<<Note from MN: Since these two guys were major shot-caller for MS-13 during the whole peiod they were in custody and informing to the FBI, how many hits did they order from prison while working for and getting funds from the agency. If Comandari's grandfather was a head of the death squads in El Salvador, and his uncle was involved in the Reagan-era COINTELPRO operation against CISPES, what was the role of federal forces in organizing the Salvadoran gangs as a conscious counter-insurgency effort to destabilize Salvadoran society and overturn the results of the peace agreements? People may not be aware of the material that came out in the 70s and early 80s about "pseudo-gangs" being built by state security forces as pre-emptive measures against the radicalization of working class and lumpen sectors. Check out the material I have appended, below this article by Tom Hayden who has been working to defend Alex Sanchez, about the British counter-insurgency specialist Frank Kitson, one of the chief theoreticians of low intensity warfare and domestic psyops in urban situations.--MN>>
Subject: MS Leaders FBI Informants From: Tom Hayden <tomhay...@earthlink.net> To: troy garity <tro...@mac.com> Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com) Feds Have Been Hiding Evidence From Wiretap Courts In Their War on Gangs Tom Hayden | August 27, 2010 Federal prosecutors have used top leaders of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), known as the most violent gang in the US and Central America, as secret informants over a decade of murders, drug-trafficking and car-jackings across a dozen US states and several Central American countries. During that time period, prosecutors obtained more than 21 wiretap approvals, plus extensions, to investigate MS-13, failing to tell judges that the gang leaders were already in custody as informants a possible violation of federal law. The details are revealed in court documents filed by the defense in the ongoing murder conspiracy trial of Alex Sanchez [1] and 23 alleged MS-13 members in Los Angeles. Sanchez, who was released on bail [2] after an outpouring of community appeals and a review by an appeals court, is well-known as the former gang member who founded Homies Unidos [3], a gang intervention group attempting to quell gang violence in the US and Central America. The revelations threaten to undermine the states caseand could even lead parts to be thrown outwhile raising serious questions about the legality of the US governments global war on gangs, which, like the larger war on terror, uses undercover police units, informants, secret databases, and surveillance without clear legal authority. The informants are identified as Nelson Comandari, described by law enforcement as "the CEO of Mara Salvatrucha," and his self described right hand man, Jorge Pineda, nicknamed "Dopey" because of his drug-dealing background. Both are Salvadorans in their 30s, being held in law enforcement custody at undisclosed locations. Los Angeles authorities hold Comandari responsible for six to ten murders killings he either committed or ordered according to crime reporter Tom Diaz in his 2009 book No Boundaries, about transnational gangs. Comandari's grandfather was Col. Agustin Martinez Varela, a powerful right-wing Salvadoran who served as an interior minister during El Salvadors civil wars. Comandari's uncle, Franklin Varela, was a central informant in the Reagan administrations scandalous investigation into the activist Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador [CISPES]. There is more that may come to light. "Public information about Nelson Comandari's criminal case is in lockdown," Diaz wrote last year, "and I was subtly warned more than once about writing about it." Mention of Comandaris name, Diaz added, "causes senior FBI and Justice Department officials in Washington to blanch." Comandari and Pineda/Dopey have been in government custody since 2006 and 2000 respectively, where their phone calls have been recorded and their personal contacts monitored. In Pineda/Dopey's case, according to court documents, "at the time it applied for the initial wiretap order at the end of November 2000, the government had already had access to Dopey for nearly three months." As for Comandari, he was providing recorded evidence for authorities "just weeks before the government applied for its first wiretap of 2006." The failure by the FBI and prosecutors to disclose their relationships with Comandari and Pineda/Dopey while seeking wiretap authorizations potentially violated federal law requiring officials to show that a wiretap is a "necessity" in the absence of any other intelligence-gathering techniques. "Inaccuracies or significant omissions" in wiretap applications are prohibited. Pineda/Dopey, by his own account, taped