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KissingerWatch #1
- Please circulate this bulletin as widely as possible -
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Kissinger Watch (
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch
) - a joint project of
East-Timor Action Network
International Campaign against Impunity
Instituto Cono Sur
******************************************
Dear readers,
In the past few years, the international movement against the impunity of
public officials has gained unprecedented momentum; activists worldwide
have made significant efforts to assure that these high-ranking politicians
and soldiers will be held accountable for their acts, which include crimes
against humanity, war crimes, torture, and genocide.
General Pinochet was detained in London for more than 500 days and escaped
extradition to Spain only after a dubious medical assessment found him
unfit to stand trial. Slobodan Milosevic was extradited last June to the
Hague Tribunal (ICTY) on charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against
humanity. A second international ad hoc tribunal (ICTR) has been
established for Rwanda and tries suspected perpetrators of the genocide.
Support for the establishment of similar tribunals for Sierra Leone,
Cambodia, and East Timor is strong. In the last week of February 2002,
Portugal and Ecuador joined the International Criminal Court (ICC). Only
eight ratifications remain before the ICC treaty enters into force.
Impunity, however, is not limited to those countries that are placed under
the label of the "second" or "third world." The West must also confront
its criminals; it cannot remain blind to the crimes of its officials. For
this reason and with this issue, we launch KissingerWatch.
To many, Henry Kissinger epitomizes the failure of the Western world to pay
serious attention to the grave crimes committed by its leadership. In
response, KissingerWatch is designed to examine this specific case of
impunity, to provide information about Kissinger's alleged role in the
violation of human rights worldwide, to kindle debate, and to facilitate
the exchange of opinions among experts and activists.
Inspired by the success of the Pinochet Watch bulletin
(<http://www.tni.org/pinochet/>http://www.tni.org/pinochet/),
KissingerWatch will be published as an email bulletin that will be
distributed several times per annum.
The first issue aims at providing a comprehensive - but far from complete -
overview of Kissinger's past and present activities. It also serves to
introduce other initiatives that raise awareness on Kissinger's alleged
involvement in crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Future
issues will be more concise and hence more easily digestible.
To subscribe to KissingerWatch (free of charge), send an email to:
subscribe-kw@icai-online.org
We also welcome your active participation in this project. We encourage all
readers to share the results of their research with us.
(kissingerwatch@icai-online.org)
Thank you, and we appreciate your readership.
Michael Schmitt, The International Campaign against Impunity, (
<http://www.icai-online.org/>www.icai-online.org )
michael@icai-online.org
John Miller, East-Timor Action Network ( <http://www.etan.org/>www.etan.org )
fbp@igc.org
Gérman Westphal, Instituto Cono Sur (
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicaconosur/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicaconosur/
)
westphal@umbc.edu
TABLE OF CONTENTS
***********************
1.HOLDING INDIVIDUAL LEADERS RESPONSIBLE FOR VIOLATION OF CUSTOMARY
INTERNATIONAL LAW
The US-bombing of Cambodia and Laos (summary)
2.FORD AND KISSINGER GAVE GREEN LIGHT TO INDONESIA'S INVASION OF EAST-TIMOR
IN 1975
New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto
Source: Press release by National Security Archive
3.THE ASSASSINATION OF GENERAL SCHNEIDER / LAWSUIT FILED IN THE US
by ICAI
4.FRENCH AND CHILEAN JUDGES TRY TO INTERROGATE KISSINGER
Source: Pinochet Watch 36
5.KISSINGER HAD A HAND IN "DIRTY WAR"
By Martin Andersen & John Dinges
Source: Insight Magazine, The Washington Times
6.RESOLUTION OF THE GENEVAN PARLIAMENT
By Antonio Hodgers (Member of Genevan Parliament)
7.NPR RADIO INTERVIEW: "I AM NOT A CRIMINAL"
8.THE PITFALLS OF UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION
by Henry Kissinger
Source: Foreign Affairs, July / August 2001
9.THE CASE FOR UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION
By Kenneth Roth (Executive Director of Human Rights Watch),
Source: Foreign Affairs, July / August 2001
10.WEBSITES RELATING TO HERNY KISSINGER
11.FAIR USE NOTICE
*************************************
1. Summary of "Holding Individual Leaders Responsible for Violations of
Customary International Law: The U.S. Bombardment of Cambodia and Laos"
by Nicole Barrett, J.D., Columbia Law, 2001., prepared by Katharine Larsen,
larsenke@law.georgetown.edu, Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. class
of 2003.
(Nicole Barrett's article is available under
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/barrett.pdf>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/barrett.pdf
)
At no time has the question of accountability for political
decision-making been as controversial as it is today. The roller coaster
trajectory of the past few years alone has included the prosecutions of
Pinochet, Habre, and Milosevic; it has also included a recent ICJ decision
that undermines the exercise of universal jurisdiction in Belgium, the
silencing of opponents to U.S. governmental policy in the wake of the
unforgettable events September 11, and the continuing presumption of
political immunity for foreign policy practices.
In this context, Nicole Barrett's note, "Holding Individual
Leaders Responsible for Violations of Customary International Law: The U.S.
Bombardment of Cambodia and Laos," analyzes the legal consequence of filing
suit against Henry Kissinger, the U.S. National Security Advisor from
1969-1973, for violations of customary international law (CIL). Here,
Barrett tackles two questions: Did the U.S. bombings of Laos and Cambodia
violate CIL, and, if so, can Kissinger be held accountable under theories
of command responsibility? Both these questions are answered in the
affirmative. First, Barrett asserts that carpet-bombing represents a per
se violation of CIL and that the bombings in this case specifically flouted
the laws of war at the time. Second, she determines that Kissinger knew
about the bombings and not only did not take measures to prevent them but
actively sought to maintain them despite the deaths of almost one million
citizens of Laos and Cambodia.
