______________________________ ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN News * Analysis * Research * Action ______________________________ - AFIB No. 268, September 24, 2000 - FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! FREE LEONARD PELTIER! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS & PRISONERS OF WAR! One thing is clear: DINA chief Manuel Contreras would have called off the assassination mission if the CIA or State Department had expressed their displeasure to the Chilean government. An intelligence officer familiar with the case said that any warning would have been sufficient to cause the assassination to be scuttled. Whatever [CIA foreign intelligence liaison Gen. Vernon A.] Walters or [CIA Director George] Bush did--if anything--the DINA mission proceeded. Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt are dead. But the question remains: Could their murders have been prevented? -- John Dinges and Saul Landau, Assassination on Embassy Row [New York, Pantheon Books, 1980] p. 385 * * * Contents: Number 268 0X. AFIB: Notice to Subscribers: We're Taking a Break. 01. INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS IN RUSSIA [UK]: Attacks on Jewish School, Roma Camp after Putin Entertains Top Racist. 02. ANTI-RACIST ACTION [Chicago]: Chicago Anti-Fascists Disrupt Appearance by David Irving. 03. WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE [UK]: Vladimir Montesinos: The Rise and Fall of "Our Man in Lima". 04. PINOCHET WATCH [US]: CIA Issues Report on Covert Actions in Chile; DINA Chief Manuel Contreas Was a CIA Asset. 05. ANTI-FASCIST ACTION [London]: October Rally. 06. INTELLIGENCE [France]: Germany: MAD Getting Madder at Ex-Agent. 07. MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE [UK]: Satpal Ram Update. 08. WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE [UK]: Vatican Beatifies Anti-Semitic Pope. 09. UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL: Skinheads Beaten in Prague Attack as IMF Meetings Loom. 10. THE SACRAMENTO BEE [California]: Two Skinheads to Be Tried in Beating. 11. THE CONSORTIUM FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM [US]: George H.W. Bush, the CIA & A Case of State Terrorism. * * * ____________________________________________________________________ NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS ____________________________________________________________________ AFIB will go offline after today's bulletin for approximately two weeks so that necessary work can proceed on an upcoming publication. Watch this space for details! Thanks for your continuing support. Tom Burghardt Editor, Antifa Info-Bulletin ***** INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS IN RUSSIA (ISWoR) Box R, 46 Denmark Hill London, SE5 8RZ United Kingdom E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html - Sunday, 24 September 2000 - ----- _______________________________________________________________________ ATTACKS ON JEWISH SCHOOL, ROMA CAMP AFTER PUTIN ENTERTAINS TOP RACIST Appeal to Trade Union, Antiracist and other Progressive Organisations Worldwide to Protest _______________________________________________________________________ By Lisa Taylor On 17 September 2000, thugs of the neo-nazi Russian National Unity party (RNU), armed with metal chains, burst into a school where Jewish children were taking religious lessons in the town of Ryazan, 200 km southeast of Moscow. Though the teachers managed to get the children, aged 6-13, out in time, the fascists were able to smash up the room which the Jewish community rents from the school for its Sunday classes. The next day the school headmistress was knocked down by a car which mounted the pavement. Two nazi youth got out and proceeded to beat her for "having dealings with Jews". The Jewish community has now been told it can no longer use the premises. As they cannot afford to rent a room commercially, this effectively ends the community's ability to provide cultural education for their children. Shortly after this attack, 30 racist youth armed with bats burst into a camp for migrant Roma workers in Yekaterinburg. Two Roma have been hospitalised with serious injuries. Hatred against minorities - Black people (who are mostly from the Caucasus), Jews, Muslims, Roma, gays and others has skyrocketed since the introduction of the market economy and especially since the 1998 economic collapse, with the enormous need of big businessmen and the political elite to find a scapegoat for the crisis. The nazi RNU is allowed to operate with impunity in eleven of Russia's regions; in some, its armed thugs has been given official police powers by the regional authorities. But it would be wrong to imagine that the RNU, which polls relatively poorly in national elections is the only threat. Far from it. Last year Putin managed to deflect the huge build-up of popular anger at living conditions and non-payment of wages by launching a ferocious war against the Chechen people. Simultaneously the nation's mass media united to foment hatred against Muslims and dark-skinned peoples in general, culminating in a campaign of mass expulsions from Moscow of Black people. Antisemitism too is now a major recurring theme, with a spate of synagogue attacks, stabbings and bombing incidents. The leader of the Communist Party (KPRF), the largest party in the country, has publicly blamed Jews for the economic crisis. In August Putin held talks with Prokhanov, editor of the ultra-racist magazine Zavtra, in the Kremlin. Shortly after this, Zavtra published accusations that the Jews were a fifth column trying to overthrow Putin. Prokhanov also invited the American nazi David Duke (formerly of the Ku Kux Klan) to address a packed meeting at Moscow's Mayakovsky Museum, where Duke condemned "world zionism" as the "Aryan race's main enemy" and called for the expulsion of all Blacks and Jews from Moscow. ISWoR, International Solidarity with Workers in Russia, urges antiracist organisations worldwide to contact us with a view to further collaboration in fighting this menace, and to support the protest appeal below: MODEL LETTER OF PROTEST (FOR TRADE UNIONS, ANTIRACIST AND OTHER PROGRESSIVE ORGANISATIONS) Send the letter below, or your own, to Putin at the following address with copy please to us at International Solidarity with Workers in Russia [EMAIL PROTECTED], (Postal address above). President of Russian Federation Vladimir PUTIN: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] FAX: (+7 095) 206-02-66. Postal address:103132, Moscow, Staraya Ploshad, 4, RUSSIA Mr President Putin, We are aware of and totally condemn the recent cowardly racist attacks against Jewish schoolchildren in Ryazan and Roma migrant workers in Yekaterinburg. The fomenting of racial hatred and bigotry is a traditional tactic of big business and political elites seeking to deflect popular anger at economic misery onto innocent scapegoats. Your conduct in Chechnya, and most recently, your decision to host Prokhanov, editor of the ultra-racist journal Zavtra and a friend of David Duke, at the Kremlin shows clearly your own role in the resurgence of xenophobia in Russia. We therefore warn you that world-wide, labour and anti-racist organisations are monitoring your activities. Signed Organisation Country WORKERS OF ALL LANDS & CULTURES UNITE! ***** ANTI-RACIST ACTION CHICAGO 1573 N. Milwaukee, PMB 420 Chicago, IL 60622 Tel: 312.409.1432 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Friday, 22 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ CHICAGO ANTI-FASCISTS DISRUPT APPEARANCE BY DAVID IRVING ____________________________________________________________________ On Tuesday, September 19, the internationally despised Holocaust denier and historical revisionist David Irving was scheduled to speak at a secret meeting in Chicago regarding "Truth in History." The topic of Irving's scheduled appearance is ironic, given that his reputation as a historian was thoroughly shredded by a judgement