Hussein Hanged: Is Kissinger Next? 1/1/2007 6:49:47 AM
Should Kissinger be tried for war crimes in Asia and Chile? Many say yes.
"A revival of interest in Henry Kissinger came during the new millennium, when journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote The Trial of Henry Kissinger, a scathing critique of Kissinger's policy that accused him of war crimes, particularly for his policy toward Vietnam, Cyprus, Cambodia, Chile and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). Kissinger became a focal point of criticism from the political Left and certain human rights NGOs. According to the book, his foreign policy was chiefly concerned with attaining allies that had valuable geographical and strategic locations, such as Turkey and Pakistan, and turned a blind eye when these allies attacked democracies and murdered countless innocent people.
The book was later adapted into a documentary entitled The Trials of Henry Kissinger. The film focused on Kissinger's policies towards Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Chile.
Involvement in Operation Condor
Main article: Operation Condor
On May 31, 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested a summons served on Kissinger while he was staying at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Loire claimed to want to question Kissinger for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor—a mid-1970s campaign of kidnapping and murder coordinated among the intelligence and security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—as well as the death of French nationals under the Chilean junta. As a result, Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department.
In July 2001, the Chilean high court granted investigating judge Juan Guzman the right to question Kissinger about the 1973 killing of American journalist Charles Horman, whose execution at the hands of the Chilean military following the coup was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing. The judge’s questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but went unanswered.
In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory to the U.S. State Department, in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), requesting a deposition by Kissinger to aid the judge's investigation of Operation Condor.[17]
On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, DC, federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup.[18][19] Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt,[19] but US involvement with the plot is disputed, as declassified transcripts show that Nixon and Kissinger had ordered the coup "turned off" a week prior to the killing, fearing that Viaux had no chance.[20] As a part of the suit, Schneider’s two sons are attempting to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for US$3 million.[19]
On September 11, 2001, the 28th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian general and president Hugo Banzer, former Argentine general and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner for alleged involvement in Operation Condor.[21] The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean.
In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in São Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity from judicial action.[18]
Kenneth Maxwell's review, in Foreign Affairs November/December 2003, of Peter Kornbluh's book The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, discussed Kissinger's relationship with Augusto Pinochet's regime, in particular concerning operation Condor and Orlando Letelier's assassination, in Washington, DC, in 1976.
A 1978 cable released in 2000 shows that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor "[kept] in touch with one another through a US communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which [covered] all of Latin America". Robert E. White, the US ambassador to Paraguay, was concerned that the US connection to Condor might be revealed during the then ongoing investigation into the 1976 assassination of Letelier.[22]
Asia
In 2002, during a brief visit to the UK, a petition for Kissinger's arrest was filed by the High Court in London based on Indochinese civilian casualties and environmental damage resulting from US bombing campaigns in North Vietnam and Cambodia in the period between 1969 and 1975. Simultaneously, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who had engaged in a failed attempt to get Pinochet extradited from the United Kingdom for questioning, requested that Interpol detain Kissinger for questioning. British authorities refused his request.
East Timor Action Network (ETAN) activists have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours for his role in the Ford administration in supporting Suharto and the Indonesian occupation and genocide of the Timorese in 1975. Transcripts of Ford and Kissinger's greenlight for the invasion are available on the National Security Archive.[1]
As detailed above in the section 1971 Bangladesh (East Pakistan) War, Kissinger had knowledge of the 1971 atrocities committed by the Pakistani army and its allies during the war, but did not advise President Nixon to put pressure on the Pakistani government to stop them."
