Mamo Contreras gets another five years

Manuel Contreras, the sinister DINA chief for Pinochet, has been slapped with another five years in prison by the Chilean Supreme Court. He was found guilty in the kidnapping of three men in 1976. The trio disappeared and despite investigations, no trace of their fate or their remains has been found three decades later. So add another five years to the almost 300 years he is currently serving.

(Spanish from La Nacion in Santiago)

http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias_v2/site/artic/20090309/pags/20090309163238.html

Judi, do you still have the mug shot of Contreras that you have posted in the past. There is a story about how that photo was obtained.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/media/images/41027000/jpg/_41027887_contreras_b203_afp.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_3IOAVXZLuXs/SQo8MaAghlI/AAAAAAAAD_M/Gh5drxDwayY/s320/Manuel+Contreras.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_3IOAVXZLuXs/SNhN50lZZyI/AAAAAAAADOc/6fAxd4f8lvg/s320/manuel_contreras.jpg

http://www.theepochtimes.com.nyud.net:8090/news_images/2008-6-30-pokio73382579.jpg

Picture of retired General Manuel Contreras (C), founder of the secret police (DINA) during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship (1973-1990) in Chile, taken on January 28th, 2005, as he is being escorted by police officers upon his arrival to court in Santiago. (Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_3IOAVXZLuXs/SXOzcQOeB8I/AAAAAAAAE-s/ATagMNW6wQM/s320/Manuel+Contreras.jpg

Pretty smug for a man who's tormented and destroyed so many people.

By the way, there's a video in the internetS of an interview with his famous torturer, Oswaldo Romo. I saw he bragged that sometimes they dropped their prisoners into two of the volcanoes. That was the first I'd heard of it. After thinking about it, I realized that would have been such a devastating fear for those people seeing the smoke from those volcanoes rising up in the sky and knowing where they were headed. My God.

Here's a short interview with a reporter whom, I believe was based in Miami:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsUmU2aAVbY

http://www.elrancahuaso.cl.nyud.net:8090/tmp_images/202/noticia_10060_normal.jpg

Pinochet, Contrera's man.
First time I heard of Romo was on a documentary made by a man who lived in Chile during this time. It was presented on cable tv, probably the Sundance Chanel, or even the History Channel. It was superb, with subtitles. They had a lengthy session interviewing Romo which was unbearably horrifying. So savage it was almost transcendent, you would feel you were leaving your body, almost, floating around in a state of shock, disbelief, and horror. Unbelievable. He's a man who was forged in the bowels of hell.

I have heard before Pinochet, he hung around with leftists, got to know them well, and then once Pinochet seized office, he started turning them all in. This reminds you of the "Angel of Death, " Alfredo Astiz, in Argentina, who infiltrated the Women in White, and had two French nuns seized and murdered, as well as other older ladies from the group who had lost their children to torture, and murder by the fascist junta.

I first became aware of him when there was a South American Bishops Conference in the city of Talca, circa 1975 or so. Liberation Theology was sweeping the continent then. Brazilian Bishop dom Helder Camara was the figurehead of the movement.

Anyway, Romo and other DINA goons were in Talca shadowing the non-church people who attended the conference. Two Agence France Presse reporters were detained on the way back to Santiago and were harassed but turned loose. The both left the country soon because of the DINA threats. Romo died couple of years ago and the planet is better off.

As for Argentina, if you have not seen it, I highly recommend the film "The Official Story." It is a shocker.

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Integrating the uncertainty sweeping Argentina, in the early 1980s, with one woman's realisation of her unknowing complicity in this reign of terror, The Official Story is a deeply moving debut. In the years following the Falklands War the military junta, then in power, ripped Argentina apart with its death throes.

------------------------------

http://www.1worldfilms.com/officialstory.htm

I intend to get this, but wanted to check with you first on something:

I assume it's in Spanish, so I need to know, that if the cover is printed in English, does that assure me that there are subtitles I can use?

That's it. One word from you and I'm off to the races. I'm really interested in seeing this after reading some about the Dirty Wars all over South America.

Did you happen to catch the wonderful speech given after Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was inaugurated? There were some Grandmothers with their white scarves sitting in the balcony to her left, whom she recognized, and honored, with deep reverence, and a stern warning they were going to make sure that kind of thing could never happen again in Argentina. It was a tremendous speech.

Did not know that it is shown in schools as a parenting and human rights tool.

Be sure and have a box of Kleenex next to you.

http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/official-story.html

Oh, you will note the Argentina Spanish, which is unique in Latam.

I was in Buenos Aires when Isabel Peron was overthrown and one day went down to the Plaza de Mayo to watch the mothers of the disappeared march. It was a forlorn group. Did not see Cristina's speech, but read about it. Beautiful gesture.

Did not know you were there at the beginning of that nightmare. Holy smokes.

Most US citizens don't know much about Isabel, since there's no MUSICAL, or MOVIE about her! Here's a google article published after Isabel was arrested:

Isabel Peron's arrest signals shift in Argentina
Former president's husband was a revered figure, but even his reign is being scrutinized.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
Times Staff Writer

January 13, 2007

BUENOS AIRES — The arrest Friday of former Argentine President Isabel Peron in Spain signaled an expansion of human rights cases here beyond the former military junta to the epoch of ex-strongman Juan Domingo Peron, father of Argentina's ruling party.

The 75-year-old former president, whose full name is Maria Estela Martinez de Peron, was arrested at her home near Madrid after a federal judge in Argentina issued a warrant for her detention, officials said. A Spanish tribunal ordered her conditional release pending an extradition request from Argentina.

She is wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of a student activist in February 1976, during the final weeks of her presidency.

Isabel Peron is the widow and successor in office of Juan Peron, three times elected president and still an iconic and controversial figure in his homeland. As the sitting vice president, the ex-dancer assumed the presidency when her husband died in July 1974.

Argentina's only woman president never enjoyed the popularity of Peron's previous wife, the charismatic Eva "Evita" Peron, who is still idolized here more than half a century after her death. Economic and political turmoil marked the reign of Isabel Peron, who was toppled in a military coup in March 1976.

The strongman's admirers have largely ignored his dark side, such as his regime's welcoming of Nazi war criminals after World War II and the right-wing death squads that sprung up during his final term. Critics call him a demagogue who stifled freedoms and crushed dissent while admiring European fascists such as Benito Mussolini of Italy.

The current Peronist administration has aggressively targeted hundreds of abusers from the junta that succeeded Peron and his wife. The former military leaders are widely despised here, and Argentines have generally applauded their prosecutions.

But Juan Peron, with his exaltation of the working classes and strong ties to labor unions, remains a beloved figure for many. His political movement, which embraced elements of the left and right, continues to dominate Argentine politics.

Investigators are now zeroing in on government-linked death squads that, human rights groups say, operated with impunity during the tumultuous 1970s rule of Peron and his widow. The sanctioned killers, these groups say, set the stage for the subsequent "dirty war" under military rule that cost as many as 30,000 lives during a dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983.

More:
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/latimes199.htm

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I'll be getting that video now, needing to get a better sense of the time and those events we never even knew about then. From what I've read, as in Kissinger's communications with the junta, he and the administration were interested in keeping this one as quiet as possible to prevent common knowledge of what degree of involvement they actually had with the tortures and murders, complete suppression of ALL dissent. Those Dirty Wars really left an imprint, didn't they?

Thanks for your comments, your help. Looking forward to that video, even though it won't be a stroll in the park.