placed against him in a British high court earlier this year. In this case, where David Irving's beliefs and "evidence" were placed on trial, the judge found that "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards, and responsibility for, the treatment of the Jews." For the past 15 years, David Irving has pushed doctored historical evidence exonerating the Nazis from the extermination of Jews during World War II. He has peddled his ideas to the extreme right, consistently making appearances and speeches on behalf of fascist and right-wing groups in a number of countries, including the US, Canada and Germany. According to the British courts: "The content of his speeches and interviews often displays a distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish bias." There is no question that David Irving is an apologist and proponent of fascism. A short time before David Irving was scheduled to speak in Chicago, the progressive right-wing monitoring group the Center for New Community (CNC) learned of the event and put out a call to anti-fascists around Chicago to respond and protest. Over 70 people turned out on only a day's notice, including a sizable contingent pulled together by Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as well as student activists from Depaul University. The activists gathered at DePaul University, only a few blocks away from Stefani's, the bourgeois restaurant hosting Irving's event. The anti-fascists then marched to the restaurant and staged a spirited protest out front. This rowdy protest was blocked from getting in the front door, but the highly visible and loud presence drew crowds of onlookers from the surrounding neighborhood, restaurants and workplaces. At the same time, a group of masked anti-fascists stormed into the restaurant through the rear kitchen entrance. This militant action further disrupted Irving's presentation, as tables were knocked over, food was thrown and Irving's literature ripped and scattered. Irving himself was struck with a chair! The antifas withdrew from the restaurant before police arrived, and no arrests were taken. Irving and his audience of 20 or so were forced to retreat to the basement of the building. The protest outside the restaurant continued for 45 minutes, before it left the area in the face of a growing police presence and escalated police threats. The entire night was undoubtedly a victory, as it showed that anti-fascists could organize on extremely short notice to disrupt a clandestine fascist affair and hand them a lesson they won't soon forget. The anti-fascists themselves were a diverse bunch, including religious activists, Jewish students, Latino punks, white anarchists and class war skinheads. The action was also successful because it incorporated space both for activists who merely wished to make a presence and expose the affair as well as militants who wished to take direct action and attempt to shut it down. Both played their part, and delivered a message that fascists will not be allowed to secretly spread their lies and organize without being directly confronted and opposed. ***** WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Web: http://www.wsws.org/ E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Thursday, 21 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ VLADIMIR MONTESIONS: THE RISE AND FALL OF "OUR MAN IN LIMA" ____________________________________________________________________ By Bill Vann News & Analysis: South & Central America http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/sep2000/mont-s21.shtml Recent reports of Vladimir Montesinos's role in bribing a Peruvian legislator and smuggling guns to the Colombian guerrillas are only part of a long record of criminal activity carried out in collaboration with both Peruvian and US authorities. The cashiered Peruvian army captain became one of the most powerful political figures in the country through a lifetime of maneuvers, betrayals and vendettas, while unleashing one of the most brutal campaigns of repression in recent Latin American history. All evidence points to the Peruvian intelligence chief's intimate ties to the US Central Intelligence Agency. Much like Panama's Gen. Manuel Noriega in the 1980s, Montesinos served as a key collaborator in Washington's anti-narcotics and anti-guerrilla operations in the region for years, only to be reviled for his well-known corruption and repression once he no longer served the CIA's purposes. Born into a family of Peruvian Communist Party members (two of his cousins rose to the position of secretary general within the pro-Moscow Stalinist party), Vladimir Ilyich Montesinos entered the Peruvian army in 1966. Two years later, Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado led a military coup, establishing a "Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces." The military regime adopted a left-nationalist posture and sought to acquire weapons from the Soviet Union. Both of these moves aroused concern in Washington and increased scrutiny by US intelligence. According to published accounts in Peru, during this period Montesinos approached a Russian KGB agent in Lima, offering to provide documents on the strategic relations between Peru, Chile and Ecuador. Some military colleagues suspected the approach was a provocation mounted by the CIA with the aim of blocking an arms deal. After a 1975 coup in which Gen. Francisco Morales Bermudez overthrew Gen. Velasco and began orienting the regime more directly towards Washington's orbit, Montesinos, then a captain, made his own more precipitous turn. Forging military passes and obtaining a passport, he flew to Washington where he met with CIA officials. Upon his return, the Peruvian foreign ministry issued a note of protest. Montesinos was arrested and his house searched. The military jailed him and began to prepare charges of "treason to the fatherland," an offense punishable by death. Instead, higher-ups in the military command intervened and he was charged merely with abandoning his post, disobedience and falsifying documents. Drummed out of the army, he was sentenced to a year in jail. After his release, Montesinos worked briefly as a taxi driver and then obtained a license to practice law. His specialty was defending drug traffickers, particularly leading figures in the Peruvian and Colombian cocaine cartels. Working with a network of corrupt judges, prosecutors and police, he managed to keep clients caught and arrested with large quantities of drugs out of prison. The drug connection brought Montesinos into contact with top circles within the government, and he became a senior advisor to the country's chief prosecutor. There he was placed in charge of investigations into massacres of civilians by the country's military during the bloody war against the Shining Path guerrillas. He not only worked to cover up such crimes, but established an arrangement to turn over to the SIN (National Intelligence Service) the names and addresses of civilians who provided accounts of atrocities to the ministry of justice as well as those of relatives of the "disappeared." It was during the 1990 election that Montesinos made himself useful to Alberto Fujimori, suppressing charges over the presidential candidate's past evasion of property taxes on various real estate deals. While assuming no formal post in the regime, Montesinos became the new president's chief advisor. His principal aim was a purge of the top ranks within the armed forces and police, beginning with his personal enemies. At the same time, he worked to expand the power of the SIN, which exerted ever-growing power over the other security agencies. Using the civil war against Shining Path as a justification, the SIN employed ever more brutal methods of repression. Under Montesinos' direction, a death squad known as the Colina Group was formed, carrying out massacres of workers and students. The anti-guerrilla campaign was also used as the excuse for disbanding the parliament and