This
is the Face of the US-Imposed Drug War in América
Like the Drug
War, this man was imposed by the US Government...
Like the Drug
War, this man has committed untold atrocities...
This man is a
known Narco-Kingpin, but few speak of that fact...
Like US Drug Policy,
this man is dying...
His is the decayed,
corrupt, and cruel face of the war on drugs...
He is...
NARCO
OF THE YEAR 2000
...few dared to
call his atrocity by name as it was happening
...he used censorship
and libel suits to silence the truth
...history has
begun to judge him as wrong
But like the Drug
War that supported him...
...he
continues to escape justice
His role in the Narco-System
as a US-backed narco-kingpin will also be remembered...
Justice demands that the
drug war die with him...
The Narco News Bulletin
"The
Name of Our Country is América"
--
Simón Bolívar
The Narco
News Bulletin declares...
NARCO
OF THE YEAR
Augusto
Pinochet
"Never
a leaf moves in Chile if I don't move it"
- General
Pinochet 1975
A pioneer of anti-drug
posturing and of narco profiteering, General Augusto Pinochet
of Chile is the Narco of the Year for 2000.
Today we dedicate this
declaration to the memories of Chilean statesman Orlando Letelier,
US humanitarian Ronnie Moffet, Chilean folksinger Victor Jara,
US journalist Charles Horman, and thousands of others assassinated
by the Pinochet regime with the complicity of US officials.
We received many nominations
for Narco of the Year from our readers, the majority of
them naming public figures from inside the United States. Our
readers clearly know from where the atrocity of the war on drugs
emanates: from the top down. Among the nominees was a pantheon
of US officials and institutions who will be remembered as harshly
in the future as Pinochet is remembered today; Clinton, McCaffrey,
Bush (father and son), Gore, the New York Times, the CIA
for which it stands, the DEA, the Justice Department, Citibank
and other financial institutions foreign and domestic, Wall Street,
and certain others cogs in the narco-wheel who are, specifically,
trying to silence Narco News.
We also received nominations
for various heads of state throughout América: Hugo Banzer
of Bolivia, Andrés Pastrana of Colombia and ex-presidents
Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Alberto Fujimori of Perú,
all whom have led Narco-States with the blessing and support
of US officials.
Vladimiro Montesinos,
the Peruvian spy chief-turned-fugitive also received many nominations.
All of these individuals
and institutions are part of the Narco-System.
They all claimed to be
combatting drugs, and they all protected those who traffic in
illicit drugs.
It was the foremost social humorist
of our time, Barry Crimmins,
who first suggested Pinochet as Narco of the Year, noting
that the disgraced general and dictator may not live to receive
this dishonor in future years.
We agree with Barry.
For humanitarian reasons,
Pinochet should know, before he dies, that his legacy includes
the atrocity of the drug war in Latin America, and that he helped
deliver his people and nation to foreign rule under this pretext.
Not a leaf moved in Chile
unless he moved it -- he said that himself in 1975. And that
includes coca leaves, marijuana leaves and other drugs that do
not come from leaves.
We urge our readers to
write to the disgraced Pinochet -- he probably learned some English
while protected in London in recent years -- and inform him of
his latest dishonor as Narco of the Year:
Pinochet's Email
Address:
Augusto Pinochet is the
face of the Narco-System
in Our América because he is a drug trafficker who claimed
to be fighting drugs, and also because of the lesson of history
that he symbolizes.
Pinochet symbolizes the
word atrocity.
Throughout human history,
atrocities have occured but have not been acknowledged until
after their worst moments. Such it was with Chile 1973, and so
it is with the Drug War 2000.
The parallels between
these two related atrocities are compelling. Indeed, when the
death toll and the misery index of the war on drugs is finally
counted, it may even surpass the statistics of his brutal dictatorship
in Chile.
Millions imprisoned for
nonviolent "crimes." Massive persecution of free speech
and the press. Cruel and inhuman punishments. Needless deaths.
