FTR#1177 The Jakarta Method in Latin America

With the esca­lat­ing rhetoric and impo­si­tion of sanc­tions for Chi­na’s alleged geno­cide against the Uighurs in Xin­jiang province, it is valu­able to recall Amer­i­can-assist­ed atroc­i­ties dur­ing the Cold War.

In numer­ous pro­grams, we have high­light­ed whole­sale slaugh­ter in Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries, imple­ment­ed by fas­cists oper­at­ing in an inter­na­tion­al con­stel­la­tion coa­lesc­ing around the USA.

That con­stel­la­tion was termed the Inter­na­tion­al Fascista (or “Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al”) by Hen­rik Krueger, and is detailed in, among oth­er pro­grams, AFA #‘s 4, 19, and 22.

In addi­tion, the role of the for­mer World Anti-Com­mu­nist League in the death squad activ­i­ty in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca was set forth in AFA #15. 

In FTR#839, we pre­sent­ed Peter Lev­en­da’s account of his vis­it to Colo­nia Dig­nidad in Chile–a Nazi encamp­ment that served as an oper­a­tional epi­cen­ter for Oper­a­tion Con­dor, a CIA-assist­ed mass mur­der con­sor­tium com­posed of Latin Amer­i­can nations.

The essence of the Con­dor pro­gram was summed up by Argen­tin­ian Gen­er­al Anto­nio Domin­go. (“Sub­ver­sives” were killed for real or alleged: com­mu­nism, athe­ism, Jew­ish­ness or union activ­i­ties.) “. . . . First, we will kill all the sub­ver­sives, then we will kill all of their col­lab­o­ra­tors, then those who sym­pa­thize with the sub­ver­sives, then we kill those that remain indif­fer­ent, and final­ly we kill the timid. . . .”

A very, very impor­tant and superbly writ­ten and doc­u­ment­ed new book–The Jakar­ta Method: Wash­ing­ton’s Anti­com­mu­nist Cru­sade & the Mass Mur­der Pro­gram that Shaped Our World by Vin­cent Bevins–chronicles the slaugh­ter that the U.S. imple­ment­ed in the devel­op­ing world dur­ing the Cold War.

Lis­ten­ers are emphat­i­cal­ly encour­aged to pur­chase and read the book.

Key Points of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: Review of the oper­a­tional fun­da­men­tals of Oper­a­tion Con­dor; the role of Colo­nia Dig­nidad as an epi­cen­ter of Con­dor activ­i­ties; the 1976 Argen­tin­ian coup; the so-called “Dirty War” that fol­lowed that coup; the role in the Dirty War of Argen­tin­ian mem­bers of the P‑2 Lodge (Admi­ral Emilio Massera, Jose Lopez Rega); the assis­tance giv­en by Ford Motor Com­pa­ny and Citibank in the mur­der of Argen­tin­ian union orga­niz­ers; col­lab­o­ra­tion of the Argen­tin­ian and oth­er Con­dor par­tic­i­pants with the fas­cist “Stay Behind” armies set up by Frank Wis­ner; the assas­si­na­tion of Orlan­do Lete­lier in Wash­ing­ton D.C.; The close rela­tion­ship between the coun­tries of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca; the accel­er­a­tion in the 1960’s of the ter­ror that had gripped Guatemala since the 1954 over­throw of Jacobo Arbenz; how the elim­i­na­tion of peace­ful, pro-democ­ra­cy activists and activism fed the growth of gueril­la move­ments; the birth of the “White Hand” death squad; assis­tance giv­en to the death squads by U.S. Green Berets; the prac­tice of “dis­ap­pear­ing” per­ceived polit­i­cal ene­mies or dis­si­dents to ter­ror­ize their asso­ciates; the ini­ti­a­tion of whole­sale exter­mi­na­tion of large pop­u­la­tions of indige­nous peo­ple; the ner­vous­ness and inse­cu­ri­ty felt by the Guatemalan dic­ta­tor­ship fol­low­ing the ascent of the San­din­istas in Nicaragua; Pres­i­dent Carter’s tamp­ing down of U.S. assis­tance to Cen­tral Amer­i­can dic­ta­tor­ships; the piv­ot­ing of those dic­ta­tor­ships to gain­ing mil­i­tary aid and train­ing from Israel and Tai­wan; the train­ing of the Con­tra rebels in Nicaragua by Argen­tine mil­i­tary death squad vet­er­ans; net­work­ing of Cen­tral Amer­i­can death squad per­son­nel with Con­dor oper­a­tives in Franco’s Spain; Rober­to D’Aubisson’s ascent in El Sal­vador; the assas­si­na­tion of Sal­vado­ran Arch­bish­op Romero; the mas­sacre of over 900 res­i­dents of the El Sal­vado­ran vil­lage of El Mozote; Ronald Reagan’s appoint­ment of Elliot Abrams as Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Human Rights; Abrams’ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of The New York Times’ reportage on the El Mozote as “com­mu­nist pro­pa­gan­da;” the role of The School of the Amer­i­c­as in the train­ing of death squads; the mil­i­tary coup that brought Evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian Efrain Rios Montt to pow­er in Guatemala; Rios Montt’s spe­cial affin­i­ty with Ronald Rea­gan; Rios Montt’s imple­men­ta­tion of so-called “Mod­el Vil­lages;” the sys­tem­at­ic destruc­tion of the Guatemalan town of Ilom—part of the geno­ci­dal pro­gram enact­ed by the Guatemalan gov­ern­ment against the indige­nous Mayan pop­u­la­tion (termed geno­cide by Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al).

