New NSA documents on CIA operations in Chile - Fifty year's after Hersh's exposé
Sept. 10, 2024
This weekend was the fifty year anniversary of Seymour Hersh’s New York Times exposé on CIA covert operations in Chile. The National Security Archive posted new documents showing that the architect of those operations, Henry Kissinger, misled President Gerald Ford about clandestine U.S. efforts to undermine the elected government of Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende. The covert operations were “designed to keep the democratic process going,” Kissinger briefed Ford in the Oval Office two days before the article appeared fifty years ago this week. According to Kissinger, “there was no attempt at a coup.”
The front page story “C.I.A. Chief Tells House Of $8 Million Campaign Against Allende in ‘70-’73”—”set in motion the biggest scandal on covert operations the intelligence community had ever experienced,” according to Peter Kornbluh’s new briefing book on the subject.
The article led to the formation of a special Senate committe “that conducted the first major investigation of CIA covert actions in Chile and elsewhere and that was the first congressional body to evaluate the role of secret, clandestine operations in a democratic society … The Senate investigation, which also revealed CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders, and a similar investigative effort in the House of Representatives led to legislation to enhance checks and balances on CIA operations and curtail the ability of future presidents to “plausibly deny” covert action programs abroad.”
Regional
At least 196 people were killed last year for defending the environment, with more than a third of killings taking place in Colombia, according to the latest Global Witness report. Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Honduras were the most deadly countries for people trying to protect their lands and ecosystems, making up more than 70% of all recorded killings globally. (Guardian)
With half a million migrants slogging through the rainforest each year, Indigenous groups in the Darién Gap say their once isolated ecosystem and way of life are under threat, reports the Guardian.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to negotiate peace with the Gulf Clan, one of the country's most powerful criminal organizations must balance military pressure with talks aimed at demobilization, argues International Crisis Group analyst Elizabeth Dickinson in a New York Times op-ed. The group’s financial and territorial dominance poses a significant challenge to achieving long-term peace in Colombia.
Colombia’s criminal armed groups, “increase the cost of doing any sort of business in Colombia, writes James Bosworth in Latin America Risk Report, highlighting that “the ELN and Gaitanistas organizations are operating in a post-drug war environment and they are thriving. Ending the "drug war" doesn't magically bring security.”
Mexico
Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday defended controversial judicial reforms under which voters would elect judges, rejecting an unusual public warning from the Supreme Court chief justice, reports AFP.
Incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum points to “scandalous” levels of nepotism in the existing judiciary, reports La Jornada.
Venezuela
Venezuelan politician Edmundo González fled to Spain over the weekend in response to grave threats from the Maduro government, a move that “may send Venezuela’s post-election crisis into an unpredictable new phase and test the opposition’s popular support in the weeks and months ahead,” reports Americas Quarterly. “While leading opposition figure María Corina Machado reiterated that she will stay in Venezuela facing Maduro and his inner circle, it’s unclear whether she’ll be able to withstand the regime’s next steps.”
González’s move “has largely extinguished hope for political change” among the country’s voters, according to Reuters.
“While González was undoubtedly threatened, his departure to Spain, suddenly, late on a Saturday night, remains extremely grave, if not catastrophic, considering he is the man supposed to—according to the constitutional order Venezuelans are trying to restore—take oath as president on January 10th, 2025,” writes Rafael Osío Cabrices in the Caracas Chronicles.
Those who support González’s exile see it “as a way of protecting a man who has no real desire for power, unlike Machado, and who has no obligation to become a martyr for the cause. In addition, they wanted to avoid “a bloodbath” that could have been unleashed by his arrest and imprisonment,” reports El País.
Brazil
Apocalypse in the Tropics, which looks specifically into the relationship of the far right and Christian fundamentalism in Brazil has pushed filmmakers Petra Costa and Alessandra Orofino to ask “Where does democracy end and theocracy begin for Brazil?” (Guardian)
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva named lawmaker Macaé Evaristo, as human rights minister after firing her predecessor over claims he had sexually harassed several female colleagues, reports AFP. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Regional Relations
A U.S. effort to transition the ill-equipped and under-funded multinational security mission in Haiti into a U.N. peacekeeping mission will require convincing Russia and China to support a draft resolution, but also U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who is a critic of peacekeeping operations, reports the Miami Herald. (See yesterday’s briefs and Friday’s post.)
The Honduras based Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) sued its former president, alleging that he used his position to set himself up to profit after leaving the bank and also has attempted to extort the institution, reports the Washington Post.
Argentina
The International Monetary Fund is satisfied with some aspects of President Javier Milei’s economic plan, such as the reduction of fiscal deficit, deregulation, and spending cuts. However the government shouldn’t expect fresh funding until progress is made on exchange restrictions and Central Bank reserve accumulation, according to Alejando Werner, former director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the IMF. (Buenos Aires Herald)
Argentines are declaring hundreds of millions of dollars of previously hidden savings in response to a tax amnesty President Javier Milei hopes will boost the country’s scarce foreign exchange reserves, reports the Financial Times.