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Under the military dictatorship in Argentina, thousands of political opponents were drugged, tossed into aircraft and dumped in the ocean.  The U.S. provided Argentina with army helicopters despite knowing they were used for death flights. | Photo: Wikimedia Commons Declassified documents on Operation Condor reveal that the U.S. knew and assisted the Argentine dictatorship as it threw unconscious prisoners to their death in notorious “vuelos de la muerte,” or death flights.
Under the military dictatorship in Argentina, thousands of political opponents were drugged, tossed into aircraft and dumped in the Atlantic Ocean to drown. According to Adolfo Scilingo, an Argentine naval officer during the dictatorship, the navy conducted death flights every Wednesday between 1977 and 1978, killing up to 2,000 people. Newly released documents on Operation Condor, the 1970s covert efforts to topple and temper progressive governments outright in South America, show that the U.S. not only knew about the lethal flights — they provided military equipment. An intelligence report, dated July 1978, states, “terrorists and subversives selected for elimination were now being administered injections of Ketalar.” “Ketalar is administered in an intra-muscular injection to the prisoner as a preventive health measure, the subject rapidly loses consciousness and vital functions cease. Source alleges that subjects are then disposed of in rivers or the ocean.” But despite being aware of the horrific death flights, the United States proceeded to sell Argentina army helicopters. Two months after describing the “new drug” used to paralyze so-called terrorists, then-U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale met with Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in Rome. Included in his meeting checklist was a reaffirmation to “improve relations, and to take steps that will lead to such improvement.” It continues, “As a token of our interest we have taken steps to release export licenses for ambulance aircraft, army helicopters, airport radar equipment and other items.” Reports suggest Argentina’s death flights began in 1976 and continued until 1983, killing thousands of political opponents — likely with the help of U.S. aircraft. In 2016, Francisco Bossi, the mastermind of the death flights, confessed to murdering 6,000 people. The revelations of U.S. involvement and support of the brutal dictatorship come after the Obama administration declassified 500 pages on repression in Argentina during the military regime. The declassified documents have revealed the U.S. supported torture, tried to “liquidate” human rights activists and destabilize Latin American leftist governments. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Sold-Argentina-Military-Aircraft-to-Dump-Bodies-in-Ocean-20161216-0016.html Comments are closed.
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