Henry A. Kissinger

U.S. politician. He was born in Germany in 1923. In 1938, he immigrated to the United States. He became involved in government during the Kennedy administration, but began gaining in prominence during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, when he was appointed foreign affairs advisor. He became Secretary of State in 1973, establishing a truly sinister alliance with President Nixon.

His policies brought nefarious consequences to Latin America and the Caribbean, as did his complicity in the practice of state terrorism and with the most notorious criminals and oppressors in the continent.

An article by IPS analyst Jim Lobe published in Rebelion on March 28, 2002 reports that, according to declassified intelligence documents, Kissinger green-lighted the illegal repression of opponents of Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976 – 1983), when he was Secretary of State.

According to documents analyzed by journalists Martin Edwin Andersen and John Dinges, in conversations with his Argentinean counterpart, Kissinger said that Washington backed the military junta’s efforts aimed at solving the “terrorist problem.”

Similarly, the efforts of the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires to counter the junta’s repressive measures were frustrated by Kissinger’s refusal to back him.

The quoted documents were declassified in the midst of growing controversy surrounding U.S. foreign policy, as directed by Kissinger, in the 1970’s. Kissinger was Nixon’s national security advisor; he became the latter’s secretary of state and occupied the same position in Gerald Ford’s administration, following the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. The ex-secretary of state, who stepped down when Jimmy Carter came into office in 1977, is an influential foreign policy analyst and advisor for numerous multinational corporations with investments abroad. In a book published in 2001, journalist Christopher Hitchens argues that Kissinger ought to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, for his role in designing U.S. policy towards Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Cyprus and Indonesia between 1969 and 1977.

In connection to Kissinger’s responsibility for the horrible crimes perpetrated by South Cone dictatorships, Patricia Derian, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the Carter Administration, stated, shortly after the secretary of state had stepped down: “It sickened me that with an imperial wave of his hand, an American could sentence people to death on the basis of a cheap whim. As time went on I saw Kissinger's footprints in a lot of countries. It was the repression of a democratic ideal." In 1998, asked about Pinochet’s arrest, U.S. writer Gore Vidal replied:

“If Pinochet is tried, he’s going to spill the beans. And if he does, I hope Henry Kissinger is detained and tried for what he did in Chile and Cambodia. I believe Kissinger is the world’s worst free war criminal. If Kissinger is detained, there’s going to be panic in the United States, because the country is knee-deep. We’ve been doing that non-stop since 1953, toppling governments and assassinating leaders.” What has recently been revealed about the meeting Kissinger held with Pinochet on June 8, 1976 is atrocious indeed. Kissinger tells the dictator that the U.S. congress, with a democratic majority, is pressuring the United States to trim its aid for Chile is the latter does not curtail its permanent human rights violations “We oppose (the demands of Congress),” Kissinger assured him, although he recognized that the “problem” surrounding human rights and the protests of legislators “has impaired relations between the U.S. and Chile.” After explaining why he finds himself obliged to address the OEA on the matter of human rights, the secretary of state “reassures” Pinochet, saying: “I will treat human rights in general terms and human rights in a world context. I will refer in two paragraphs to the report on Chile of the OAS Human Rights Commission. (…) The speech is not aimed at Chile. (…) In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. (…) My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.”

Sources:

PuroChile

Rebelion

NuncaMas