RIGHTS-US/CHILE: “Missing” CIA Documents Still Missing

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 1 2000 (IPS) - Relatives of two US nationals “disappeared” and presumed killed by the Chilean military immediately after the 1973 mi litary coup d’etat have again been frustrated in their quest to find out p recisely what happened to their loved ones.

All relevant US documents on the cases of Charles Horman, whose case was the inspiration for the 1982 blockbuster movie “Missing,” and Frank Terug gi, were supposed to have been declassified here Friday as part of two-year ef fort ordered by President Bill Clinton to make public what Washington knew about political violence and human rights abuses in Chile from the late 196 0s until 1990.

But almost nothing on the two cases was released that had not been pr eviously known or made available, and investigators believe that important inf ormation is being withheld by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pe ntagon, the two US agencies most closely associated with support for the coup and the repression which accompanied it.

“The lack of documents raises the question whether the CIA and the Pe ntagon are withholding documents or whether they were so focused on supporting t he consolidation of the Pinochet regime that they did absolutely nothing to search for or protect US citizens,” said Peter Kornbluh, a Chile analyst at the National Security Archive, an independent research group.

“Until these two agencies are more forthcoming, these cases cannot be closed,” he added.

The release was the third in the process whose completion has been de layed until mid-September when a final release is scheduled to take place. A CIA spokesperson said the agency will be reviewing all documents related to covert actions it carried out in Chile during the period in question between now and then.

Clinton ordered the declassification in the wake of former Chilean Pr esident Augusto Pinochet’s arrest in Britain in October 1998. After being h eld under house arrest for more than year, Pinochet, the military dictator who emerged from the 1973 coup against elected President Salvador Allende Gosse ns, returned to Chile earlier this year. The British government concluded that he was unfit to stand trial in Spain, which had issued the arrest warrant, for cri mes against humanity.

Since his return, Pinochet has been trying to fend off more than 100 cases brought against him in Chilean courts for kidnapping, murder and tort ure, committed during his 17-year rule. A decision by the Santiago court o f appeals to strip him of immunity in these cases is now pending before the cou ntry’s Supreme Court.

Also pending is a US Department of Justice investigation regarding Pi nochet’s role in the 1976 assassination here of former Chilean Defence Ministe r Orlando Letelier.

Two US prosecutors recently travelled to Chile to take testimony from some 42 witnesses, the strongest sign to date that his indictment is a distin ct possibility. In addition, a large number of documents that would have been declassified are being withheld due to their relevance to the Justice Department’s investigation.

But Washington has also focused on Harmon, Teruggi, and a third US ci tizen, Boris Weisfiler, who disappeared in 1985 while hiking near Colonia Di gnidad, a German settlement which reportedly was used as a torture centre for t he military authorities. Weisfiler is believed to have been picked up by Chilean army units, tortured, shot, and thrown in a nearby river.

In April, the State Department recently formally asked the Chilean go vernment for a “full accounting” of all three cases, a request which has not b een referred to the Chilean courts.

But, judging by the document releases which have taken place here so far, Washington may make more progress in determining the fate of the thre e men in the Chilean courts than if it relies on the declassification process here.

So far, US agencies have released 7,000 previously classified documen ts. But virtually all of them have come from the State Department, which was praised by Kornbluh and others here as a “model” of co-operation. The Pentagon, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies all of which played a far more impor tant role in Chile in the early 1970s – have been far less forthcoming.

Indeed, all but a handful of the 505 new documents released Friday ca me from the State Department, and what few documents were de-classified by th e CIA and the Pentagon provided virtually no new information on the Horman case , and none at all on Teruggi’s fate, apart from a 1971 report by the Federal B ureau of Investigation (FBI) on his political activities here in the United St ates.

“Our quest is not over,” said Joyce Harmon, Charles’ widow, who participated in a press conference here after studying the newly de-classified materi al. “I’m very disappointed at the paucity of information that has been release d by the intelligence agencies.”

The CIA released a total of six documents on Harmon’s case, all of them heavily redacted to remove sensitive material and none of them originating in the CIA station in Santiago at the time of the coup and his disappearance. “T hese are essentially Washington inter-bureau communications,” said Kornbluh.

One government official said about half a dozen more documents were w ithheld altogether to protect “sources and methods.” “But they do not contain information that would add to what has been declassified in other doc uments,” she noted, adding that there are no more documents relevant to the ca se in the agency’s possession.

The Harmon case is particularly sensitive not only because of the cul tural importance as an Academy Award-winning movie, but also because the St ate Department released a 1976 cable last Fall which argued that US intel ligence may have played a deliberate or unwitting role in helping Chilean sec urity agencies locate and arrest him.

Harmon, a journalist and film-maker, worked with Teruggi on a newslet ter in Santiago. According to various accounts put together over the years, the two men were abducted separately and taken to the National Stadium where they were later executed.

The one new development was the release of a previously unknown 1987 State Department cable recounting the visits to the Santiago embassy of a s enior Chilean intelligence officer who provided an account of Horman’s ar rest, torture, and death at the Stadium.

In a subsequent exchange with Washington, it was decided that the off icer, whose name was blacked out in the cable and whose story was broadly c onsistent with what was already known by the US government at the time, could n ot be trusted.