Torture of every form. Violation of national sovereignty and
the right of all nations to democratic rule. And complicity at
the highest levels of State and Industry.
This is Pinochet's legacy
and it is the drug war's legacy.
In the service of the
public's right to know, we offer two new lines of information
and facts that clarify why Augusto Pinochet is Narco of the
Year, the decomposed face of the drug war.
First, is his hands-on
involvement as a US-protected drug trafficker and narco-kingpin.
Second, are his repeated
efforts for three decades to prevent Free Speech and Press Coverage
of his atrocities, using State Power and Libel Suits -- along
with his allies -- to try to silence the truth about his atrocities.
We bring to you, kind
readers, a series of articles and links that demonstrate how
history repeats itself.
This information documents
how atrocities happen, through a combination of terror and censorship.
Here, in América,
we are living that nightmare today.
Ever since syndicated
columnist Jack Anderson
revealed in 1972 that the ITT corporation and the US government
were plotting Pinochet's coup, he and other journalists were
persecuted -- some even assassinated -- with imprisonment, libel
suits and other forms of repression for nothing more than telling
the truth and reporting the facts.
This is the story of two
censored wars. Only when the truth comes out, will the atrocities
be over and peace restored to Our América.
Salud, Abrazo, y Hasta
La Victoria Siempre,
Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
Exhibit
A
December 14, 2000
PINOCHET'S
DRUG LINK COMES TO LIGHT
For
years Chile has been supplying cocaine to Europe
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
The Chilean army and secret
police have spent almost
two decades secretly flooding Europe and the United States with
cocaine.
The trafficking began
during General Augusto Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship, and continues
to this day, a year-long investigation has established. Twelve
tonnes of the drug, with a street value of several billion dollars,
left Chile in 1986 and 1987 alone.
The drugs, destined for
Europe, have often been flown to Spanish territory by planes
carrying Chilean arms to Iraq and Iran. Distribution to European
nations has been controlled by secret police stationed in Chilean
embassies in Stockholm and Madrid.
There can be no doubt
that Gen Pinochet, whose power was absolute between the 1973
coup and 1990, when he stepped down, was a party to trafficking.
He declared in October 1981: "Not a leaf moves in Chile
if I don't move it - - let that be clear."
The secret police - originally
known as the Dina and from 1977 as the SNI - was staffed by service
personnel, and helped Gen Pinochet to torture and kill opponents.
The general kept a close, day-by-day check on all secret police
operations. The Dina's former director, Gen Manuel Contreras,
told the Chilean supreme court in 1998 that he undertook nothing
without Gen Pinochet's permission.
The huge profits from
the drug deals went to enrich senior figures in Chile, with some
going to finance the Dina/SNI operations.
Gen Pinochet, who is fighting
arrest on kidnapping and murder charges in Santiago, has not
clarified how he and his wife, Lucia, had more than $1m in their
account in the Riggs Bank in Washington in March 1997. As commander-in-chief
of the Chilean army his annual salary at that time was $16,000.
New evidence of Gen Pinochet's
collaboration with Colombian drug dealers, first sketched out
last year in my book, Pinochet: The Politics Of Torture,
has emerged in The Thin White Line, a new book by Rodrigo
de Castro, a former international civil servant in Chile, and
Juan Gasparini, an Argentine journalist.
It quotes US court documents,
Chilean police files and depositions by a former US marine, Frankell
Ivan Baramdyka, who was involved in the trafficking. Baramdyka
was extradited from Chile in May 1993 and convicted in California
of narcotics offences. He worked for US intelligence in the early
80s, and was encouraged to traffic in drugs on condition that
some of the profits went to the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua,
who were supported by President Ronald Reagan.
Baramdyka has revealed
how he first made contact with the Chileans in 1984 when, acting
for Colombian cocaine producers, he delivered $2m to the Chilean
consulate-general in Los Angeles. This was a payment for chemicals
needed to make cocaine which had been supplied by the Chilean
army. At the time Pinochet's younger son, Marco Antonio, was
on the consulate-general's staff.