as many as 600 phone calls "from all over the world" with the FBI listening, holding discussions of ongoing MS-13 criminal activity beginning in 2001. The information he obtained was so valuable to authorities that the FBI described it as "gold dust." With the FBIs encouragement, Pineda/Dopey cultivated the trust of Comandari, eventually becoming the middleman other gang leaders had to call in order to communicate with him. In exchange, Pineda/Dopey received nearly $130,000 in payments from the government between 2000 and 2004, and remained on the state payroll until 2006. He was protected from deportation, as were his relatives, and he obtained favorable treatment for his wife in a criminal case. After investing so much in his "right-hand man," it must have been thrilling for the prosecution when the captive Comandari started spilling his guts to an FBI-led team in January 2006. Three days of questioning yielded 26 single-spaced pages of notes. Another series of interrogations, in May of that year, produced 44 single-spaced pages. Interrogations in September turned out a 61-page summary. Present during several interrogation sessions were Frank Flores, the lead LAPD officer on the current case, and Elizabeth Carpenter, the lead prosecutor. Its not clear how many other interrogations took place, and the notes remain sealed. But it is clear that the prosecution kept their extensive questioning of "the CEO" of MS-13 a secret from the wiretap judges. Federal Judge Manuel Real will rule on the wiretaps admissibility before the trial opens next February. If he sides with the prosecution and there is a conviction, the wiretap ruling will be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, for all the evidence of official misconduct, nothing has turned up in the "gold dust" tapes to fortify the prosecutions case against Alex Sanchez. Of some 20,000 taped phone calls recorded by authorities, the prosecution has produced only four in which Sanchez participated, and Sanchez says his former comrades asked that he participate in those calls because of an old gang dispute in which he and others were being threatened by name. The transcripts of these calls back him up, with a key MS-13 leader repeatedly demanding to know why Sanchez was on the calls when he was no longer an active member of the gang. The fact that the state concealed its ties to top MS-13 leaders could lead parts of its conspiracy case to be thrown outand the hidden side of its war on gangs to be exposed. If hiding the use of top gang leaders as informants while seeking broad wiretap powers is not a significant omission, the government is betting that the rule of law can be overlooked in waging its overzealous war on gangs. Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 22:46:29 GMT Sender: Activists Mailing List <acti...@mizzou1.missouri.edu> From: Dale Wharton <1...@dale.cam.org> Subject: pacifying "urban rabbit warrens" To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L <acti...@mizzou1.missouri.edu> Frank Kitson, Low intensity operations: subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping (1971) Reviewed by Dale Wharton, Montreal <4...@dale.cam.org>, 11 January 1966 Low intensity operations: subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping, by Frank Kitson, 1926-. Harrisburg PA: Stackpole Books, 1971. 208 pp, bibliography, index. SBN 0-8117-0957-4, LC call number U 240.K53 1971 Riots broke out in 100 US cities in 1967. (It was the year before Martin Luther King Jr died.) Inner cities have since decayed. The poor have sunk even deeper. Yet North America's underclass has not risen. How could a ruling group keep the lid on civil unrest? The circle near Her Britannic Majesty does it--and fends off social change--using warriors like Frank Kitson. The author fought subversion and insurgency (S&I) and tried peacekeeping in Kenya 1953-5, Malaya 1957, Cyprus 1962-4, and Northern Ireland 1970-2. He explains that traditional methods may fail against S&I. "Gradually the more intelligent officers find themselves developing a new...deviousness, patience, and...determination to outwit their opponents by all means ..." (p 200). Their two main means: stealth and fraud. The foe, S&I, aims "...to overthrow those governing the country...or to force them to do things which they do not want to do. [S&I] can involve the use of political and economic pressure, strikes, protest marches, and propaganda, and...the use of small-scale violence for the purpose of coercing...members of the population into giving support" (p 3). Subversives stop with harassment, insurgents take up arms. Growth in S&I--that is, in modern warfare--may stem from the new ways of getting people to think and to act. Literacy, radio, and television are now widespread. S&I can use them to aggravate social