South America

Bogotб, Colombia, April 7, 2011 - Confidential internal memos from Chiquita Brands International reveal that the banana giant benefited from its payments to Colombian paramilitary and guerrilla groups, contradicting the company's 2007 plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors, which claimed that the company had never received "any actual security services or actual security equipment in exchange for the payments." Chiquita had characterized the payments as "extortion." These documents are among thousands that Chiquita turned over to the U.S.

Washington, D.C., September 29, 2010 - The U.S. ambassador to Colombia reported in 1998 that the "systematic arming and equipping of aggressive regional paramilitaries" was "pivotal" to the military success of Gen. Rito Alejo del Rнo Rojas, now on trial for murder and collaboration with paramilitary death squads while commander of a key army unit in northern Colombia. The Secret "Biographic Note" from Ambassador Curtis Kamman is one of several documents published today by the National Security Archive pertaining to Del Rнo, whose trial resumes this month after years of impunity and delay.

Washington, D.C., August 11, 2010 - Documents posted by the National Security Archive on the 40th anniversary of the death of U.S. advisor Dan Mitrione in Uruguay show the Nixon administration recommended a “threat to kill [detained insurgent] Sendic and other key [leftist insurgent] MLN prisoners if Mitrione is killed.” The secret cable from U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, made public here for the first time, instructed U.S.

Washington, D.C., June 11, 2010 – To mark the first-ever criminal conviction in Colombia's infamous Palace of Justice case, the Archive today posts a selection of key declassified documents pertaining to the episode, including a 1999 U.S. Embassy cable that found that Colombian Army soldiers under the command of Col. Alfonso Plazas Vega had "killed a number of M-19 members and suspected collaborators hors de combat ["outside of combat"], including the Palace's cafeteria staff." On Wednesday, a Colombian court sentenced retired Col.

Washington, DC, April 10, 2010 - Only five days before a car bomb planted by agents of the Pinochet regime rocked downtown Washington D.C. on September 21, 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger rescinded instructions sent to, but never implemented by, U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone to warn military leaders there against orchestrating "a series of international murders," declassified documents obtained and posted by the National Security Archive revealed today.

Washington, DC, March 30, 2010 - For the first time in Latin America, a judge has sent a former head of state to prison for the crime of an "Attack against the Constitution." In an unprecedented ruling last month in Montevideo, former Uruguayan President Juan Marнa Bordaberry was sentenced to serve 30 years for undermining Uruguay's constitution through an auto-coup in June 1973, and for his responsibility in nine disappearances and two political assassinations committed by the security forces while he was president between 1972 and 1976. Declassified U.S.

Diciembre 8, 2009, Washington, DC - El National Security Archive revela hoy un documento que Jaime Dri, único sobreviviente, conoció directamente sobre la Operación México que forzó a desaparecidos detenidos en Rosario a participar en un escuadrón de la muerte para infiltrar a la dirección de Montoneros en Ciudad de México en enero de 1978. "DRI JAIME 'Pelado'" indica el documento, estuvo presente cuando vino "de regreso de México, la comisión oficial" que salió de Rosario.

December 3, 2009, Washington, DC - Debido al caso de Jacobo Timerman, el gobierno militar en Argentina casi colapsa, segъn nuevos documentos publicados hoy por el National Security Archive. En el 30 aniversario de la liberaciуn de Timerman, los documentos estadounidenses desclasificados revelan que en septiembre de 1979, el presidente de la dictadura “Videla, el civil Ministro de Justicia, y la Corte Suprema en su totalidad amenazaron con renunciar” si no se excarcelaba a Timerman.

December 3, 2009, Washington, DC - 30 years after the release of Jacobo Timerman, the former newspaper editor and Argentina's most famous political prisoner during the military dictatorship, the National Security Archive today posted declassified documents that confirm that his case almost resulted in the fracture of the military regime. One September 1979 document states, "President Videla, the civilian Minister of Justice, and the entire Supreme Court threatened to resign" if the military high command refused to release Jacobo Timerman. U.S.

Updated - October 28, 2009 Secrets and Lies: The U.S. Embassy and Col. Plazas Vega By Michael Evans [The following article was published today in Spanish at Semana.com.] The recent appearance of a declassified U.S. Embassy report blaming the Colombian Army and Col. Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega for deaths and disappearances during operations to retake the Palace of Justice building in November 1985 has stirred up heated debate on both sides of the issue. As it happens, both sides have it wrong, at least in part.