In analyzing whether the bombings constituted a violation of CIL,
Barrett makes her point in four parts. She first describes the chronology
and character of the attacks on Laos and Cambodia individually. She then
discusses the origins of the legal rules that apply to these
events. Third, she asserts that these rules are binding today and were
equally binding at the time of the bombings. Last, she applies these
standards to the facts of each attack. Because she determines that CIL, as
it stood in 1969, had established a clearly discernable and legally binding
principle that civilian lives must be shared in times of war and that the
bombings in question indiscriminately took the lives of hundreds of
thousands of non-combatants, Barrett concludes that these acts constituted
a clear violation of CIL that could not be justified by "military necessity."
The bombing of Laos resulted in the murder of over one-tenth the
country's population. As Barrett points out, the United States dropped
more bombs there than it did worldwide during World War II. Hospitals,
religious institutions, and villages were wiped out; Agent Orange was
spread across 4.5 million acres of fertile lands; almost a million citizens
were forced from their homes in what Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) called "a
mindless use of power."
The devastation in Cambodia was equally heinous. Six hundred
thousand non-combatants were murdered, and over two million were forced to
flee as the United States used carpet-bombing techniques to destroy densely
populated towns, fertile fields, and judge areas. The absolute ruin led
Cambodian citizens directly into the hands of the dictatorial Khmer Rouge
regime. Although a domestic tribunal has been proposed in order to hold
perpetrators accountable for the human rights abuses committed in Cambodia,
its mandate will likely be limited to the period after 1975, protecting the
United States from culpability.
Given these events, Barrett canvasses the applicable legal standards that
existed in 1969 in order to lay out the rules governing acts of war. These
standards include the following rules: parties to war must distinguish
between military and civilian targets; they must not direct attacks at
civilians; and they must limit each attack to the advancement of legitimate
military objectives, meaning that an attack must be necessary as well as
proportional. In asserting that these principles were binding upon the
United States at the time, Barrett asserts that, in accordance with
international law rules, these rules were derived from consistent state
practice that was followed out of a sense of opinio juris, i.e. general
legal obligation. Here, Barrett describes and documents the evolution of
the laws of war from the writings of Grotius, the Lieber Code, and the
early Hague Conventions to the principles enforced in the Nuremberg trials,
the codes advanced by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the
Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. From these documents, she
identifies a "clearly established customary international law rule that
civilians must be distinguished from military targets and spared." After
applying these rules to the facts described above, Barrett conclusively
states that the bombings were in complete violation of the standards of CIL
and that carpet-bombing as such represents a full affront to these standards.
In the second part of her note, where Barrett assesses Kissinger's
culpability, Barrett walks through command responsibility's two prongs, as
outlined by the Yamashita principle and the 1956 U.S. Army Law of Land
Warfare. She finds that Kissinger satisfies both. First, as a political
leader with direct control over the military, Kissinger fulfilled the
requirement that he "knew or should have known" that military forces were
committing crimes. Kissinger himself proudly states in his autobiography
that he, "[i]n an awesome setting ... worked out the guidelines for the
bombings of [Cambodia, developing] both a military and a diplomatic
schedule." Further, military officials noted that he read raw intelligence
in order to orchestrate his plans. Second, Kissinger did nothing to take
"necessary and reasonable measures to prevent illegal acts"; in fact, as
the architect of the bombings, he systematically planned their
implementation, and he complemented the Seventh Air Force on its use of the
most advanced photography, radar, sensors, and intelligence to carry out
his plans. Accordingly, Kissinger was fully aware of the results of the
bombings - the human massacres and physical devastation - and he did
everything in his power to assure that the U.S. forces reached these
goals. As such, Barrett asserts that Kissinger is culpable for these
events under the theory of command responsibility.
In her conclusion, Barrett confronts the obstacles of the statute of
limitations, legislative jurisdiction, and non-justiciability (e.g.
political question doctrines). She finds that none of these is an
insurmountable obstacle, although a successful trial would require careful
forum selection in order to identify a jurisdiction that waives the statute
of limitations for war crimes, that allows prosecutions on the basis of
universal jurisdiction, and that has the political will to carry such a
controversial case forward. Because the further dismantlement of the
presumption of non-accountability for governmental officials will
significantly strengthen the human rights movement, Barrett challenges the
international community to "have the courage to hold political leaders
accountable for their criminal policies" and to begin with the indictment
of Henry Kissinger.
*************************************
2. Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East
Timor, 1975:
New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto. (Document available at
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/invasion_of_east_timor.pdf>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/invasion_of_east_timor.pdf
)
6 December 2001
For
more information contact:
William
Burr (202) 994-7032
Michael
Evans (202) 994-7029
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Security Archive at George Washington
University today published on the World Wide Web previously secret archival
documents confirming for the first time that the Indonesian government
launched its bloody invasion of Portuguese East Timor in December 1975 with
the concurrence of President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger. Since then, the Suharto regime that sponsored the invasion has
disintegrated, and East Timor has achieved independence, but as many as
200,000 Timorese died during the twenty-five year occupation.
Twenty-six years ago today, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto during a brief
stopover in Jakarta while they were flying back from Beijing. Aware that
Suharto had plans to invade East Timor, and that the invasion was legally
problematic-in part because of Indonesia's use of U.S. military equipment
that Congress had approved only for self-defense-Ford and Kissinger wanted
to ensure that Suharto acted only after they had returned to U.S.
territory. The invasion took place on December 7, 1975, the day after
their departure, resulting in the quarter-century long violent and bloody
Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Henry Kissinger has consistently
denied that any substantive discussion of East Timor took place during the
meeting with Suharto, but a newly declassified State Department telegram
from December 1975 confirms that such a discussion took place and that Ford
and Kissinger advised Suharto that "it is important that whatever you do
succeeds quickly." Two key documents released today were declassified by
the Gerald R. Ford Library at the request of the National Security Archive;
Archive staffers located other documents at the National Archives. Today's
revelations include:
When Suharto told Ford and Kissinger that he was about to order an
invasion, the response was only to caution that "it would be better it it
were done after we returned" (the invasion began the next day).
