Paying A Murderous Dictator - Updated

Of course it's not Saddam Hussein; it's Augusto Pinochet. Today's New York Times has an article that may account for some of Augusto Pinochet's millions:

Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, received multimillion-dollar payments from the governments of several countries, including the United States, during his 25-year tenure as

Chile's ruler and military chief, according to documents recently uncovered during a Senate committee investigation into suspected money laundering at Riggs Bank.

The documents, including General Pinochet's sworn financial statements, show that he received $3 million from the United States government in 1976 and, in other years, $1.5 million from Paraguay, $1 million from Spain, $2.5 million from China, a combined payment of $2.5 million from Britain and China, and a combined payment of $3 million from Britain, Malaysia and Brazil. From 1974 to 1997, the payments totaled at least $12.3 million.

The documents, originally given to Riggs by the Chilean defense ministry, were verified by a senior Riggs executive assessing the sources of the general's wealth. The payments from foreign governments were described as "commissions from service and travel abroad."

What did the Ford administration get for their $3,000,000?

In 1976, the year General Pinochet received his payment from the United States, there were two pivotal events for Chile. The intelligence services of Chile and other South American countries agreed on a wide-ranging campaign to kill exiled political opponents. Shortly after that, a former Chilean foreign minister, Orlando Letelier, and his American assistant were blown up in their car on a busy street in Washington, an event that led to a reassessment of the United States' relationship with the Pinochet government.

Let's turn to this article in MercoPress:

Patricia Verdugo, an outstanding Chilean journalist who has dedicated much of her life to investigate General Pinochet’s alleged political and fiscal crimes, showed a copy of an internal document, number 1026, belonging to the Chilean War Secretary with a description of the dictator’s overseas travelling expenses.

The trips include Brazil for which Mr. Pinochet allegedly received 800,000 US dollars; Paraguay, 1,5 million US dollars; United States, 3 million US dollars; Argentina 500,000 US dollars and Spain one million US dollars.

“It’s a legitimate question to ask how much of that money really was savings and how much was to pay for crimes”, said Ms. Verdugo the daughter of an auditor who was killed by the Pinochet regime in the seventies.

It is indeed. So here is my question: if Pinochet received $3 million for travel "expenses" from the US in 1976 and if Patricia Verdugo (the author of the excellent Chile, Pinochet, and the Caravan of Death) is right about the money being used for crimes, then the question that I truly hope someone asks Henry Kissinger and Pinochet's amen corner in the US is this: Did Pinochet's supporters in the Nixon and Ford administration help finance - even inadvertently - the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt? I realize I'm speculating, but if I had the resources, this would be worth pursuing.

As proof that la manzana no cae lejos del árbol, Pinochet's eldest son's trial in the case of a car theft ring just started. They're a veritable family of criminals.

UPDATE

The New York Times posted this Editor's Note today, December 10, 2004:

Editor's Note: An article in Business Day on Tuesday about a financial investigation into Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, reported that he received multimillion-dollar payments from foreign governments, including that of the United States. The information was based on recently released United States Senate documents detailing General Pinochet's finances, as well as on interviews with others involved in the investigation. While the Senate documents indicate that General Pinochet received payments in connection with official business he conducted in foreign countries, they do not identify the source of the payments in some cases. The article should have allowed for the possibility that some payments may have come from nongovernmental sources.

They clarified and expounded, so I will as well.

Comments

[Roxanne]

If you believe that we inadvertantly financed the rape and murder of US nuns in Central America in the 80s, which I do, then your speculation makes perfect sense.

[Domingo Ruiz]

This is not surprising. Any country with economic interests in another will pay the current strongman. See Spain's Banco Bilbao-Viscaya (BBVA) financing Alberto Fujimori's campaign in Peru and Hugo Chavez's in Venezuela, as was found out by spanish celebrity judge Baltasar Garzon, the same that demanded Pinochet's extradition to Spain.

[Randy Paul]

Well, it's not surprising, but it still pisses me off.

[GMRoper]

Randy, second attempt. I came here via Marc, I enjoyed both the writing and the report. Hope I do as well at my blog (click on the name if you will). I never trusted anyone Nixon would hire. Seems I was borne out. Too bad Ford kept many of Nixon's cabinet appointments.

[Domingo Ruiz]

As it would piss anyone with some sympathy towards the Chilean victims of torture. As it also pisses me off that the USSR paid Fidel to kill and torture thousands of cubans. During the Cold War each side wrecked a lot of havoc on the politics of Latin America. Each side has a lot of explaining to do to us Latin Americans for financing dictatures from either side of the spectrum

[Randy Paul]

GM,

I'll check yours out. Thanks for the kind words.

Domingo,

I agree with you completely. What I firmly believe is that two of the worst things that plague Latin America are corruption and impunity and they feed off each other. Holding the likes of Pinochet answerable could make some progress against this problem.

[James R MacLean]

At the risk of seeming excessively pedantic, the use of the term "US" to refer to a colossal variety of actors may lead to further confusion. I'm accustomed to seeing "US" applied to everything from remarks by an minor functionary in Rand or the Pentagon, to the behavior of entirely private enterprises and groups, to the US Congress and the laws it passes, to the administration and factions therein--even to dissident groups like Greenpeace.

The profusion of definitions serves an insidious political end: regardless of one's opinions and goals, one will always find somewhere an American person or outfit that is not terribly friendly to them; and you can use that association to tar your opponent with guilt by association to the US. For an amusing example, I submit:

PRAVDA: Young ecologist Alexander Shalarev dared to say the thing, which Moscow scientists were afraid to say. He declared that there was actually no greenhouse effect at all. Shalarev added that the Kyoto protocol was simply a far-fetched idea, a political action that was meant to show the ?care¦ for the climate of the Earth.

The young ecologist believes that the Kyoto protocol was signed without a deep scientific analysis of the climate issue. The Kyoto protocol was basically singed and promoted on the ground of political goals of the American democratic administration (as it was back in those days).

Now let me get this straight: for years you've been telling me the evil Americans are refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Anthropogenic Climate Change, thereby jeopardizing the human race; now you're telling me the evil Americans made the whole concept of climate change up in order to have an excuse to raise their own taxes and have new regulations?

I recall in a vein similar to that of Pinochet, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, whose dead-enders included a Col. Grigorio Honasan impliclated in six coups d'etat against Pres. Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos. Later Honasan was given amnesty when he won a seat in the Philippine Senate. I recall that one of Honasan's supporters in the Senate accused his persecutors--who wanted to end impunity for the human rights violators in the Philippines--of having American connections (Honasan is designated as a terrorist by the US State Department and may not travel through a US port).

So unfortunately, "US" is never an adequate specification.