After the US authorities
raided his home in Los Angeles in 1985, Baramdyka fled to Santiago,
where he set up a new trafficking operation. Later that year
he was recruited by the Chilean secret police, and was soon overseeing
the army's drug-export activities.
Exhibit
B
"I
don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist
due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
-- US Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger
Pinochet:
Repression and Lawsuits to Silence the Facts of his Atrocities
On numerous occasions
since the hand-over
to a civilian president in 1990, those who have suggested that
General Pinochet be prosecuted, have themselves been threatened,
attacked, arrested or imprisoned, and actions against human rights
violators have been frustrated. Among these events are:
26.09.90 Three journalists are jailed by military courts
for 'offence to the armed forces'.
26.01.91 The Supreme Court suspends Judge Carlos Cerda
for refusing to invoke the Amnesty Law to dismiss a case relating
to the disappearance of 13 persons.
23.09.92 Pinochet announces that he intends to file a criminal
complaint against a former Army Intelligence Service (DINE) officer
who blows the whistle on continuing phone-tapping operations.
03.03.93 A book entitled Ethics and Intelligence Services
is confiscated and its author, a retired Naval Captain, is arrested.
28.05.93 Armed soldiers in camouflage uniform appear near
the Moneda Palace in a calculated threat to the continuation
of human rights trials. Military courts subsequently close (dismiss)
14 cases and the Supreme Court applies the Amnesty law to 7 others.
23.09.93 The Supreme Court upholds the decision of a military
court to apply the Amnesty Law to close the investigation of
the clandestine cemetry at Pisagua, where 19 bodies of disappeared
prisoners were discovered.
10.93 The Supreme Court refuses an application by the
Chamber of Deputies for a special prosecutor to investigate the
assassination of General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires in 1973.
19.07.95 Pinochet sues Arturo Barrios for libel after the
student leader calls for criminal charges to be filed against
the General for human rights violations. Barrios is jailed briefly.
05.10.96 Communist Party General Secretary Gladys Marin
is jailed for two days on charges of defamation after calling
Pinochet 'a psychopath who reached power by means of intrigue,
treason and crime'.
04.06.97 Pinochet threatens to sue members of Congress
who criticised the Army in the case of the murder of Army conscript
Pedro Soto Tapia.
However, on January 20
1998, Pinochet for the first time faced criminal charges, when
a Court of Appeals judge agreed to hear a criminal complaint
of genocide brought by the Communist Party, and in March eleven
Christian Democrat deputies filed a constitutional accusation
against Pinochet charging him with threatening national honour
and security by his actions as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
between 1990 and 1998. The Chamber of Deputies subsequently defeated
the motion by 62 votes to 52.
Exhibit
C
$60
Million Libel Suit by US Official to Stop a Movie about the Truth
Military
officer sued Costa-Gavras' film Missing, about the assassination
of Charles Horman in Chile
The Hormans subsequently
filed suit for wrongful death, but it was eventually dismissed
because the CIA refused to release the relevant files. The film
Missing won the Golden Palm award at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival,
and Jack Lemmon, who played Ed Horman, was awarded the prize
for best actor. The director Costa-Gavras won an Oscar for best
screenplay based on material from another medium, and Missing
gained Oscar nominations for best picture, best actor and best
actress (Sissy Spacek in the role of Charles's wife).
Some, however, were not
so pleased. Ray Davis, the senior US Military Group officer in
Chile at the time of the coup (Captain Ray Tower in the film),
filed a $60 million libel suit against Costa-Gavras and Universal
Studios.
The suit was dismissed
on summary judgment in 1987.
Exhibit
D
Pinochet
Regime Sued More than 30 Journalists
SEPTEMBER 21 - 26, 1990
Three journalists are jailed by order of the military courts
for "offense to the armed forces." Charges against
Juan Pablo Cardenas were eventually dropped and he was released.
Juan Andres Lagos and Alfonso Stephens were released on bail.