Kissinger told Suharto that the use of U.S.-supplied arms in the
invasion-equipment that under U.S. law could not be used for offensive
military operations-"could create problems," but indicated that they might
be able to "construe" the invasion as self-defense.
On 12 August 1975, a few days after a coup attempt in East Timor, Kissinger
observed that an Indonesian takeover would take place "sooner or later".
Six months into the occupation of East Timor, Kissinger acknowledged to
senior State Department officials that U.S. military aid had been used
"illegally" and hinted at his own doubts about the invasion: Washington had
"not very willingly" resumed normal relations with Jakarta.
"This important set of documents reveals the overriding importance that
the Ford administration attached to maintaining friendly relations with
Indonesia in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Ford
and Kissinger plainly viewed the maintenance of warm ties with the Suharto
regime as a foreign policy priority that far outweighed any secondary
concerns about the possible Indonesian use of force in East Timor--even
though the use of such force would ... constitute a clear violation of
American laws. The callous disregard for the human rights and political
aspirations of the East Timorese are rather breathtakingly exposed in these
newly released documents." --- Robert J. McMahon, Professor of History,
University of Florida, and author of The Limits of Empire: The United
States and Southeast Asia Since 1945 (1999)
*************************************
3. The murder of General Rene Schneider / Lawsuit against Kissinger in the US
by ICAI
Last September, the family of Chile's former Army Commander-in-Chief Rene
Schneider filed suit against Henry Kissinger, Richard Helms et al. in the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accusing them of plotting
the general's 1970 kidnap and assassination. The night before the lawsuit
was filed, CBS broadcasted a special "60 minutes" programme, including
interviews with former U.S. Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry and Chile
expert Peter Kornbluh from the National Security Archives, both confirming
Kissinger's responsibility. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the
suit on various grounds, including absolute immunity and the political
question doctrine. The lawyers of the Schneider family filed an opposition
to the defendants' motion to dismiss last December, and the defendants
filed a reply to that opposition at the end of January 2002.
General René Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, was killed
in 1970 by Chilean military coup-plotters with the full support of Henry
Kissinger and other high-level officials of the intelligence community.
The background was the 1970 presidential elections in Chile. The context
was the Cold War. At the time, Henry Kissinger was President Nixon's
National Security Advisor and Chairman of the National Security Council's
40 Committee in charge of Clandestine Operations.
Afraid of the consequences of a democratically elected Marxist in the
region, the United States intelligence community, headed by Kissinger,
organized covert operations to prevent the victory of Salvador
Allende. The first "Track" of these covert operations became known as the
political/constitutional solution. It consisted of continuing propaganda
efforts that had been used in previous Chilean presidential and
congressional elections. The U.S. thus infiltrated political parties and
published newspaper and magazine articles, both in Chile and abroad,
containing anti-communist and anti-Allende rhetoric. The U.S. also exerted
political pressure against the Chilean Congress. According to the Chilean
Constitution, if no presidential candidate wins a majority of the vote, the
legislature must elect one of the two front runners. Since the Chilean
elections were close, the U.S. wanted to make sure the Chilean legislature
was influenced in the "right" direction.
Nevertheless, the political/constitutional solution did not work, and
Allende was elected President. Despite strong propaganda efforts, the
Chilean people and its legislature did not want to interfere with the
democratic process. General Schneider, as Commander-in-Chief of the
largest section of the Chilean military, publicly announced the Army's
desire to abide by the Constitution and to recognize whomever the Chilean
people and/or legislature elected democratically. Due to his enormous
influence among the military, Gen. Schneider became the main impediment to
a military solution for the Allende problem.
Frustrated by failure, Kissinger uttered a famous statement best
characterized as an expression of his disregard and disdain of the Chilean
democratic will: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country
go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." Faced with
the collapse of the propaganda activities and the frustration of their
plans to prevent an Allende victory, Kissinger and the heads of the U.S.
intelligence community decide to implement "Track II", also known as
Operation FUBELT. The purpose of Track II was to promote a coup in Chile.
One of the methods used to promote this coup, besides threatening the
military with ending U.S./Chile Military Assistance Programs, was to
provide different groups of coup-plotters with weapons in order to remove
Gen. Schneider. All of this, of course, had to be done in great secrecy in
order to hide U.S. involvement, not only from Chileans and from other
nations, but from the U.S. government as well. Thus, Kissinger authorized
Track II without informing the relevant authorities in the Department of
Defense and the State Department, including the Chilean Ambassador.
As a part of Track II, the U.S. supported, encouraged, and financed various
coup efforts led by Chilean General Valenzuela and retired General
Viaux. Both of these groups emphasized that a successful coup required
removing Gen. Schneider. In order to do so, the coup plotters requested
machine guns, gas grenades, radios, hand grenades, and ammunition. The
U.S. consistently expressed its willingness to either provide for an air
drop of the requested equipment, or to at least finance their purchase
elsewhere. Despite certain logistical differences between the U.S. and the
Valenzuela and Viaux groups, Kissinger reaffirmed his support for the coup
efforts and reminded all the parties involved that "It is firm and
continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The U.S. thus
sent sub machine guns, ammunition and gas grenades to the coup plotters in
order to remove Schneider, whose firm pro-constitutional stance remained
the biggest "stumbling block for a successful coup" against Allende.
According to declassified information, the plan was as follows: Gen.
Schneider had been invited to an army party.
"When arriving at VIP house, Schneider will be abducted. Schneider will be
taken to waiting airplane and flown to [blacked out]. Valenzuela will
announce to assembled generals that Schneider had disappeared and that
General Carlos Prats to succeed Schneider [...] Military will not admit
involvement in Schneider's abduction which is to be blamed on
leftists. Almost immediately, Carabineros [Chilean police] will institute
search for Schneider in all of Chile, using this search as pretext to raid
Communist-controlled poblaciones. Extreme leftist and rightist leadership
will be picked up and dispatched across border. [...] If Schneider's
abduction successful, [the coup-plotters are] to be paid $50,000, price
agreed upon between plotters and unidentified team of abductors."