sacking the judiciary in April 1992. In the generalized repression that accompanied the coup, the ex-captain made sure to have intelligence agents abduct one of Peru's leading journalists, Gustavo Gorriti, in retaliation for having written an article some seven years earlier about Montesinos' peculiar history. Once reformed, the parliament became a servile rubber stamp for Fujimori. In 1996, it voted down a resolution calling for the formation of a commission to investigate Montesinos and another resolution that merely called for the government to clarify his position within the SIN. In the same year, Demetrio Chavez, a prominent drug trafficker, was arrested on narcotics charges. After revealing that he had paid $50,000 a month to Montesinos for protection, he was accused of collaborating with the guerrillas and jurisdiction over his case was transferred to the military courts. He was later produced, showing obvious signs of torture, to recant his previous accusations against Fujimori's adviser. Shortly afterwards, a Peruvian television station revealed that Montesinos had an income of $700,000 in 1995, an amount many times his official salary. Government officials explained that the adviser had earned the money from "foreign sources," a phrase that most observers took to mean the US Central Intelligence Agency. After the same television station reported instances in which former SIN agents had been killed or tortured for leaking information, its owner, Baruj Ivcher, was deprived of his Peruvian citizenship, his property seized and the channel turned into a propaganda mouthpiece for the government. Another investigative report published at the end of last year found that Montesinos had more than two million dollars in just one bank account. Again, government officials responded that his money had come from foreign sources. Asked last week about Montesinos' reported links with the CIA, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart refused to comment. Copyright 1998-2000 World Socialist Web Site. All rights reserved. ***** PINOCHET WATCH Produced by the Institute for Policy Studies E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tni.org/campaigns/pinochet/watch/watch23.htm - No. 26, September 19, 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ CIA ISSUES REPORT ON COVERT ACTIONS IN CHILE ____________________________________________________________________ Yesterday, the CIA released a declassified version of a report on covert actions in Chile that had been submitted in classified form to U.S. Congressional committees earlier this month. In this report, the agency acknowledges publicly for the first time that Gen. Manuel Contreras, former head of the infamous Chilean secret police and currently serving a seven year prison sentence in Chile for his involvement with the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C., was cooperating with the CIA from 1974 until 1977 and received payment for his services in 1975 (see article #2). The report draws on documents, Congressional reports, memoirs of public officials such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, an oral history collection, and interviews with retired intelligence officers. It was submitted in response to the "Hinchey Amendment" to the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2000, written by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY). Many Pinochet Watch subscribers were actively involved in the effort to include this amendment in the legislation (congratulations!). The amendment required the CIA to "submit...a report describing all activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the intelligence community with respect to the following events in the Republic of Chile: 1. The assassination of President Salvador Allende in September 1973; 2. The accession of Gen. Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency of the Republic of Chile; and 3.Violations of human rights committed by officers or agents of former President Pinochet." The Amendment was included in the final text of the bill which was signed into law on December 3, 1999. In addition to the revelations about Contreras, the report details the CIA's efforts from 1962 until 1973 to influence elections, disseminate propaganda and ultimately instigate a coup to prevent the democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende from taking office in 1970. The report refers to President Nixon's authorization of $10 million for the CIA to "prevent Allende from coming to power or unseat him," mentioning that, "the President specifically directed that this action be carried out by the CIA without advising the Departments of State or Defense or the U.S. Ambassador in Chile." Although the report insists that the CIA "did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973," they acknowledge that the agency, "was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters and...because CIA did not discourage this takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970...probably appeared to condone it." The report acknowledges that, although the CIA "admonished its Chilean agents against such behavior," it continued to pursue contacts with known human rights abusers, "because refusing such contact would have had a negative impact on the CIA intelligence collection mission." They imply that the CIA has, in fact, learned its lesson from experiences in Chile and Central America and "now carefully reviews all contacts for potential involvement in human rights abuses and makes a deliberate decision balancing the nature and severity of the human rights abuse against the potential intelligence value of continuing the relationship." The agency continues to deny any involvement in or knowledge of the 1973 murders of American citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi or the 1985 disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler. * * * ____________________________________________________________________ MANUEL CONTRERAS WAS A CIA ASSET: Excerpts From Report ____________________________________________________________________ The 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C. is considered the worst act of proven state-sponsored terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil. One of the masterminds of the assassination was Gen. Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who headed the notorious Chilean secret police known as "DINA" from 1974 to 1977. Contreras was indicted by a U.S. Federal Grand Jury in August 1978 for his role in the Letelier-Moffitt murders and was eventually sentenced to a seven-year prison term in Chile for the crime. He was also tried and convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1975 assassination attempt against Bernardo Leighton and his wife and is currently under investigation for his role in the 1976 assassination of Carlos and Sofia Prats in Buenos Aires. The following is the summary of the CIA relationship with Contreras as described in the recently declassified report: Relationship with Manuel Contreras "During a period between 1974 and 1977, CIA maintained contact with Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who later became notorious for his involvement in human rights abuses. The U.S. Government policy community approved CIA's contact with Contreras, given his position as chief of the primary intelligence organization in Chile, as necessary to accomplish the CIA's mission, in spite of concerns that this relationship might lay the CIA open to charges of aiding internal political repression. From the start, the CIA made it clear to Contreras was that it would not support any of his activities or activities of his service which might be construed as "internal political repression." In its contacts with Contreras, the CIA urged him to adhere to a 17 January 1974 circular, issued by the Chilean Ministry of Defense, spelling our guidelines for handling prisoners in a manner consistent with the 1949 Geneva