The pro­gram con­cludes with a pre­sen­ta­tion of the points of view of the Guatemalan sur­vivors of the liq­ui­da­tion cam­paigns, per­haps most expres­sive­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed by one Domin­go: “ . . . . I asked them what com­mu­nism was. Domin­go, the own­er of the bus, had this answer: ‘Well, they said they were com­mu­nists and com­mu­nists were dan­ger­ous. But actu­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment are the ones who did all the killing. So if any­one was dan­ger­ous, if any­one was ‘com­mu­nist,’ it must be them. . . .’”

FTR #620 Interview with Paris Flammonde about the ‘Masques of New Orleans’

Record­ed Novem­ber 25, 2007 MP3: Side 1 | Side 2 REALAUDIO Fol­low­ing on the heels of FTR#619, this pro­gram fea­tures author and radio pro­duc­er Paris Flammonde’s account of the New Orleans inves­ti­ga­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion. For­mer pro­duc­er of the sem­i­nal late-night radio talk pro­gram The Long John Nebel Show, Flammonde’s 1969 book The Kennedy […]

FTR #503 The Death of Barry Seal

Con­tra-relat­ed cocaine smug­gler Bar­ry Seal was mur­dered in Feb­ru­ary of 1986 because he was threat­en­ing to squeal on his han­dlers

AFA 8: The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Offi­cial­ly pinned on James Earl Ray, the killing of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. was actu­al­ly the result of a large con­spir­a­cy of pow­er­ful inter­ests.

AFA 10–13: The Aryan Nations

U.S. far-right, extrem­ist and main­stream over­lap; past U.S. coup attempts; fifth col­umn sub­ver­sion; col­lu­sion with U.S. and for­eign gov­ern­ments and busi­ness.

AFA 15: The World Anti-Communist League, Pt. 2

Despite rel­a­tive obscu­ri­ty, the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the pol­i­tics of the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

FTR #445 The Bush Family & the Intelligence Community

Kevin Phillips’ book ‘Amer­i­can Dynasty.’

FTR #142 The Genesis of Latin American Death Squads

Lis­ten: MP3 Side 1 | Side 2 Excerpt­ed from AFA-15, this broad­cast high­lights the rela­tion­ship between fas­cist ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence, the Autonomous Uni­ver­si­ty of Guadala­jara (Mex­i­co), the Latin Amer­i­can Branch of the for­mer World Anti-Com­­mu­nist League and the for­ma­tion and oper­a­tion of Latin Amer­i­can death squads. Oper­at­ing under the ban­ner of the “White Hand,” […]