The first two attempts to kidnap Gen. Schneider failed. After each
attempt, the U.S. not only encouraged the coup-plotters to keep trying, but
also provided more gas masks and gas grenades. On October 22, 1970, six
hours after the U.S. had delivered sub machine guns to one of the groups,
Gen. René Schneider was shot on his way to work. The bullets perforated
his liver and he had to undergo open heart surgery. After three days of
agonizing, he died on October 25, 1970. He and his wife had five young
children.
In the aftermath of the assassination, U.S. Army Attaché Paul Wimert
retrieved the guns with the serial numbers filed off (so they couldn't be
traced), the ammunition, the tear gas, and the gas masks, and went to the
port town of Valparaiso and dumped them all in the ocean.
The U.S. considered resuming military sales and Military Assistance
Programs to the Chilean military, depending on the consequences of the
attempt against Schneider. According to declassified documents, "It could
be construed as bonus for job well done."
Despite Kissinger's desire for secrecy from the U.S. government, the
operation leaked and a Congressional investigation followed. In 1975 the
Church Report (named after Congressman Frank Church) was published, but by
its own admission, the Church report is incomplete and provides little
detail of the Schneider assassination. On September 2000, twenty five
years later and in the wake of the Pinochet detention in London,
Congressman Maurice Hinchey published a second Congressional investigation
concerning U.S. activities in Chile. The Hinchey Report, although shorter
than the Church Report, contains more details about the Schneider
assassination. Among the most striking details, the Report states that "in
an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the
group, and for humanitarian reasons, $35,000 was passed" to the
kidnappers/assassins.
The Hinchey Report and the 1999 and 2000 declassification of thousands of
documents that were previously unavailable finally provided the Schneider
family with the documentation necessary to file a civil lawsuit against
Henry Kissinger, Richard Helms (ex-CIA Director) and the U.S.
Government. The suit is pending in the United States District Court for
the District of Columbia.
Chilean courts have already found that the death of General Schneider
involved both the group led by General Viaux and the group led by General
Valenzuela. General Viaux was convicted by a Chilean military court on
charges of kidnapping and conspiring to cause a coup. General Valenzuela
was convicted of conspiring to cause a coup. Henry Kissinger is still at
large.
Sources:
- WWW.FOIA.STATE.GOV (Chile Collection)
- CHURCH CONGRESSIONAL REPORT (1975)
- HINCHEY CONGRESSIONAL REPORT (2000)
*************************************
4. FRENCH AND CHILEAN JUDGES TRY TO INTERROGATE KISSINGER
source: Pinochet Watch 36
While visiting Paris last month, former US Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger was called as a witness in a case involving the disappearance of
French citizens in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s.
The Parisian police presented Kissinger with the summons at the Ritz Hotel
on May 28. The summons was issued by French Judge Roger Le Loire at the
request of William Bourdon, Secretary General of the International
Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and a lawyer for families of French
victims of the Pinochet dictatorship.
Le Loire, who issued an international arrest warrant against Augusto
Pinochet in 1998, is currently investigating the disappearance of five
French citizens who were disappeared in Chile and Argentina. One of those
was disappeared as part of Operation Condor, a coordinated campaign of
terror that united the security forces of Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay,
Bolivia and Argentina to exchange intelligence and carry out joint
operations against so-called leftist subversives. Condor was responsible
for the exchange of prisoners, disappearances, and the assassination of
opposition leaders, including the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier
and Ronni Karpen Moffitt in Washington, D.C.
Kissinger was specifically asked to testify about Operation Condor.
Recently declassified documents show that the US government was aware of
and monitored the activities of Condor. According to William Bourdon, There
are a number of factors that suggest that the US government was carefully
monitoring what happened in Chile, especially the situation of foreigners
who had disappeared...Kissinger is more than just a symbol, he is a witness
who can contribute to uncovering the truth.
Kissinger made no public comments about the summons and did not appear at
the court to testify. The US Embassy told Le Loire that Kissinger had other
obligations that prevented him from appearing before the court. The Embassy
also announced that the court should not have presented the request
directly to Kissinger. A spokesperson explained, we understand that the
court is examining a period when Dr. Kissinger was an official of the US
government. We therefore believe that the court should present its request
through government channels to the Department of State.
In an interview with Mexican magazine Proceso, Bourdon pointed out that Le
Loire had already sent a formal request for information to the US
government two years ago asking to interview several US witnesses-he never
received a reply. Bourdon went on to say that as long as Le Loire continues
his investigation, Kissinger will be called to testify every time he visits
Paris.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHILEAN AND ARGENTINIAN JUDGES ALSO SEEKS TO INTERROGATE KISSINGER
Two weeks after Judge Le Loire called Kissinger to testify in France,
Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán announced that he would seek to interrogate the
former US official as part of his investigation into the 1973 murder of
American journalist Charles Horman in Chile.
On June 4, Judge Guzmán declared that he would send a list of questions to
Kissinger regarding the Horman case. That same day, however, the court
denied a petition to interrogate Pinochet as part of the Horman investigation.
On August 9, the Argentinian Judge Rodolfo Canicoba requested the testimony
of Kissinger regarding his investigations into Operation Condor.
For more information:
Bruce Broomhall, Criminal Justice on a Global Scale, The New York Times,
June 13, 2001
Anne Marie Mergier, Kissinger, premio Nobel de la Paz, responsible de
asesinatos, Proceso, June 12, 2001
La Tercera, Juez Guzmán envía exhorto a Henry Kissinger, June 5, 2001
CNN en Español.com, EE.UU. se opuso a que Kissinger preste declaración
sobre Chile en Francia, May 30, 2001
Pierre-Antoine Souchard, Kissinger Summoned in Pinochet Case, AP, May 28, 2001
Eduardo Febbro, Un Juez Frances Quiere Que Atestigue el Ex-Secretario de
Estado, Página 12, May 29, 2001
BBC, US Bars Kissinger in Pinochet Probe, May 29, 2001
*************************************
5. Kissinger Had a Hand in 'Dirty War'
By Martin Edwin Andersen and John Dinges
source: Insight Magazine, The Washington Times 01/04/02
Newly released U.S. documents obtained by Insight show that in 1976
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a key role in assuring
Argentina's military rulers that their antiterrorist campaign involving the
disappearance, torture and assassination of at least 15,000 people -- many
of whom were not combatants -- would not be criticized by the United States
on human-rights grounds.