Convention. The relationship, while correct, was not cordial and smooth, particularly as evidence of Contreras' role in human rights abuses emerged. In December 1974, the CIA concluded that Contreras was not going to improve his human rights performance. However, Contreras' assistance in the first quarter of 1975 in gaining the release of some PDC members who had been arrested and mistreated by another Chilean security service offered small hope that he would use his influence to end abuses. In retrospect, however, Contreras' role in this effort probably reflected interservice rivalry and Contreras' personal efforts to control the entire Chilean intelligence apparatus. By April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principle obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta, but an interagency committee directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras. The US Ambassador to Chile urged Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Walters to receive Contreras in Washington in the interest of maintaining good relations with Pinochet. In August 1975, with interagency approval, this meeting took place. In May and June 1975, elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras in order to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet. This proposal was overruled, citing the U.S. Government policy on clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service notorious for human rights abuses. However, given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras. In addition to information concerning external threats, CIA sought from Contreras information regarding evidence that emerged in 1975 of a formal Southern Cone cooperative intelligence effort--Operation Condor--building on informal cooperation in tracking, and, in at least a few cases, killing political opponents. By October 1976, there was sufficient information that the CIA decided to approach Contreras on the matter. Contreras confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in extra-judicial killings. Former Allende cabinet member and Ambassador to Washington Orlando Letelier and his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt, were killed in a carbombing in Washington on 21 September 1976. Almost immediately after the assassination, rumors began circulating that the Chilean government was responsible. CIA's first intelligence report containing this allegation was dated 6 of October 1976. During October 1976, the Department of Justice and the CIA worked out how the CIA would support the foreign intelligence (FI) aspects of the legal investigation. At that time, Contreras' possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue. By the end of 1976, contacts with Contreras were very infrequent. During 1977, CIA met with Contreras about half a dozen times; three of those contacts were to request information on the Letelier assassination. On 3 November 1977, Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to intelligence so the CIA severed al contact with him. Nonetheless, the CIA intelligence reporting continued to follow Contreras' activities closely. After a short struggle to retain power, Contreras resigned from the Army in 1978. In the interim, CIA gathered specific, detailed reporting concerning Contreras' involvement in ordering the Letelier assassination. While some of this material has been released, some remains classified and another portion has been withheld at the request of the Department of Justice which continues to pursue the investigation." For more information on "Pinochet Watch," contact Stacie Jonas, Institute for Policy Studies, 733 15th St. NW, #1020, Washington, DC 20005. Tel: 202/234-9382, ext. 239. Fax: 202/387-7915. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For previous issues, go to http://www.tni.org/campaigns/pinochet/watch/watch.htm. The Institute for Policy Studies is an independent center for research and education founded in 1963. IPS has worked to bring Pinochet to justice since the murders of two IPS colleagues, Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, at the hands of Pinochet's agents, in 1976. Copyright 2000 Institute for Policy Studies ***** ANTI-FASCIST ACTION Box BM 1734 London, WC1N 3XX Tel: 0976-406-870 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5602 - Friday, 22 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ ANTI-FASCIST ACTION - OCTOBER RALLY ____________________________________________________________________ SUNDAY 1st OCTOBER, 2000. The Lux Cinema, 2-4 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NU. (nearest tube Old Street) Starts 2pm. Admission Free. Debate: 'CAN THE LEFT BEAT THE BNP?' Speakers: COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN, RED ACTION, MIKE MARQUESE (Londo= n Socialist Alliance), SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY, SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY (invite= d), CLASS WAR. Questions and contributions will be taken from the audience. ***** INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 Editor, Olivier Schmidt E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence Tel/Fax: 33 1 40 51 85 19 Post: ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles 75005 Paris, France Publishing since 1980 - No. 371, 11 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ Germany: MAD GETTING MADDER AT EX-AGENT ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/371INT Source: Cryptome: http://www.cryptome.org - Tuesday, 18 September 2000 - A former agent of the German military intelligence service, the Militarische Abschirmdienst (MAD), who identifies himself only as "Michael P.", has threatened to post classified internal reports relating to MAD covert operations against neo-Nazi organizations on the Internet unless the German military authorities take measures to protect and compensate him and his family against threats of violence by neo-Nazi sympathizers. The conflict between Michael P. and the German authorities dates back to 1989 when he was recruited by MAD to infiltrate the Nationalistische Front (NF), an extreme right-wing group which based it propaganda on xenophobia, national self-reliance and hostility towards the European Community. Michael P. was a member of the Federal Armed Forces Parachute Regiment and claims he agreed to the undercover assignment because of his "military convictions and a sense of duty". He became a close confidant of NF boss, Meinolf Schonborn, and supplied MAD with detailed information about the group's membership, infrastructure and links to the extreme-right network in France, Belgium, Spain, England and the United States. He also learned of plans to form "direct action cells" called "national employment commands" using Syrian-trained "front-line comrades" to target politicians, democratic institutions and asylum applicants. In a proposal similar to Adolf Hitler's elimination of Captain Ernst Rohm in June 1934, Michael P. told his intelligence handlers that Schonborn was planning to murder senior members of the NF, an operation Schonborn referred to as "the night of long measures". More significantly for Michael P.'s future, however, was the discovery that a German army officer, serving as personal secretary to a brigade commander of the Federal Armed Forces, maintained close contact with the NF. Despite the fact that the officer had access to sensitive data about covert operations against neo-Nazi groups, an internal MAD assessment concluded his relationship with the NF leadership was "not political but personal". Nonetheless, to avoid the embarrassment of having its undercover operation or its agent compromised, a 1991 report recommended that Michael P. be transferred to Canada. The following year, after a dramatic increase in racist attacks throughout Germany, the Interior Minister, Rudolf Seiters, banned the NF. In the mid-1990s, after four years with the Canadian Special Forces, Michael P. was transferred to the US, serving as assistant to the German Army's