Mattis pledges closer defense cooperation with Argentina
Mattis pledges closer defense cooperation with Argentina
Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer
Updated 11:32 am CDT, Wednesday, August 15, 2018
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday pledged closer defense cooperation with Argentina.
Standing beside his Argentinian counterpart, Oscar Aguad, Mattis said the military partnership can be strengthened. He alluded to the help the U.S. Navy provided Argentina last November when one of its submarines went missing with 44 sailors aboard.
Mattis's visit is the first to Argentina by an American secretary of defense since Donald H. Rumsfeld in 2005.
Mattis and Aguad announced no specific agreements, but both said they hope for better relations between their two countries.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Mattis-pledges-closer-defense-cooperation-with-13157987.php
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New York Times:
America’s Role in Argentina’s Dirty War
By The Editorial Board
March 17, 2016
A few months after a military junta overthrew President Isabel Perón of Argentina in 1976, the country’s new foreign minister, Adm. Cesar Guzzetti, told Henry Kissinger, America’s secretary of state, that the military was aggressively cracking down on “the terrorists.”
Mr. Kissinger responded, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly,” an apparent warning that a new American Congress might cut off aid if it thought the Argentine government was engaging in systemic human rights abuses.
The American ambassador in Buenos Aires soon reported to Washington that the Argentine government had interpreted Mr. Kissinger’s words as a “green light” to continue its brutal tactics against leftist guerrillas, political dissidents and suspected socialists.
Just how much the American government knew about Argentina’s repressive “Dirty War,” which lasted from 1976 to 1983 — and the extent to which it condoned the abuses — has remained shrouded in secrecy.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/opinion/americas-role-in-argentinas-dirty-war.html
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Obama sorry for U.S. policies during Argentina's 'dirty war'
Kamilia Lahrichi and Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
Published 11:56 a.m. ET March 24, 2016 | Updated 10:42 p.m. ET March 24, 2016
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and his counterpart from Argentina Mauricio Macri,
right, make a floral tribute to the victims of the military dictatorship at Parque de la
Memoria in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 24, 2016, during the tour of the wall, next
to the Rio de la Plata.
(Photo: DAVID FERNANDEZ, EPA)
U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires during the administration of then-President Jimmy Carter to document human rights abuses and identify the disappeared. Such men did so despite threats to themselves and their families, Obama said.
The new records will be added to a trove of more than 4,000 documents already declassified compiled by U.S. diplomats and used in Argentina to prosecute those accused in the abuses, Obama said.
What happened in Argentina “is not unique, and it’s not confined to the past,” he said. “Each of us have a responsibility each and every day to make sure that wherever we see injustice, wherever we see rule of law flaunted that we take responsibility to make this a better place for our children and grandchildren.”
Documents from the administration of President Gerald Ford, who was in office during the 1976 coup, show that top U.S. officials knew of the impending coup and did little to stop it.
. . .
On Feb. 28, 1976, less than a month before the coup, Hill wrote the State Department again with the good news that few Argentine politicians believed the United States was actively fomenting a coup. "Our stock with democratic civilian forces therefore remains high, but at same time our bridges to military are open," Hill wrote.
More:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/03/24/obama-speaks-us-role-argentinas-dirty-war/82206754/
LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142134265