The documents, which cover events between June and October of that year --
the period of some of the most intense repression in Argentina -- show that
the military regime was "convinced that there was no real
problem with the United States over the issue." The Argentine foreign
minister, Adm. Cesar Guzzetti, drew that conclusion after meetings in
October 1976 with Kissinger, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and other
top State Department officials, according to a U.S. Embassy cable.
The new documents provide a detailed look at the bitter dispute about
U.S. support for a military dictatorship and include a rare example of an
ambassador daring directly to oppose Kissinger, one of the most
powerful figures in postwar U.S. history.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Hill described Guzzetti as "euphoric" and "almost
ecstatic" and "in a state of jubilation" after returning from Washington to
report on the meetings to Argentine President Jorge R.
Videla. According to Hill, who since has died, "[Guzzetti] said the vice
president urged him to advise President Videla to 'finish the terrorist
problem quickly.' "
Hill, in contrast, showed barely concealed outrage that his superiors in
Washington were undercutting his efforts to encourage human-rights
improvements. His three-page cable, dated Oct. 19, 1976, had the
effect of putting "bitter criticism" of Kissinger's handling of the
meetings with Guzzetti on the record, according to a memo by another
U.S. official who recommended an immediate response.
Hill quoted Guzzetti as saying Kissinger "had assured him that the United
States 'wants to help Argentina.' " Kissinger told Guzzetti "that if the
terrorist problem was over by December or January, he [the
secretary] believed serious problems could be avoided in the United
States," according to Hill's cable. A reply to Hill from Kissinger's chief
Latin American officer claimed Guzzetti "heard only what he wanted to hear"
and had arrived at his interpretation "perhaps [because of] his poor grasp
of English."
Hill, in a carefully phrased "comment" ending the cable to Washington,
veils his criticism of Kissinger by speaking only in terms of Guzzetti's
impressions of the meetings. But, significantly, Hill seems to stress
that Guzzetti received the same message from a total of five top U.S.
officials in four separate meetings, and Hill does not raise the
possibility that Guzzetti misinterpreted what he heard in those meetings.
Guzzetti's meetings in Washington, coming just six months after the coup
against the constitutional left-wing government of Isabel Peron, took place
at a critical time in Argentina. Before Guzzetti traveled to the United
States, Hill forcefully told him that the continuing atrocities could not
be defended. In the view of the United States, Hill recalled in a
subsequent cable to the State Department, dated Sept. 20, 1976, having
told Guzzetti that "murdering priests and dumping 47 bodies in the street
in one day could not be seen in context of defeating the terrorists
quickly; on the contrary, such acts were probably counterproductive. What
the USG [U.S. government] hoped was that the GOA [government of Argentina]
could soon defeat terrorists, yes, but do so as nearly as possible within
the law."
Guzzetti went to the United States "fully expecting to hear some strong,
firm, direct warnings on his government's human-rights practices," Hill
wrote after meeting with the Argentine leader upon the latter's return to
Buenos Aires. "Rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation,
convinced that there is no real problem with the United States over this
issue. Based on what Guzzetti is doubtless reporting to the GOA, it must
now believe that if it has any problems with the U.S. over human rights,
they are confined to certain elements of Congress and what it regards as
biased and/or uninformed minor segments of public opinion."
Hill ended the cable on a pessimistic note: "While this conviction exists,
it will be unrealistic and ineffective for this Embassy to press
representations to the GOA over human-rights violations."
The documents are part of thousands of pages of secret archives on
U.S.-Argentine diplomacy that were declassified following a visit by
then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright to Buenos Aires in 2000, during
which she promised their release. The cables cited in this article were
obtained by Insight in anticipation of their public release.
Just days after returning from his two-week stay in the United States,
Foreign Minister Guzzetti told Hill that the clear impression he had
received ó in contrast to what he was being told by the embassy ó was that
the primary concern of the U.S. government was not human rights but,
rather, that the Argentine regime get the terrorist problem solved quickly.
According to the documents, Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman, a key
Kissinger aide, said he agreed that more representations by Hill "would not
be useful at this point."
The recently declassified documents provide for the first time a complete
record of the apparent double message the Argentine military received from
U.S. policymakers. They also are the first contemporaneous confirmation of
the exchange between Kissinger and Guzzetti, which in the past was the
motive for dispute and denial by the former secretary and his
associates. Furthermore, they shed light on the confidential actions of
the conservative Hill, who the documents show tried unsuccessfully to halt
the massacre, both by means of multiple private representations to the
Argentine military and in a series of cables to Kissinger and his aides in
Washington.
Ironically, left-wing Argentine journalists and historians have tried to
paint Hill in a sinister light by attempting to compare what happened in
Buenos Aires in 1976 with what is known to have happened three years
earlier in neighboring Chile, where a CIA-backed coup overthrew the elected
Marxist president Salvador Allende. However, to date there is no evidence
whatsoever that the United States either directed or promoted the coup
against Peron's government, generally considered on all sides to have been
incompetent and corrupt.
Hill, a businessman-diplomat, had been appointed by President Richard Nixon
as envoy to Buenos Aires in 1973. He had married into the politically
conservative W.R. Grace family, which had extensive business interests in
Latin America. He had served as ambassador in Costa Rica during the time
of the 1954 CIA sponsored coup in Guatemala as well as in subsequent posts
in Mexico, El Salvador and Spain.
"Hill's biography reads like a satirical left-wing caricature of a 'yanqui
imperialist,' noted the muckracking newsletter Latin America. "He has
long-standing connection with the United States security and intelligence
establishment."