liaison officer, Lieutenant Colonel Guenther Guderian, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Lt. Col. Guderian is the grandson of Panzer General Heinz Guderian, a Hitler-loyalist who fought on the Eastern Front. In a 1995 interview with the local Fayettville Observer Times newspaper, Guderian said he was proud of his grandfather's military record. However, his liaison assistant, Michael P, complained to the military authorities in Bonn that Lt. Col. Guderian kept a portrait of his grandfather wearing a swastika in his office, pointing out that this was a "display of unconstitutional symbols" banned under German law. An internal investigation was carried out during which Guderian stated that he was not concerned with the "ideological beliefs of national socialism". The authorities in Bonn rejected Michael P.'s complaint, describing Guderian as an officer "maintaining the military tradition of his family". By mid-1995, following the jailing of Meinholf Schonborn for the unlawful use of neo-Nazi symbols, MAD downgraded the threat of racial violence from the NF. In December 1997, Vice-Admiral Hans Frank informed Michael P. that "endangerment considerations" were being withdrawn from him and his family, despite an increase in racist incidents within the German armed forces, which were inadequately investigated by a Bundestag committee that refused to take evidence from Micael P. The ex- Para was given an honorable discharge in 1998. He currently lives in the US with his wife and two children, on a three-year severance allowance. The German military authorities have refused to comment, stating that "in principle" no information is released about military intelligence matters. COMMENT -- The Militarische Abschirmdienst (MAD) has a history of incompetence dating back to the Cold War period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s when the service was repeatedly criticized for failing to uncover KGB and Stasi agents within the ranks of the West German armed forces. In the 1970s, MAD was the focus of widespread media attention after admitting it had bugged the offices of senior Defence staff in Bonn without warrants and accused several ranking military officers of spying without sufficient evidence. In 1982, the West German government's data protection agency carried out an investigation of MAD operations and ordered that 500,000 card registrations on West German citizens be destroyed. The figure included 15,000 to 20,000 cards on people who were over 75 or under 10 years-of-age, people who had signed petitions against Fascism, taken part in anti-nuclear demonstrations or had been photographed in the vicinity of anti-conscription demonstrations. In 1990-1991, when Michael P. was active, MAD had a staff of 1,834 and an annual "black" budget estimated at DM 145 to 150 million. Copyright ADI 2000, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. ***** MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE UK Tel: 0121-554-6947 Fax: 0870-055-4570 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.appleonline.net/justiceuk/jus.html - Thursday, 21 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ SATPAL RAM UPDATE ____________________________________________________________________ Satpal said to let y'all know he is extremely pissed off with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). He had a letter from them this morning saying that a decision on wether to refer his case back to the court of appeal has been put off till the 28lth November. (Satpal dosn't want any action on this). Satpal had the interview with the parole officer as arranged last Monday 18th September. He said it was like a game of 'Ping Pong', and that the PO will now draw up his report and has promised Satpal that this will be done within the next 14 days and then the report will go to the Parole Board. The parole board should make a decision with in six weeks of receiving the report. ***** WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Web: http://www.wsws.org/ E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Tuesday, 19 September 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ VATICAN BEATIFIES ANTI-SEMITIC POPE ____________________________________________________________________ By Peter Reydt News & Analysis: Religion http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/sep2000/pope-s19.shtml The beatification of Pope Pius IX has again revealed the deeply ingrained anti-Semitism within the Catholic Church. Pope Pius IX, who reigned from 1846 to 1878, was one of two former pontiffs beatified by Pope John-Paul II on September 3 in a ceremony attended by thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square. Beatification is the last step before bestowing sainthood. It was carried out despite widespread criticism by Jewish organisations and liberal Catholics of Pius IX's anti-Jewish record. On the eve of the ceremony hundreds of Rome's Jews and Catholics protested against the beatification in a candlelight vigil. Pius IX was renowned for his frequent anti-Semitic speeches. In one address, he is said to have called Jews "dogs of which there are too many present in Rome, howling and disturbing us everywhere". In 1848 Pius IX forced the Jews of Rome back into the old ghetto to which they had been confined for centuries, and in the following year, he enacted racial laws against them. Jews were banned from public hospitals, prevented from giving evidence against Christians in papal courts and excluded from all institutes of secondary and higher education. Israeli historians say that these laws were the forerunners of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's race policies. Leading British church scholar Professor Owen Chadwick said that the nineteenth-century pontiff's record "verges on the criminal". In one case, which caused an international outcry at the time, Pius IX personally ordered the forced kidnap and baptism of a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Levi Mortara in 1858. Pius IX was known for his extreme conservatism. He condemned 80 propositions as "erroneous", including socialism, liberalism, communism, rationalism, progress and modern civilisation in general. Catholic conservatives say that Pius IX, who had the longest reign of any Pope, should be celebrated for his "heroic values" in standing up against the creation of a secular Italy and as "a model of Christian life". The decision to proceed with Pius IX's beatification comes after the Catholic Church was forced to suspend that of Pope Pius XII, known as "Hitler's Pope". According to John Cornwell, a former seminarian and research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and author of Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pope Pius XII, the wartime Pope displayed a "secret antipathy towards the Jews". Cornwell spent six years researching information in the Vatican archives on Eugenio Pacelli, as Pius XII was known before his election. He had originally intended his book to defend Pope Pius XII against criticism that he had not done enough to stop the Holocaust. Instead he had uncovered evidence that amounted to a "wider indictment". As the papal envoy in Munich in 1932, prior to his becoming Pope in 1939, Pacelli considered the Jews to be part of a Bolshevik plot to destroy Christendom and agreed to sanction the Vatican-German Concordat of 1933 that aided Hitler's rise to power. In doing so, he cleared the way for Hitler's "Final Solution" to continue. "He was Hitler's pawn. He was Hitler's Pope," said Professor Cornwell. Although the Vatican was forced to quietly suspend plans for Pius XII's sainthood due to widespread opposition from Jewish groups and others, the Catholic Church has defended his record. During a television interview about Pius XII's wartime role, Archbishop Sambi said that the Vatican had taken the view that public condemnation of the Holocaust would only have made matters worse. "I am convinced that a strong condemnation would have