WILL HENRY KISSINGER'S CRIMINAL & PREDATORY FOREIGN AFFAIRS FINALLY CATCH UP WITH HIM?
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I'm not an expert on Uruguay-- after my 2 day visit a few months ago-- but I did notice that it's a very moderate country in all ways. The weather is. So are the politics. And you don't see these huge discrepancies in wealth. I'm sure there must be some very rich people-- what country doesn't have those kinds of dangerous parasites-- but you don't notice the disparities between rich and poor in Uruguay the way you do in Argentina and Brazil, the two giant countries little Uruguay is sandwiched between. I recall that they used to call themselves "the Switzerland of South America," and there are no mountains.
It's a pretty homogeneous country-- like 95% European, mostly Spanish and Italian. (The early Portuguese and Spanish settlers killed all the native inhabitants.) In the mid-60s the U.S. started training the Uruguayan military and police in the fine arts of suppression and torture. See, and you thought it was all Bush, Cheney and Gonzales who got that going! By 1968 there was a state of emergency followed in 1972 with a suspension of civil liberties. In 1973 there was a U.S.-backed military coup. Under U.S. tutelage the Switzerland of South America soon had the highest per capita percentage of political prisoners in the world. In 1984 massive protests broke out against the U.S.-backed dictatorship and democracy resumed that year.
Why the little history lesson today about a small far away country with no oil that you'll probably never visit? It's another in a growing list of country's Henry Kissinger will never be able to sit his fat ass down in again. Kissinger is wanted for questioning in France, Argentina and Chile. You see... the right wing military dictatorships/U.S. proxies in Latin America were worried that popular resentment against the feudal system and grinding poverty would lead to democratic reforms, especially in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia. The U.S. helped them start a state terror system called Operation Condor which was used to assassinate and terrorize anyone who opposed the fascists.
One of my friends, Amelia Lafferriere, who has done some writing on my political blog, was imprisoned by the Argentine junta as part of this operation. (George Bush I, then CIA director, warned Congressman Ed Koch that he was an assassination target of Uruguayan fascists in the mid-70s. He was sponsoring legislation to cut off US military assistance to Uruguay because of egregious human rights abuses. By the early 1970's Henry Kissinger seemed to be directing the whole program, ordering hits on politicians, journalists, labor leaders, even the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, Rene Schneider. (Schneider's family is suing Kissinger now.)
Now, as for Uruguay, which currently has a dedicated democratic government, a request to extradite Kissinger was filed with the Supreme Court last month on behalf of Bernardo Arnone, a political activist who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered ("disappeared") by the right wing militarists in 1976. The government is studying the request and trying to come up with a solution since it is unlikely the Bush Regime is about to hand over any Americans to a foreign justice system, no matter how heinous the crimes he committed. Bad precedent for quite a few figures in the current Regime, don't you think?
Labels: extradition, Kissinger, Uruguay
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 3:52 PM
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5 Comments:
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What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldn’t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?
It wouldn’t be that hard to do, when you think about it. People wouldn’t talk about it.
The monsters that have resurfaced in Bush II's presidency is simply amazing.
And, just when he thought it was safe to make public statements and reclaim some notariety.
Howie, I read your trip reports and loved them, am a Latinamericanist academic, and I believe it is Chile that has always said it is the "switzerland" of South America...because of its mountains, snow, lakes.
Kissinger is one of the worst human beings who have ever existed. I sure hope he gets what's coming to him.
These days it's actually Costa Rica that they call the "Switzerland of Latin America," but when I was in school-- and before Kissinger turned it into an authoritarian nightmare-- it was most definitely Uruguay. Let me refer you to a BlurtIt question: Which country is known as the Switzerland of Latin America?. "The Republic of Uruguay is known as the Switzerland of Latin America; it is a country similar in size to Switzerland and is well known for the social benefits that the citizens of the country enjoy. Uruguay became independent from Portuguese rule in 1825 and since then has a long history of democratically elected governments which was briefly interrupted in the mid of the twentieth century when the military ruled the country...
Uruguay was one of the first countries to introduce a minimum wage scale for workers in the agriculture sector and an eight hour work day. The country also has a high level of literacy, 98% of the population is literate. Also practices like slavery have never existed in Uruguay; the country was one of the first to introduce universal voting rights."
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