In private Kissinger, too, lampooned portrayals of Hill as a human-rights
campaigner. "The notion of Hill as a passionate human-rights advocate is
news to all his former associates," Kissinger wrote in 1988 in a private
letter obtained by Insight. Kissinger's rendition of Hill runs counter to
the testimony of several U.S.
diplomats and law-enforcement personnel who served with him in Buenos
Aires, and to that of Juan de Onis, the New York Times correspondent in
Argentina in 1976, all of whom attest to the conservative envoy's rights
activism. And Hill's policy received strong support from U.S. Sen. Jesse
Helms (R.-S.C.), another Kissinger foe who met with the ambassador and
Videla in Buenos Aires in July 1976, Capitol Hill sources tell Insight.
An early version of the conversations in which Kissinger is shown to have
given a green light to the repression in Argentina was published in October
1987 by The Nation, a magazine on the political left. The principal source
for that article was a memorandum from Patricia Derian, then assistant
secretary of state for human rights, in which a conversation she had in
early 1977 with Hill was outlined. Derian's memorandum spoke of a first
meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in June 1976 following the annual
meeting of the Organization of American States in Santiago, Chile.
"The Argentines were very worried that Kissinger would lecture to them on
human rights," according to the Derian memorandum. "Guzzetti and Kissinger
had a very long breakfast, but the secretary did not raise the
subject. Finally, Guzzetti did. Kissinger asked how long it would take
... to clean up the problem. Guzzetti replied that it would be done by
the end of the year. Kissinger approved. In other words, Ambassador Hill
explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.... Later
... the ambassador discussed the matter personally with Kissinger [who]
... confirmed the conversation."
In The Nation article Kissinger's spokeswoman denied Hill's claims. Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs William D. Rogers, who
attended the Santiago meeting with Kissinger and Guzzetti, said that he did
"not specifically remember" a meeting with Guzzetti, but added that
Kissinger would have told his Argentine peer that the military should carry
out the fight against terrorism "without abandoning the rule of law."
Shlaudeman rebutted Hill's criticisms in a memorandum the Kissinger aide
sent to the high-flying diplomat the day after receiving Hill's critical
cable in October 1976. The views of Shlaudeman, who later served as
U.S. envoy to Buenos Aires during the military governments of Roberto
Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, were expressed in an "action memorandum"
titled "Ambassador Hill and Human Rights in Argentina." The exchange
shows the intensity of the dispute between Hill and Kissinger.
"Bob Hill has registered for the record his concern for human rights in a
bitter complaint about our purported failure to impress on Foreign Minister
Guzzetti how seriously we view the rightist violence in Argentina,"
Shlaudeman wrote to Kissinger. "I propose to respond for the record."
The declassified documents suggest that Kissinger did not continue to
respond personally to Hill. However, in a cable approved by Kissinger
personally and dated Oct. 20, 1976, Shlaudeman claimed that Guzzetti may
have misunderstood the message he had received because of his "poor grasp
of English." Shlaudeman suggested that, "as in other circumstances you have
undoubtedly encountered in your diplomatic career, Guzzetti heard only what
he wanted to hear.... Guzzetti's interpretation is strictly his own."
Shlaudeman, referring to the luncheon he had with Guzzetti, wrote: "The
'consensus of the meeting' on our side was that Guzzetti's assurances that
a tranquil and violence-free Argentina is coming soon must prove a reality
if we are to avoid serious problems between us."
However, Shlaudeman did not offer a correction of Guzzetti's understanding
of his meetings with Kissinger and Rockefeller, and he did not authorize
Hill to rectify Guzzetti's interpretations of any of the meetings as a
necessary element for pressuring the military. "With respect to your
closing admonition about the futility of
representations," he told Hill, "we doubt that the GOA has all that many
illusions. Ö In the circumstances, I agree that the Argentines will have
to make their own decisions and that further exhortations or generalized
lectures from us would not be useful at this point."
Just as Hill feared, the massive atrocities committed by the military
regime continued far beyond the end of 1976 and, by the time Kissinger's
policy finally was reversed, it was too late to stanch the bloodshed.
Martin Edwin Andersen is the author of Dossier Secreto: Argentina and the
Myth of the Dirty "War" and a forthcoming book, written in Spanish, on the
history of the Argentine police (1880-1999). He also is the
author of the article mentioned above in The Nation. John Dinges, a
professor of journalism at Columbia University in New York City, is the
author of Assassination on Embassy Row on the Letelier case, and the
forthcoming The Condor Years.
*************************************
6. Resolution of the Genevan Parliament
By Antonio Hodgers, Member of the Genevan Parliament
Following the arrest of Pinochet in London in 1998, the Genevan Parliament
unanimously adopted a resolution (a non-legally binding but declaratory
parliamentary act) demanding the extradition of the ex-dictator in the
light of this judgement. This action was principally a symbolic one,
supporting the developments in the fight against the impunity of dictators.
A few months later, the 'Procureur de Genève' demanded that Pinochet be
extradited to Switzerland, in relation to an open procedure from 1977 which
led to the disappearance of a Swiss citizen at the hands of the Chilean
junta during 'Operation Condor'.
Believing it necessary to try not only dictators themselves but also those
who aided them in their rise to power and perpetration of criminal acts, a
group of Members of Parliament submitted a resolution calling on the Swiss
judicial authorities to consider the possible penal liability of Henry
Kissinger in relation to this disappearance. The resolution was sent to the
Human Rights Committee for further consideration.
While right-wing parliamentarians (in the majority) had few qualms about
sentencing a fallen ex-dictator, criticising one of the most prestigious
diplomatic representatives of the world's biggest power was a completely
different matter. The preliminary debate was ideological: the right
considered our resolution to be a pretext for a "rearguard anti-American
struggle". Nevertheless, the committee's work resulted in a deeper
understanding of the issue and, thanks to extracts from various documents
published by the National Security Archive, revealed the important role US
secret services had played in Pinochet's coup d'état.