By the end of 1990, 30 journalists had been the subjects of legal
actions brought by the military courts for the same offense.
Exhibit
E
Pinochet
Lost Libel Suit in 1998
1998: In mid-July, retired
General Pinochet asserted that he was misquoted in La Tercera
newspaper following a breakfast meeting with four members of
the press. He brought a libel suit, which a court dismissed in
November.
Lawsuits
and Threats of Legal Action are Part of How the Narco-System
Tries to Silence the Truth Today
McCaffrey
Used Office's Law Firm to Research Lawsuit v. Hersh
The issue grew out of
a critical article that the New Yorker magazine published in
May. It charged that during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, troops
led by McCaffrey--then an Army general--used unnecessary force
in a battle with Iraqi soldiers following a cease-fire.
McCaffrey branded the
article "nonsense" at the time it appeared.
GAO investigators found
that McCaffrey received professional advice on how to handle
the fallout from the article from Paul Johnson, a regional president
for Fleishman-Hilliard Inc. The public-relations powerhouse receives
about $10 million a year from McCaffrey's office for its media
campaign work.
"Director McCaffrey
denied to us that anyone had assisted him in his response to
the article," GAO investigators said in their report. But
investigators said Johnson acknowledged that McCaffrey had called
him because he was very concerned about the effect the article
might have on the war on drugs, and Johnson said he spent three
to four hours helping to shape a response to the New Yorker and
also referred McCaffrey to a libel attorney.
Johnson said he did not
bill McCaffrey or the drug policy office for his time because
"he did this as a personal favor to Director McCaffrey,"
according to the report.
Through his spokesman,
McCaffrey said that there was nothing inappropriate.
Johnson could not be reached
for comment, and officials at Fleishman-Hilliard said they would
not be able to discuss the issue.
DARE
Sued Rolling Stone
And in fact, everything
seemed to be going DARE's way after it turned out that two of
the most critical exposes - the Rolling Stone and New Republic
stories - were written by the arch-falsifier Stephen Glass. In
letters to the editors, DARE supporters point to these as examples
of malicious press, and imply that all the negative coverage
was equally removed from reality. DARE sued Glass and Rolling
Stone for libel.
This spring, it lost its
case as Federal Judge Virginia Phillips found the charges against
the program to be "substantially true." Glass may have
fictionalized many of his other stories, but the truth about
DARE is that there is no scientific data to support it and that
it has repeatedly strong-armed and tried to silence reporters
and researchers who try to point this out.
The decision received
surprisingly little media attention - just a 200 word business
section mention in the New York Times and a similarly short piece
in the Los Angeles Times ( both 4/18/2000 ). And it didn't stop
editorialists from trying to tar other DARE critics with Glass'
sins: an op-ed published in the Washington Times ( 9/14/00 )
mentioned Glass' apology to DARE, but, interestingly, not the
decision of the federal court that the charges were substantially
true.
Bush,
Sr. Threatened Lawsuit Over Drug Allegations about W.
Former President Bush
has considered legal action against a discredited book that claimed
he attempted years ago to quash a drug arrest of his son Gov.
George W. Bush of Texas, the front-runner for the Republican
presidential nomination. In an interview taped last week and
aired on Fox News Sunday, the former president said he was "so
outraged" by the allegations in the book that he consulted
his attorney, "something I seldom do." The interview
was apparently taped before St. Martin's Press took action against
its book Fortunate Son: the Making of an American President by
J.H. Hatfield.
On Thursday, St. Martin's
halted distribution of the book and on Friday ordered all copies
to be returned so they could be destroyed. The publisher's action
came after aides at the Bush campaign said the governor was seeking
advice on legal moves that could be taken against the book. Hatfield,
in a final chapter that St. Martin's said was added at the last
minute, said that in 1972 the younger Bush was arrested in Harris
County for possession of cocaine. He said the arrest was expunged
after the elder Bush arranged through a friendly Republican judge
to have his son perform public service.
