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Judi Lynn

(160,554 posts) Thu Mar 12, 2015, 04:40 PM Mar 2015

Chilean accused of murder, torture taught 13 years for Pentagon

Source: McClatchy Washington Bureau

Chilean accused of murder, torture taught 13 years for Pentagon

By Marisa Taylor and Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Washington Bureau
March 12, 2015 Updated 29 minutes ago

[font size=1]
This photo taken almost 42 years ago shows troops rounding up loyalists to President Salvador Allende. Gen. Augusto
Pinochet, with help from the Nixon administration, toppled an elected leader and ruled from 1973 until 1990. Victims of
repression under Pinochet regime continue to seek justice through Chilean courts. NEW YORK TIMES — New York Times
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SANTIAGO, Chile — A member of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s brutal secret police who’s been accused of murder taught for more than a decade at the Pentagon’s premier university, despite repeated complaints by his colleagues about his past.

Jaime Garcia Covarrubias is charged in criminal court in Santiago with being the mastermind in the execution-style slayings of seven people in 1973, according to court documents. McClatchy also interviewed an accuser who identified Garcia Covarrubias as the person who sexually tortured him.

Despite knowing of the allegations, State and Defense department officials allowed Garcia Covarrubias to retain his visa and continue working at a school affiliated with the National Defense University until last year .

Human rights groups also question the school’s selection of a second professor, Colombia’s former top military commander.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/03/12/259553/chilean-accused-of-murder-torture.html#storylink=cpy

5 replies

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Highlight:

Chilean accused of murder, torture taught 13 years for Pentagon (Original Post) Judi Lynn Mar 2015 OP

Pentagon Teacher Accused of Running ‘Death Squad’ Judi Lynn Mar 2015 #1

But they would never do stuff like that now in Colombia... JackRiddler Mar 2015 #2

Message auto-removed Name removed Mar 2015 #3

And so does terrorism. zeemike Mar 2015 #4

how sanctimonious of us: democracy rests on la parrilla! MisterP Mar 2015 #5

Judi Lynn

(160,554 posts)

1. Pentagon Teacher Accused of Running ‘Death Squad’

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Thu Mar 12, 2015, 05:56 PM

Mar 2015

Under Fire

03.12.15

Pentagon Teacher Accused of Running ‘Death Squad’

One teacher at the National Defense University was linked to Colombian killings. Another was accused of beatings and torture under Pinochet. Now senior U.S. officials want answers.

By Julia Harte and R. Jeffrey Smith / Center for Public Integrity

Carlos Alberto Ospina Ovalle was deep in the Colombian mountains in the autumn of 1997, directing an Army brigade in a major offensive against a group that Washington formally designated that year as terrorists, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He achieved some battlefield successes, and five years later, he was appointed chief of the Colombian armed forces.

Flash forward to this month: Ospina was in a military classroom in Washington, lecturing at the National Defense University to an elite group of U.S. and foreign military officers and civilians from a podium set before a row of Latin American flags. Colleagues at the school, which is chartered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say Ospina is particularly respected there for his experience under fire and his deep knowledge of counterterrorism strategy.

In recent weeks, however, a less heroic portrayal of Ospina’s past has caught up with him, provoking controversy over his presence in the United States among lawmakers on Capitol Hill and within the Obama administration, and new expressions of concern from Washington’s passionate community of Latin American specialists.

The controversy concerns allegations that back in 1997, Ospina’s Fourth Brigade allowed a pro-government militia to sack the village of El Aro in northern Colombia, brutally killing several people, including children, and leaving others missing. One shopkeeper was tied to a tree and had his eyes gouged out and his tongue removed, according to witness reports at the time cited by human rights investigators. Dozens of homes were destroyed, and more than a thousand cattle were stolen.

More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/12/pentagon-s-university-hired-alleged-human-rights-abusers.html