Torture Is Not a New US Foreign Policy Tool ( in Latin America )

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Friday, May 22, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Torture Is Not a New US Foreign Policy Tool
by Cesar Chelala

"We are going to smash your hands to pulp like the Chileans did to Victor Jara." Those were the words of the torturers in a Uruguayan prison spoken to my friend Miguel Angel Estrella, a pianist from Argentina. They were referring to the fate of the imprisoned Chilean singer and guitarist Victor Jara, whose hands were destroyed so that he would never play the guitar again. Jara, a fervent opponent of the Pinochet regime, was brutally tortured and later machine-gunned to death after the coup that brought Pinochet to power in 1973.

Estrella was being held in Uruguay's Libertad prison, accused of being a guerrilla from Argentina fighting the Argentine military regime. Unable to prove the charges against him, and given the unprecedented international pressure, the Uruguayan government released him in 1978, having kidnapped him at the end of 1977.

Estrella was luckier than most of those imprisoned by the South American military. Although tortured and held for a long time in isolation, Estrella eventually recovered, leads a brilliant career as a musician, and is now Argentina's Ambassador to UNESCO.

One of those training the Uruguayan torturers was an American operative, Daniel (Dan) Mitrione, who was later captured and killed by Uruguayan guerrillas. According to A.J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, Mitrione was among the US advisers who taught torture to the Brazilian police.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/22-3

[Mika]

1. Textbook Repression: US Training Manuals Declassified

I think you'll find this interesting. Project X, SOA, etc...

Textbook Repression: US Training Manuals Declassified
http://mediafilter.org/caq/caq61/CAQ61manual.html