discontent, racial ferment, nationalism, contempt for authority, etc. (High order conflict, on the other hand, has lost favour since refinement in weapons of mass destruction.) Kitson argues that S&I has three phases. PHASE I. Preparing to protest, "...the enemy [a section of the country's people] is likely to be occupied in spreading his cause..." (p 71). Set agents to work now! "In normal times, and in the very early stages of subversion, the intelligence organisation has got to be able to penetrate small...highly secure targets" (p 72). It may have to invent new ways to do it. (At a Rand Corporation symposium in 1962 the author found a consensus: field officers prefer lots of low grade information to a small amount of higher quality.) Next, the army should help with psyops (psychological operations-- propaganda, PR). Psyops can offset the popular appeal of S&I's cause and enhance the government's story. Experts develop policy; technicians put the policy into films, programmes, articles, leaflets; machines spread the results by broadcast, print, and projection. At this early stage, the army may even counterorganize. It can build controls over the civil community and frustrate any efforts by S&I to do so. The method adds to psyops with good deeds. It sends out persons whose tasks are "...doing work [to] help remove sources of grievances and at the same time making contact with the people. The...jobs... range from teaching to the setting up of clinics, advising on simple construction works, and working on agricultural projects" (p 79). PHASE II. Nonviolent disorder--mass meetings, marches, strikes-- requires persuading multitudes to do something. This phase focuses on crowds, usually in cities. Kitson suggests a "...judicious promise of concessions [to split the many from S&I leaders, while] imposing ...calm by the use of government forces [then announcing] that most of the concessions can only be implemented once...life...returns to normal" (p 87). Civilians must look upon troops with "...respect and awe.... If an impression can be built that although [they] have used little force so far, they might at any moment use a great deal more, the people will be wary and...fewer men will be needed" (p 90). PHASE III. Open insurgency erupts. The army's job is first to find armed groups and their supporters, then to smash them. It collects and studies background information, developing it to enable contact with the opponent. Kitson tells how to fish for information and to snuff out "...very small groups...in large urban rabbit warrens..." (p 127). "An example of a simple Special Operation would be the cordonning of a [community] and the examination of occupants by...informers concealed in hoods..." (p 100). Technology helps. Suppose a central computer kept watch lists--data on S&I throughout the country. If a remote interrogator could search them by wireless, he might "...get the information he needs to break down a prisoner without delay" (p 142). Then a brigadier, Frank Kitson wrote this as UK forces steadily shrank. He dwells on controlling costs. The book casts 11 chapters into three parts: trends and background, the army's contribution, and preparation required. There are four organisation charts. Two maps illustrate a scenario of S&I. A lawyer in the US says LOW INTENSITY OPERATIONS is the "leading treatise" on nonstop spying and deceit.* The author seems selective with charges of terrorism, but he respects sensibilities: he omits details of interrogation and wetwork (torture and disposal of captives). Kitson's other books are GANGS AND COUNTERGANGS (Barrie and Rockliff, 1960), BUNCH OF FIVE (Faber, 1977), WARFARE AS A WHOLE (Faber, 1987), DIRECTING OPERATIONS (Faber, 1989), and (editor) PRINCE RUPERT: portrait of a soldier (Constable, 1994). WHO'S WHO 1995 sums up the career of General Sir Frank Edward Kitson. He rose to Commander in Chief, United Kingdom Land Forces 1982-5 and Aide-de-Camp General to the Queen 1983-5. In 1985 he became Knight Grand Cross, Order of the British Empire. "Address: c/o Lloyds Bank, Farnham, Surrey... Club: Boodle's" (p 1086). * Glick, Brian, WAR AT HOME: covert action against US activists and what we can do about it (South End Press, 1989), p 37. Glick includes an FBI memo of 3/4/68--some goals of COINTELPRO: "Prevent the rise of a `messiah' who could unify...the militant black nationalist movement .... You must discredit these groups and individuals" (p 78f). # %A Frank Kitson, 1926- %C Harrisburg PA %D 1971 %G SBN 0-8117-0957-4, LC accession number 72-162452 \ ISBN 0-5710-9801-0 (London: Faber, 1971) %I Stackpole Books %K combat guerilla insurgent subversive urban warfare %P xi, 208 pp %T Low intensity operations : subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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