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Operation CondorINTROHello, I'm Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco, and welcome to Spotlight, Link TV's investigative news show, featuring documentaries from around the world, reporting stories usually missed by American television. This week, our spotlight is on US-funded assassination squads in South America. In the name of fighting terrorism in the 1970s, military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia secretly collaborated to hunt down and eliminate each other's political opponents. Tens of thousands of suspected leftists were kidnapped, tortured and killed, including attacks in Europe and the United States. In 1978, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Argentina "had done an outstanding job of wiping out terrorist forces." Which hints at why American television may have avoided the story: this cross-border operation, code-named Condor, was funded and applauded by the US government. We'll be back afterwards with an update. For now, from French Television's Channel 5 , here is "Investigating Operation Condor," on Link TV, your connection to the world. OUTRO:Welcome back. You're watching "Spotlight" on Link TV. I'm Mark Hertsgaard. The definitive book on Operation Condor was published by journalist John Dinges in 2003. Titled The Condor Years, it draws on hundreds of declassified U.S. government documents to prove that the CIA was in fact, deeply involved in Operation Condor from the very beginning. In 1975, just before Condor began, the CIA's number two official, Vernon Walters, met four times at CIA headquarters with Chile's secret police chief, Manuel Contreras. Contreras later received CIA funding. In 1976, the CIA learned months in advance about Condor's plan to assassinate former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier. But the CIA took no action and Letelier was murdered in a car bombing on the streets of Washington, D.C. Dinges further reports that Condor also plotted to assassinate a U.S. Congressman, Ed Koch, who later became Mayor of New York. But CIA director George Bush the first did warn Koch, who was unharmed. By 2005, an unrepentant Contreras was awaiting trial in Chile on human rights charges. His old boss, 88 year old former dictator Augusto Pinochet, had recently dodged similar trials by claiming to suffer dementia. But in interviews, a remarkedly lucid Pinochet blamed any human rights violations on his subordinates. Determined not to take the fall, Contreras issued a report detailing how Pinochet had ordered the deaths of Letelier and hundreds of others. Meanwhile, a court in Chile lifted the former dictator's immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for a trial over a multimillion dollar secret bank account of Pinochet's that appalled even his right-wing supporters. If you want to find out more about these issues, check out the resources listed at the end of this program. You can also find those resources at our website, linktv.org. Following those listings you'll see a clip from next week's program. Until then, this is Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco for " Link TV Spotlight." Thanks for joining us.
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