Argentina: More evidence of Kissinger's war crimes

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

It comes as no surprise that new evidence has been unearthed that one of the architects of the slaughter of some three million Vietnamese also supported the fascists in Argentina’s dirty war.  A new memo has come to light detailing Henry Kissinger giving the OK to the military Junta as it proceeded to murder opponents; liberals, leftists and trade unionists that it claimed were terrorists.  Thousands were tortured or disappeared, many of them thrown out of airplanes over the Atlantic; some 30,000 people were murdered by the regime.

The evidence arises out of a memo describing a meeting between Patt Derian, Jimmy Carter’s assistant secretary of state, and Robert Hill, the US ambassador to Argentina.

According to Mother Jones Magazine, Hill described to Derian a meeting between Kissinger and the Argentine foreign minister, Cesar Augusto Guzzetti.  At this June 1976 meeting, Guzzetti remarked to Kissinger that, "our main problem in Argentina is terrorism.”.  Kissinger replies, "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures."

In response to Kissinger’s concern about timeliness, Guzzetti said that dealing with the problem (eliminating opposition) would be completed by the end of the year.

One of the reasons for haste was that new human rights laws were passed in the US Congress.  The US government had to confirm that a potential US aid recipient was not violating human rights in order to receive funds and equipment and all else that falls under the US government’s nebulous aid category.

The events were confirmed to Hill later in 1976 when Kissinger told him that wanted Argentina "to finish its terrorist problem before year end.".

The “terrorist” label is a very useful one when the support of a country’s working class is needed by those in power.  Lumumba was a terrorist according to US, British and Belgian propagandists and he was eventually murdered by them. The US revolutionaries that fought and defeated the British were terrorists as well according to the colonial power at the time.

Kissinger is one of the most notorious and ruthless of the world’s mass murderers presently given asylum by the US government.  There is no individual that comes close. Apart from the slaughter in Vietnam where he authorized the spraying of dioxin on the population including our own troops, he is complicit in the killings in East Timor, Cambodia (see William Shawcross’ book Sideshow)  Bangladesh, and of course in the murder of thousands of Chilean  trade unionists, youth and opponents of Auguste Pinochet.  Kissinger gave the green light to for the assassination of the Chilean constitutionalist general Rene Schneider and the assassination of Chile’s democratically elected socialist president Salvadore Allende whose government was overthrown with the help of Washington.

Kissinger was (and maybe still is) on the board of the mining company Freeport McMoran when it owned the Grasberg mine in Indonesia.  The company paid some $20 million hiring Indonesian military personal to use as a militia against protesters and indigenous activists that opposed the mines’ destruction of the local rain forests and rivers.

The mass media in the US ignores this to a large extent. Small potatoes like Hussein and bin Laden are given the royal treatment as terrorists par excellence but they don’t come anywhere near the famed Kissinger when it comes to killing.

Kissinger is a respected and wealthy American, a global terrorist with all the rights and privileges the US 1% bestows on wealthy people. It’s to our shame that we allow it.  No Guantanamo for Henry. 

He is unable to travel to some countries as there are warrants out for his arrest as a war criminal.

If you haven’t yet read it, get the late Christopher Hitchen’s book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger.