgent armies. This group in particular has been subjected to a disproportionate amount of violence. In the past twenty years, over 2,000 activists have been gunned down, making labor activists and trade union members likely the most targeted group of civilians in the country.
Security Company Death Squads Timeline by Dirk Adriaensens and Sarah Meyer
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Appropos my piece on mercenaries, this is a very timely analysis
Security Company Death Squads Timeline
and / or (if link broken)
There is an uncanny resemblance between the the WW2 Italian Squadristi, Blackwater and the thousands of other “security†forces.
SECURITY, OED. “The condition of being protected from or not exposed to danger; freedom from doubt; Now, chiefly, well-founded confidence, certainty; freedom from care, anxiety or apprehension.”
There is no such thing as “security”. “Security” companies were formed to make money on our anxieties, just as pharmaceutical companies financially thrive on anxiety about health and have a vested interest in illness.
The media’s complicity in suppressing the reality that is Haiti today By William Bowles
15 May 2005
“I only saw three murdered (homeless) children between 1995 and the beginning of 2004,” says one missionary who works with homeless children and asked that her name not be used. “Since Feb. 29, I have seen or heard of over 150 murders of street children and have personally witnessed the attacks on more than a dozen occasions.” – ‘Too Tired to Cry’ by Lyn Duff, January 12, 2005
Whilst the world rushed to the aid of the victims of the Tsunami and the leaders of the ‘free world’ pontificated on how humanitarian they are, children, in all likelihood, hundreds of children are being exterminated by death squads, aided and abetted by US/UN occupation forces in Haiti. But if you wanted to find out about this outrage in the corporate or state-run media, you’ll look in vain as it’s yet another example of how the media fails to report events that will disturb the carefully constructed illusion that surrounds the armed overthrow of the first and only democratically elected leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has ever had.
Blaming the Victim By William Bowles
24 March 2004
Virtually all of the headlines in the corporate press about Haiti and Jean Bertrand Aristide centred on his failures: corruption, economic collapse, Aristide’s use of thugs and gangsters: Continue reading
The New Dark Age 