increased Hitler's persecution of the Jews. I justify totally what he did to save many Jews." At the end of the war, the Vatican aided the escape of hundreds of Nazis from Europe by issuing them with false Red Cross passports. The so-called "rat line" involved a network of European monasteries used to harbour war criminals. These were spirited out of Germany and the former Nazi occupied territories to Latin America. Mass murderers like Adolf Eichmann, Klaus Barbie and Ante Pavelic were delivered to the port of Buenos Aires disguised as priests. As in the case of Barbie, some went on to become expert advisers to Latin American dictatorships in techniques of repression and torture perfected by the Third Reich. Last year the Pope had designated the new millennium as a "year of purification" for the Church. The Vatican issued a 14-page document, We Remember, A Reflection on the Shoah, meant as an "act of repentance" for its wartime record. During the papal pilgrimage to Israel in March, the Pope had placed a note in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, asking God's forgiveness for the past sins of his Church, and committing Catholics to future brotherhood with Jews. French bishops issued an apology for the Church's support for the collaborationist Vichy regime and the Spanish Church was said to be asking for "forgiveness" for its support for the fascist Franco before, during and after the 1936 civil war. Such apologies aside, the Papacy has never accounted for the help it extended to those who directed the Holocaust. Moreover, the Catholic Church still refuses to open its archive of documents relating to this alliance. One US Treasury document accuses the Vatican of keeping gold--worth an estimated 200 million Swiss francs at the time--looted by Croatia's Nazi puppet regime safe in the Vatican vaults for the Ustashe. The money is alleged to have been used to finance the "rat line". The Catholic Church's support for the Nazi regime was not solely due to its anti-Semitism. As a bastion of the ruling elite, it has played a reactionary role at every juncture of social and historical developments. In the eighteenth century it supported the autocracy against the fight for constitutional democracy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, its support for reaction took the form of hostility towards the struggle of the working class for socialism, and support for its total suppression through fascism. It still plays this role today. The proposal to sanctify known anti-Semites is just one way this can be seen. Last year the Vatican lent its support to the former Chilean Dictator General Pinochet in his attempt to avoid extradition to Spain for human rights abuses committed during his reign of terror. Only recently the Vatican has confirmed that Pope John-Paul II is to meet J=F6rg Haider, the leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party on December 16. Copyright 1998-2000 World Socialist Web Site. All rights reserved. ***** ____________________________________________________________________ SKINHEADS BEATEN IN PRAGUE ATTACK AS IMF MEETINGS LOOM ____________________________________________________________________ UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Saturday, 23 September 2000 17:42 (ET) http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=3D121032 By ERIC JOHNSON PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Several young men dressed in skinhead garb were beaten and bloodied in an attack in downtown Prague on Saturday during anti-globalization protests tied to the upcoming annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It was the first display of the kind of violence Prague authorities have been expecting as hosts of the conference of financial leaders, who are under fire for policies that critics favor big business at the expense of the poor. The attack came on the first of five days of scheduled protests in the Czech capital. The IMF-World Bank meetings as well as a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations were held without incident in a well-guarded convention hall across a bridge from the city center. The beatings, apparently by members of an anarchist group, took place at Prague's main rail station while peaceful demonstrations were under way in other parts of the city. The attackers, believed to be six young men, fled before police arrived. Reporters and police gave conflicting accounts of the attack. Czech public television reported that up to five skinheads had been beaten, and showed footage of the bloodied victims. Police said only one young man was slightly injured. Later, a member of the group Anti-Fascist Action defended the attack. Jan Kensky told the Czech news agency CTK, "I do not consider it an incident but our duty to prevent Nazis from marching along streets." Before going to the rail station and spotting the skinheads, the attackers reportedly had attended a peaceful rally by about 200 anti-globalization protesters at Prague's Peace Square. The self-described anarchists also held a short march, without incident. The largest and noisiest protest of the day was a march by communists and leftists waving red banners through Wenceslas Square. Across town, police outnumbered the few dozen skinheads who were shouting slogans during their rally at Letna Park. Authorities estimate that at least 20,000 demonstrators representing a variety of groups and causes will converge on Prague by Tuesday, the scheduled start of the IMF-World Bank meetings. Watching for trouble on every downtown street, in subway stations and even aboard trams are 11,000 police officers backed by the Czech army. Many stores were closed, and helicopters hovered overhead. Public schools in the capital are closed next week because of the fear of violence. Police reported no arrests Saturday stemming from the outdoor demonstrations or a small protest during a government-sponsored globalization forum at Prague Castle. But the castle protest was perhaps the most embarrassing for Czech President Vaclav Havel. A handful of activists wearing T-shirts with anti-poverty slogans appeared unexpectedly at the castle garden as Havel spoke informally with United Nations human rights chief Mary Robinson. Away from the cameras, the main protest group Initiative Against Economic Globalization hosted two "counter-summit" meetings in city theaters. The group is organizing what it hopes will be the largest demonstration of the meetings on Tuesday, when protesters will attempt to block streets leading to the IMF conference site. Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ***** ____________________________________________________________________ TWO SKINHEADS TO BE TRIED IN BEATING Suspects Face State's Anti-Gang Law* ____________________________________________________________________ THE SACRAMENTO BEE Local News Saturday, September 23, 2000 http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local04_20000923.html By Gary Delsohn and Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writers A Sacramento judge agreed Friday with the district attorney's contention that two skinheads charged with attempted murder in a pair of vicious attacks in Carmichael and Citrus Heights should be tried under the state's tough anti-gang law. The unprecedented ruling came as a result of a joint FBI and Sacramento County sheriff's investigation that for the first time targeted local white supremacists with the same type of legal muscle usually reserved for better-known gangs such as Crips or Bloods. "I find that the 'Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act' is applicable to the defendants ... ," Superior Court Judge Michael Virga ruled at the end of a lengthy preliminary hearing. "There is sufficient and probable cause to believe each defendant is guilty." The defendants, Joshua Gilmore, 24, and Richard Molinare, 22, who each sport large, vivid tattoos of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officers, are charged with attempted murder in what authorities said was the unprovoked 1997 beating of Jeff Almon, then a 16-year-old Del Campo High School student. Almon had been walking near Dewey Drive and Palm Avenue in Carmichael at the time, on his way to a friend's house to build a skateboard ramp, when he was jumped and kicked repeatedly in the head. If Gilmore and Molinare are convicted of attempted murder as gang members, they would face sentences of 25 years to life, and the time before they could be eligible for parole would be more than doubled from seven years to 15. "The common fuel of these people was hatred," prosecutor Steve Harrold argued in pushing for the street gang designation. "We are dealing with a local problem that was infecting this community in the summer and fall of 1997." According to testimony in the case, the defendants believed Almon belonged to another skinhead group called SHARP -- Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. Almon, who suffered severe head injuries in the attack, testified that he wasn't a SHARP, whose members often clash with racist skinheads. Gilmore is said to be a member of the World Church of the Creator. The Peoria, Ill.