The final parliamentary debate took place in October 2001. The right-wing
majority, unsurprisingly, rejected the resolution. However, a certain level
of recognition led to more moderate reasons being expressed for this
rejection: "We share the concern for justice, but we can't agree on the
means..." The quality of the debate was also remarked upon by the local press.
Even if the resolution had only symbolic value, the work carried out by the
Human Rights Committee at least brought about a measure of understanding
among the Genevan political community of the role of Kissinger in the
southern Latin American arena.
PROPOSAL FOR A RESOLUTION (412) calling on the judicial authorities to
consider the liability of Mr Henry Kissinger, among others, for the crimes
committed by the regime of Mr Augusto Pinochet.
(the entire resolution - in French - available under:
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/resolutiongeneve.pdf>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/resolutiongeneve.pdf)
The GREAT COUNCIL (Parliament) of the Republic and canton of Geneva,
considering:
- resolution 386 of the 23rd October 1998 calling for the extradition of Mr
A. Pinochet in light of his trial in Spain, adopted unanimously by our
Parliament;
- the documents published by the National Security Archive which clearly
demonstrate the involvement of the US government, and in particular Mr H.
Kissinger in his position as National Security Adviser and Secretary of
State, in the collapse of Mr Salvador Allende's democratically elected
Chilean government in 1973 and the military coup d'état of Mr A. Pinochet;
- the support of Mr H. Kissinger, among others, for the military regime and
for the person of Mr A. Pinochet even though the crimes of the latter were
internationally known;
- the existence, beyond doubt, of further series of documents, which still
remain secret, in particular those relative to Operation Condor and the
role of the US authorities in this, with whose help the Chilean authorities
were able to get rid of Swiss national Mr Alexei Jaccard;
- the necessity of bringing to trial not only dictators but also those who
aided their rise to power and perpetration of criminal acts, and the
necessity of a legislative mechanism which works to this effect;
Decides to:
- communicate to the "Procurors" of the Rebublic and the Confederation,
with reference to the steps introduced regarding Mr A. Pinochet and in the
light of new documents published by the United States, our wish for it to
be established to what extent the action of the latter, particularly those
of Mr Kissinger, can be legally identified as complicity to the various
acts of which Mr A. Pinochet has been condemned;
And calls on the federal authorities:
- to introduce as quickly as possible into our federal legislation the
principle of "crime against humanity" and that of "complicity to crime
against humanity";
- to put pressure on the United States government to publish all the
documents relating to the facts surrounding A. Pinochet's coup d'etat and
Operation Condor, in order to give our judiciary access to these documents.
*************************************
7. NPR Radio interview: "I am not a criminal"
<http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2001/aug/kissinger/010808.kissinger.html#timeline>http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2001/aug/kissinger/010808.kissinger.html#timeline
click on "Listen to Michele Kelemen's report for All Things Considered"
In a recent NPR interview, Kissinger lambasts the idea of universal
jurisdiction and says legal principles should not be used as weapons to
settle old political scores.
"I think when every national judge can assume jurisdiction... the legal
system will be a way of conducting political battles the various
contestants will pursue each other in courts around the world," he said.
This is a very personal issue for Kissinger and a touchy matter for the
United States. Three countries -- Chile, Argentina, and France -- want him
to testify about disappearances and killings in Chile, when the Nixon
administration was supporting the Pinochet government.
Some critics, like author Christopher Hitchens, also argue that the former
secretary of state has a lot to answer for regarding the U.S. bombings of
Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
*************************************
8. The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction / Extracts, entire article
available under
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/the_pitfalls_of_uj.pdf>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/the_pitfalls_of_uj.pdf
by Henry Kissinger
Foreign Affairs, July / August 2001
RISKING JUDICIAL TYRANNY
In less than a decade, an unprecedented movement has emerged to submit
international politics to judicial procedures. It has spread with
extraordinary speed and has not been subjected to systematic debate, partly
because of the intimidating passion of its advocates. To be sure, human
rights violations, war crimes, genocide, and torture have so disgraced the
modern age and in such a variety of places that the effort to interpose
legal norms to prevent or punish such outrages does credit to its
advocates. The danger lies in pushing the effort to extremes that risk
substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically,
the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even
witch-hunts.
[&]
A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT
It is decidedly unfashionable to express any degree of skepticism about the
way the Pinochet case was handled. For almost all the parties of the
European left, Augusto Pinochet is the incarnation of a right-wing assault
on democracy because he led a coup d'etat against an elected leader. At the
time, others, including the leaders of Chile's democratic parties, viewed
Salvador Allende as a radical Marxist ideologue bent on imposing a
Castro-style dictatorship with the aid of Cuban-trained militias and Cuban
weapons. This was why the leaders of Chile's democratic parties publicly
welcomed-yes, welcomed-Allende's overthrow. (They changed their attitude
only after the junta brutally maintained its autocratic rule far longer
than was warranted by the invocation of an emergency.)
Disapproval of the Allende regime does not exonerate those who perpetrated
systematic human rights abuses after it was overthrown. But neither should
the applicability of universal jurisdiction as a policy be determined by
one's view of the political history of Chile.
[&]
AN INDISCRIMINATE COURT
The ideological supporters of universal jurisdiction also provide much of
the intellectual compass for the emerging International Criminal Court.
Their goal is to criminalize certain types of military and political
actions and thereby bring about a more humane conduct of international
relations.
[&]
The advocates of universal jurisdiction argue that the state is the basic
cause of war and cannot be trusted to deliver justice. If law replaced
politics, peace and justice would prevail. But even a cursory examination
of history shows that there is no evidence to support such a theory. The
role of the statesman is to choose the best option when seeking to advance
peace and justice, realizing that there is frequently a tension between the
two and that any reconciliation is likely to be partial. The choice,
however, is not simply between universal and national jurisdictions.
