Operation Condor | |
---|---|
Part of the Cold War | |
![]() Main active members (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) Sporadic member (Peru) Collaborator and financier (United States) | |
Type | Covert operation |
Location | |
Planned by | |
Target | Political dissidents (including socialists, anarchists and communists) |
Date | 1975–1983 |
Executed by | Intelligence agencies of participating countries |
Outcome | Concluded after the fall of the Argentinean military junta in 1983 |
Casualties | 60,000–80,000 suspected leftist sympathizers killed[5] 400–500 killed in cross-border operations[5] 400,000+ political prisoners[6] |
Operation Condor (Portuguese: Operação Condor; Spanish: Operación Cóndor) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America,[7][8] involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America which formally existed from 1975 to 1983.[9][7][8][10][11] They were backed by the United States, which collaborated and financed the covert operations,[12][13][11][14] and France (which denies involvement).[15][16] Venezuela and Colombia are also alleged to have collaborated. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile.[7][8][17][14] The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983.[9]
Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths directly attributable to Operation Condor is highly disputed. Some estimates are that at least 60,000 deaths can be attributed to Condor,[5] with up to 30,000 of these in Argentina. This collaboration had a devastating impact on countries like Argentina, where Condor exacerbated existing political violence and contributed to the "Dirty War" that left an estimated 30,000 people dead or disappeared.[18][19][20] Others estimate the toll at 50,000 killed, 30,000 disappeared, and 400,000 imprisoned.[21][6][22] A Paraguayan investigative commission, relying on the Archives of Terror, among other sources, allowed for the identification of 20,090 victims, including 59 who were extrajudicially executed and 336 who were forcibly disappeared.[23] According to a database by Francesca Lessa of the University of Oxford, at least 805 cases of transnational human rights violations resulting from Operation Condor have been identified, including 382 cases of illegal detentions and torture and 367 murders and disappearances.[24] American political scientist J. Patrice McSherry estimated between 400 and 500 killed in cross border operations.[25][26] He further stated that of those who "had gone into exile" and were "kidnapped, tortured and killed in allied countries or illegally transferred to their home countries to be executed ... hundreds, or thousands, of such persons – the number still has not been finally determined – were abducted, tortured, and murdered in Condor operations".[27]
Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests, monks and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals, and suspected guerrillas such as prominent union leader Marcelo Santuray in Argentina or journalist Carlos Prats in Chile. Condor operatives participated in tactics such as death flights.[28][26] In Chile, anyone suspected of being a communist sympathizer could become regarded as a terrorist by Pinochet's government and targeted by Operation Condor.[29][page needed] Condor's initial members were the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay; Brazil signed the agreement later on. Ecuador and Peru later joined the operation in a more peripheral role.[30][31] However, a letter which was written by renowned DINA assassin Michael Townley in 1976 noted the existence of a network of individual Southern Cone secret polices known as Red Condor.[32] Declassified documents revealed that US intelligence agencies had intimate knowledge of Operation Condor through inside sources and monitored the operation.[29][page needed]
With tensions between Chile and Argentina rising and Argentina severely weakened as a result of the loss in Falklands War to the British military, the Argentine junta fell in 1983, which in turn led to more South American dictatorships falling.[8] The fall of the Argentine junta has been regarded as marking the end of Operation Condor.[9] J. Patrice McSherry has argued that aspects of Operation Condor fit the definition of state terrorism.[33]
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