-based white supremacist group espouses an all-white nation, and its members have been linked to a series of violent attacks against Jews and other minorities. Authorities said Molinare was a member of a local skinhead group known as Western Hammerskins. In addition to the Almon beating, Gilmore is also charged with attempted murder in the near-fatal stabbing Nov. 1, 1997, of a man who was picking up his wife at a now-defunct Citrus Heights coffee shop called the Cyber Cafe. Investigators who worked on the cases at the time arrested Billy Johnson, 21, after the Cyber cafe incident. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and served less than a year in state prison. But they continued to search for leads, and an informant came forward last summer during Sacramento's synagogues arson probe. The informant led sheriff's Detective Milo Fitch, the department's gangs expert, to Gilmore and Molinare. In their closing arguments Friday, neither defense lawyer made any mention about the attempted murder charges, nor did they suggest that their clients were not involved in the attacks. They instead restricted their comments to attacking Harrold's argument that the men were part of a gang. "The Church of the Creator is basically a political and religious organization," Danny Williams, attorney for Gilmore, argued. "They support establishing a white homeland. No matter how repugnant or unpopular we may find the ideas the COTC may have, all ideas have to be protected in a free Democracy." Besides, Williams added, the Church of the Creator has a Web site on the Internet and puts out videos, pamphlets and books that advance their political and religious views. "If you can think of another gang that does what the COTC does, I'd be really surprised." He added that the views of groups like the COTC and Hammerskins "were no more radical" than the nation's founders, many of whom owned slaves and treated women and American Indians as inferiors. Virga ordered that the defendants, who have been held in the county jail since their arrest earlier this summer, be returned to court Oct. 3 for arraignment and to set a trial date. Copyright 2000 The Sacramento Bee * AFIB Editor's Comment: The decision by the California Superior Court to charge neo-Nazi boneheads under the state's 'Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act' sets a dangerous precedent and does nothing to combat the spread of racist, anti-Semtic and fascist ideology. With this decision, the Court is attempting to criminalize ideas, not simply prosecute violent crimes perpetrated by Nazis. Indeed, use of the 'Street Terrorism' statute, a racist piece of legislation that disproportionately targets black, Latino and working class youth up and down the state must be opposed by anti-fascists and civil libertarians. Today the state claims to have set its sights on neo-Nazi outfits such as the WOTC; this is nothing but hypocrisy given the nature of California's institutional racism, particularly among police. Further, when anti-racist youth and their supporters shut-down Nazi venues or actively "discourage" fascists from crawling out from under their rocks, the state can just as easily dust off this statute for use against anti-Nazis. Conclusion: this is not anti-fascism. ***** THE CONSORTIUM FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM Suite 102-231, 2200 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22201 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.consortiumnews.com - Saturday, 23 Sepetember 2000 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ GEORGE H.W. BUSH, THE CIA & A CASE OF STATE TERRORISM ____________________________________________________________________ By Robert Parry In early fall of 1976, after a Chilean government assassin had killed a Chilean dissident and an American woman with a car bomb in Washington, D.C., George H.W. Bush's CIA leaked a false report clearing Chile's military dictatorship and pointing the FBI in the wrong direction. The bogus CIA assessment, spread through Newsweek magazine and other U.S. media outlets, was planted despite CIA's now admitted awareness at the time that Chile was participating in Operation Condor, a cross-border campaign targeting political dissidents, and the CIA's own suspicions that the Chilean junta was behind the terrorist bombing in Washington. In a 21-page report to Congress on Sept. 18, the CIA officially acknowledged for the first time that the mastermind of the terrorist attack, Chilean intelligence chief Manuel Contreras, was a paid asset of the CIA. The new report was issued almost 24 years to the day after the murders of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt, who died on Sept. 21, 1976, when a remote-controlled bomb ripped apart Letelier's car as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue, a stately section of Washington known as Embassy Row. In the new report, the CIA also acknowledged publicly for the first time that it consulted Contreras in October 1976 about the Letelier assassination. The report added that the CIA was aware of the alleged Chilean government role in the murders and included that suspicion in an internal cable the same month. "CIA's first intelligence report containing this allegation was dated 6 October 1976," alittle more than two weeks after the bombing, the CIA disclosed. Nevertheless, the CIA - then under CIA director George H.W. Bush - leaked for public consumption an assessment clearing the Chilean government's feared intelligence service, DINA, which was then run by Contreras. Relying on the word of Bush's CIA, Newsweek reported that "the Chilean secret police were not involved" in the Letelier assassination. "The [Central Intelligence] agency reached its decision because the bomb was too crude to be the work of experts and because the murder, coming while Chile's rulers were wooing U.S. support, could only damage the Santiago regime." [Newsweek, Oct. 11, 1976] Bush, who later became president of the United States and is the father of the current Republican nominee for the presidency, has never explained his role in putting out the false cover story that diverted attention away from the real terrorists. Nor has Bush explained what he knew about the Chilean intelligence operation in the weeks before Letelier and Moffitt were killed. Dodging Disclosure As a Newsweek correspondent in 1988, a dozen years later, when the elder Bush was running for president, I prepared a detailed story about Bush's handling of the Letelier case. The draft story included the first account from U.S. intelligence sources that Contreras was a CIA asset in the mid-1970s. I also learned that the CIA had consulted Contreras about the Letelier assassination, information that the CIA then would not confirm. The sources told me that the CIA sent its Santiago station chief, Wiley