Both Bushes vehemently
deny the allegation, and Hatfield's account has several factual
problems, including that there were no Republican judges in Harris
County in 1972 and that the law allowing arrests in Texas to
be expunged was not enacted until later in the 1970s. Carol Vance,
a Democrat who was district attorney in 1972, said the allegations
are baseless.
St. Martin's, without
commenting directly on Hatfield's allegations, moved against
the book after learning that Hatfield had been convicted 11 years
ago of hiring a hit man in an unsuccessful car bombing against
his boss. The elder Bush said his attorney, whom he did not name,
made further legal inquiries, although the former president did
not make clear if the contact was with representatives of the
author or publisher or both. At any rate, he said: "They
just brushed us off."
"I may not be finished
with this yet, even though I'm a public figure. It's outrageous,"
Bush said. He referred to a legal standard that makes it more
difficult for public figures to sustain a libel action unless
they can prove that false statements were made with malicious
intent. Bush said the book was "a fraud and ugly."
"You know," Bush said, "I debated whether to say
anything, but frankly, that book accused me of being anti-Semitic.
It accused me of obstructing the justice system by going to a
judge and having a narcotics charge dropped and have George do
community service.
"It's a lie. It was
a vicious lie. And I'll tell you, it's one of the things that
makes a lot of people stay out of public service. Who wants to
have books written that are totally false?"
Bonus
Question:
Why
Do Atrocities Go Unreported as They Are Happening?
History
of CIA Agents Posing as Journalists
As with
the US-Pinochet Atrocities in Chile, Jack Anderson was the first
to report the facts in 1973
The first shoe was dropped
by Jack Anderson in late August, 1973, when he revealed that
Seymour Freidin, head of the Hearst bureau in London, was a CIA
agent. Freidin, already in the news because the Republicans paid
him $10,000 in 1972 to spy on the Democrats, confirmed Anderson's
story. At that point William Colby, the new CIA director, was
asked by the New York Times and the Washington Star-News if any
of their staff were on the CIA payroll.
James (Scotty) Reston
of the NYT was satisfied with an evasive answer, but when the
Star-News editorial board met with Colby, they made some progress.
The other shoe dropped with an article by Oswald Johnston on
November 30: the Star-News learned from an "authoritative
source" (Colby) that the CIA had some three dozen American
journalists on its payroll. Johnston named only one -- Jeremiah
O'Leary -- who was one of their own diplomatic correspondents.
(The Star-News stopped publishing in 1981, at which point O'Leary
joined Reagan's national security staff. From 1982 until his
death in 1993, he was with the Washington Times.)
That was the first and
last time that Colby was helpful on this topic. Some believe
that the new director was under pressure from the "young
Turks" (junior staffers) at the Agency, who were granted
a mandate by Colby's predecessor to cough up the "family
jewels" -- a list of illegal exploits that could be culled
from the CIA's files. Already there were rumors that the CIA
was guilty of illegal spying on the antiwar movement -- rumors
that were confirmed a year later by Seymour Hersh, whose sources
were some of these same "young Turks."
Why was Colby initially
forthcoming on the issue of the CIA and the media, and why did
he then start stonewalling? Some believe that he was attempting
a "limited hangout" as the best way out of a position
that made him nervous, while others feel that he was implicitly
threatening to provide additional names in order to scare off
the media. Colby had reason to be worried: by late 1973, investigative
journalism was in the air because of Watergate -- an issue that
had more than the usual share of CIA connections.
Colby's stonewalling continued
for the remainder of his tenure, even as a Senate committee led
by Frank Church desperately tried to squeeze more names out of
him. George Bush replaced Colby in January, 1976, and eventually
agreed to a one-paragraph summary of each file of a CIA journalist,
with names deleted. When the CIA said it was finished, the Church
committee had over 400 summaries.
"All Tyrants
Fall"
-- Mohandas K.
Gandhi
Defeating the
Narco-System, One Fact at a Time
Subscribe
and Be Alerted to New Reports