From: Mother Jones
by David Corn
| Tue Jan. 14, 2014 12:23 PM GMT
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| World Economic Forum/Wikimedia Commons |
Only a few months ago, Henry Kissinger was dancing with Stephen Colbert
in a funny bit on the latter's Comedy Central show. But for years, the
former secretary of state has sidestepped judgment for his complicity in
horrific human rights abuses abroad, and a new memo has emerged that
provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina's
neo-fascist military junta the "green light" for the dirty war it was
conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the
disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people.
In April 1977, Patt Derian, a onetime civil rights activist whom
President Jimmy Carter had recently appointed assistant secretary of
state for human rights, met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires,
Robert Hill. A memo
recording that conversation has been unearthed by Martin Edwin
Andersen, who in 1987 first reported that Kissinger had told the
Argentine generals to proceed with their terror campaign against
leftists (whom the junta routinely referred to as "terrorists"). The
memo notes that Hill told Derian about a meeting Kissinger held with
Argentine Foreign Minister Cesar Augusto Guzzetti the previous June.
What the two men discussed was revealed in 2004 when the National
Security Archive obtained and released
the secret memorandum of conversation for that get-together. Guzzetti,
according to that document, told Kissinger, "our main problem in
Argentina is terrorism." Kissinger replied, "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures." In other words, go ahead with your killing crusade against the leftists.
The new document shows that Kissinger was even more explicit in
encouraging the Argentine junta. The memo recounts Hill describing the
Kissinger-Guzzetti discussion this way:
The Argentines were very worried that Kissinger would lecture to them on human rights. Guzzetti and Kissinger had a very long breakfast but the Secretary did not raise the subject. Finally Guzzetti did. Kissinger asked how long will it take you (the Argentines) 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.
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