Gilstrap, to talk with Contreras after the bombing. Gilstrap then cabled back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Contreras's assurances that the Chilean government was not involved. Contreras told Gilstrap that the most likely killers were communists who wanted to make a martyr out of Letelier. My story draft also described how Bush=92s CIA had been forewarned in 1976 about DINA's secret plans to send agents, including the assassin Michael Townley, into the United States on false passports. Upon learning of this strange mission, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, George Landau, cabled Bush about Chile's claim that Townley and another agent were traveling to CIA headquarters for a meeting with Bush's deputy, Vernon Walters. Landau also forwarded copies of the false passports to the CIA. Walters cabled back that he was unaware of any scheduled appointment with these Chilean agents. Landau immediately canceled the visas, but Townley simply altered his plans and continued on his way to the United States. After arriving, he enlisted some right-wing Cuban-Americans in the Letelier plot and went to Washington to plant the bomb under Letelier's car. The CIA has never explained what action it took, if any, after receiving Landau's warning. A natural follow-up would have been to contact DINA and ask what was afoot or whether a message about the trip had been misdirected. The new CIA report made no mention of these aspects of the case. After the assassination, Bush promised the CIA's full cooperation in tracking down the Letelier-Moffitt killers. But instead the CIA took contrary actions, such as planting the false exoneration and withholding evidence that would have implicated the Chilean junta. "Nothing the agency gave us helped us to break this case," said federal prosecutor Eugene Propper in a 1988 interview for the story I was drafting for Newsweek. The CIA never volunteered Ambassador Landau's cable about the suspicious DINA mission nor copies of the fake passports that included a photo of Townley, the chief assassin. Nor did Bush's CIA divulge its knowledge of the existence of Operation Condor. FBI agents in Washington and Latin America broke the case two years later. They discovered Operation Condor on their own and tracked the assassination back to Townley and his accomplices in the United States. In 1988, as then-Vice President Bush was citing his CIA work as an important part of his government experience, I submitted questions to him asking about his actions in the days before and after the Letelier bombing. Bush's chief of staff, Craig Fuller, wrote back, saying Bush "will have no comment on the specific issues raised in your letter." As it turned out, the Bush campaign had little to fear from my discoveries. When I submitted my story draft - with its exclusive account of Contreras's role as a CIA asset - Newsweek's editors refused to run the story. Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas told me that Editor Maynard Parker even had accused me of being "out to get Bush." [In 1992, I published the Bush-Contreras account and Newsweek's reaction to it in my first book, Fooling America. I reprised the Bush-Contreras story in my latest book, Lost History, in 1999.] The CIA's Admission Now, 24 years after the Letelier assassination and 12 years after Newsweek killed the first account of the Contreras-CIA relationship, the CIA has admitted that it had paid Contreras as an intelligence asset and consulted with him about the Letelier assassination. Still, in the sketchy new report, the spy agency seeks to portray itself as more victim than accomplice. According to the report, the CIA was internally critical of Contreras's human rights abuses and skeptical about his credibility. The CIA said its skepticism predates the spy agency's contact with him about the Letelier-Moffitt murders. "The relationship, while correct, was not cordial and smooth, particularly as evidence of Contreras' role in human rights abuses emerged," the CIA reported. "In December 1974, the CIA concluded that Contreras was not going to improve his human rights performance. ... "By April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta, but an interagency committee [within the Ford administration] directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras." The CIA report added that "a one-time payment was given to Contreras" in 1975, a time frame when the CIA was first hearing about Operation Condor, a cross-border program run by South America's military dictatorships to hunt down dissidents living in other countries. "CIA sought from Contreras information regarding evidence that emerged in 1975 of a formal Southern Cone cooperative intelligence effort - 'Operation Condor' - building on informal cooperation in tracking and, in at least a few cases, killing political opponents. By October 1976, there was sufficient information that the CIA decided to approach Contreras on the matter. Contreras confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in extra-judicial killings." Also, in October 1976, the CIA said it "worked out" how it would assist the FBI in its investigation of the Letelier assassination, which had occurred the previous month. The spy agency's report offered no details of what it did, however. The report added only that Contreras was already a murder suspect by fall 1976. "At that time, Contreras' possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue," the CIA's new report said. "By the end of 1976, contacts with Contreras were very infrequent." Even though the CIA came to recognize the likelihood that DINA was behind the Letelier assassination, there never was any indication that Bush's CIA sought to correct the false impression created by its leaks to the news media asserting DINA's innocence. After Bush left the CIA with Jimmy Carter's inauguration in 1977, the spy agency distanced itself from Contreras, the new report said. "During 1977, CIA met with Contreras about half a dozen times; three of those contacts were to request information on the Letelier assassination," the CIA report said. "On 3 November 1977, Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to intelligence so the CIA severed all contact with him," the report added. "After a short struggle to retain power, Contreras resigned from the Army in 1978. In the interim, CIA gathered specific, detailed intelligence reporting concerning Contreras' involvement in ordering the Letelier assassination." Remaining Mysteries Though the new CIA report contains the first official admission of a relationship with Contreras, it sheds no light on the actions of Bush and his deputy, Walters, in the days before and after the Letelier assassination. It also offers no explanation why Bush's CIA planted false information in the American press clearing Chile's military dictatorship. While providing the 21-page summary on its relationship with Chile's military dictatorship, the CIA has refused to release documents from a quarter century ago on the grounds that the disclosures might jeopardize the CIA's "sources and methods." The refusal comes in the face of President Clinton's specific order to release as much information as possible. The CIA could be playing for time. With CIA headquarters now officially named the George Bush Center for Intelligence and with veterans of the Reagan-Bush years still dominating the CIA's hierarchy, the spy agency might be hoping that the election of Texas Gov. George W. Bush will free it from demands to open up records to the American people. For his part, former President Bush has declared his intent to take a more active role in campaigning for his son's election. In Florida on Sept. 22, Bush said he is "absolutely convinced" that if his son is elected president, "we will restore the respect, honor and decency that the White House deserves." [NYT, Sept. 23, 2000] ______ In the 1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek. 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