MODEST PROPOSALS
The precedent set by international tribunals established to deal with
situations where the enormity of the crime is evident and the local
judicial system is clearly incapable of administering justice, as in the
former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, have shown that it is possible to punish
without removing from the process all political judgment and experience. In
time, it may be possible to renegotiate the ICC statute to avoid its
shortcomings and dangers. Until then, the United States should go no
further toward a more formal system than one containing the following three
provisions. First, the U.N. Security Council would create a Human Rights
Commission or a special subcommittee to report whenever systematic human
rights violations seem to warrant judicial action. Second, when the
government under which the alleged crime occurred is not authentically
representative, or where the domestic judicial system is incapable of
sitting in judgment on the crime, the Security Council would set up an ad
hoc international tribunal on the model of those of the former Yugoslavia
or Rwanda. And third, the procedures for these international tribunals as
well as the scope of the prosecution should be precisely defined by the
Security Council, and the accused should be entitled to the due process
safeguards accorded in common jurisdictions.
In this manner, internationally agreed procedures to deal with war crimes,
genocide, or other crimes against humanity could become institutionalized.
Furthermore, the one-sidedness of the current pursuit of universal
jurisdiction would be avoided. This pursuit could threaten the very purpose
for which the concept has been developed. In the end, an excessive reliance
on universal jurisdiction may undermine the political will to sustain the
humane norms of international behavior so necessary to temper the violent
times in which we live.
*************************************
9. The case for Universal Jurisdiction / Extracts, entire article
available under
<http://www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/the_case_for_uj.pdf>www.icai-online.org/kissingerwatch/the_case_for_uj.pdf)
By Kenneth Roth,Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
Foreign Affairs, July / August 2001
Behind much of the savagery of modern history lies impunity. Tyrants commit
atrocities, including genocide, when they calculate they can get away with
them. Too often, dictators use violence and intimidation to shut down any
prospect of domestic prosecution. Over the past decade, however, a slowly
emerging system of international justice has begun to break this pattern of
impunity in national courts.
[&]
In "The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction" (July/August 2001), former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger catalogues a list of grievances against
the juridical concept that people who commit the most severe human rights
crimes can be tried wherever they are found. But his objections are
misplaced, and the alternative he proposes is little better than a return
to impunity.
[&]
ORDER AND THE COURT
Kissinger's critique of universal jurisdiction has two principal targets:
the soon-to-be-formed International Criminal Court and the exercise of
universal jurisdiction by national courts. (Strictly speaking, the ICC will
use not universal jurisdiction but, rather, a delegation of states'
traditional power to try crimes committed on their own territory.)
Kissinger claims that the crimes detailed in the ICC treaty are "vague and
highly susceptible to politicized application." But the treaty's definition
of war crimes closely resembles that found in the Pentagon's own military
manuals and is derived from the widely ratified Geneva Conventions and
their Additional Protocols adopted in 1977. Similarly, the ICC treaty's
definition of genocide is borrowed directly from the Genocide Convention of
1948, which the United States and 131 other governments have ratified and
pledged to uphold, including by prosecuting offenders. The definition of
crimes against humanity is derived from the Nuremberg Charter, which, as
Kissinger acknowledges, proscribes conduct that is "self-evident[ly]" wrong.
[&]
NO PLACE TO HIDE
National courts come under Kissinger's fire for selectively applying
universal jurisdiction. He characterizes the extradition request by a
Spanish judge seeking to try former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet for
crimes against Spanish citizens on Chilean soil as singling out a
"fashionably reviled man of the right." But Pinochet was sought not, as
Kissinger writes, "because he led a coup d'etat against an elected leader"
who was a favorite of the left. Rather, Pinochet was targeted because
security forces under his command murdered and forcibly "disappeared" some
3,000 people and tortured thousands more.
[&]
Until the ICC treaty is renegotiated to avoid what Kissinger sees as its
"shortcomings and dangers," he recommends that the U.N. Security Council
determine which cases warrant an international tribunal. That option was
rejected during the Rome negotiations on the ICC because it would allow the
council's five permanent members, including Russia and China as well as the
United States, to exempt their nationals and those of their allies by
exercising their vetoes.
As a nation committed to human rights and the rule of law, the United
States should be embracing an international system of justice, even if it
means that Americans, like everyone else, might sometimes be scrutinized.
*************************************
10. Websites relating to Henry Kissinger
Needless to say that we are not responsible for the content of listed websites:
College of William and Mary. Henry Kissinger is not our Chancellor!
·
<http://www.kissinger.20m.com./index.html>http://www.kissinger.20m.com./index.html,
East Timor Action Network
·
<http://www.etan.org/news/kissinger/>http://www.etan.org/news/kissinger/
National Security Archive
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/>http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
The Rogues' Gallery of the Global Policy Forum
·
<http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/wntdindx.htm>http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/wntdindx.htm
Third World Traveller
·
<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/HKissinger.html>http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/HKissinger.html
Henry Kissinger: War Criminal or Old-Fashioned Murderer?
·
<http://www.eclipse.net/~tgardnet/kiss/kisskill.html>http://www.eclipse.net/~tgardnet/kiss/kisskill.html
Wanted War Crimes: Henry Kissinger
·
<http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html>http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html
Appeal to revoke the 1973 Nobel Prize for Peace assigned to H. Kissinger
·
<http://www.peacelink.it/tematiche/latina/nobel/elenco.php3>http://www.peacelink.it/tematiche/latina/nobel/index.php3
Website about Christopher Hitchens's bestseller "The Trial of Henry Kissinger"
·
<http://www.trialofhenrykissinger.org/>http://www.trialofhenrykissinger.org/
Hitchens, book reviews etc.
·
<http://www.enteract.com/~peterk/henry.html>http://www.enteract.com/~peterk/henry.html
Hitchens' correspondence with Kissinger's attorneys, including introductory
note, comments, and primary sources
·
<http://www.enteract.com/~peterk/corrintro.html>http://www.enteract.com/~peterk/corrintro.html
Bilderberg Commission
·
<http://www.bilderberg.org/kissing.htm>http://www.bilderberg.org/kissing.htm
*************************************
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