Mercosur launches Internet guide about sinister Operation Condor

Mercosur has launched the first files on Operation Condor, "the Repressive Coordination of the Southern Cone" of the American continent, on the Internet. The public can now access this sinister Fascist plan to hold down the peoples of Latin America.

Buenos Aires, (Prensa Latina) Thanks to a joint effort by experts from Mercosur, the first Guide Files on Repressive Coordination of the Southern Cone, better known as Operation Condor, have been posted on the Internet. The files now available to the public will serve to question the articulation of intelligence tasks in the dictatorships of the Southern Cone, explains the Argentine news agency Télam.

Conducted by the Institute for Mercosur Human Rights Public Policy (Ippdh), based in Buenos Aires, the guide brings together information and increases awareness of the conditions of access to documentary collections of 71 institutions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. Information can be found online at www.ippdh.mercosur.int / archivocondor.

Operation Condor was a covert operation carried out by the CIA along with the South American dictatorships to exterminate those who had progressive ideas, including friends and family, innocent victims of what was perhaps the darkest chapter in the history of the countries of region.

The publication of the guide in the Internet was designed to help the "Technical Group to obtain data, information and files revealing the Repressing Coordination of the Southern Cone, particularly of Operation Condor."

This team works as part of the Permanent Memory, Truth and Justice Meeting of Senior Officials on Human Rights and Foreign Ministries of MERCOSUR and Associated States, said Télam. The director of Ippdh, Víctor Abramovich, highlighted the support given during the last decade by governments, especially presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández in the conformation of memory and truth.

"Building memory confronting the State is different than doing so with the State as an ally. It was impossible to think of this information without the systematization of institutions within the State making themselves available to investigate" he stated.

Nevertheless, even though the countries included in the guide have developed significant progress in access to public information, "still some obstacles remain as to the consultation of documents," warned Abramovich.
Since 5 March, a trial has been held in Argentina over complicity among dictatorships, which is taking place in the Federal Criminal Court I of the Federal Capital, in which 25 former soldiers are accused of running the Condor Plan in this country.

Last May 17, the witnesses in this process which unifies four causes began to give their information, reaching a total of 108 cases of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights. According to estimates, the trial will last at least two years and is expected to include the declarations of around 500 witnesses.

Human rights organizations and agencies engaged in the restoration of memory and truth denounce that during the last dictatorship in Argentina around 30 000 people died and disappeared.

From the Portuguese version
Translated by Lisa Karpova

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