Archives of Terror Expose CIA, By Deirdre Griswold Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 13:49:37 EDT Distribution: world Organization: NY Transfer News Collective Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit 'ARCHIVES OF TERROR' EXPOSE CIA By Deirdre Griswold Somewhere in the city of Asunci›n, the capital of Paraguay, sits a roomful of documents that has become known as the "Archives of Terror." The four tons of documents, photos and recordings were discovered last December and January. They are reported to be the meticulous records of arrest, torture and murder carried out by the political police under the dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989. The archives come from the Department of Police Investigations and the Technical Office for the Repression of Communism. They shed additional light on Operation Condor. That is the agency for collaboration among the political police agencies of the countries of the Southern Cone of Latin America. Its headquarters was in Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. FALL OF STROESSNER Despite the fascist repression of the Stroessner regime, the ruling class in Paraguay faced a growing mass opposition by the 1980s. Thousands demonstrated in Asunci›n. In the countryside the peasants were seizing land from the big latifundias. A February 1989 military coup, led by Gen. Andr€s Rodrøguez, overthrew Stroessner. It preempted a popular uprising and established a "restricted democracy" in Paraguay. As in Chile and other countries in Latin America, the transition to "democracy" in Paraguay has been managed by bourgeois forces in alliance with U.S. imperialism. Their objective is to keep the repressive forces of the state intact while presenting a more liberal political face to the masses. The political transition has been accompanied by the even more aggressive economic intervention of foreign corporations seeking to exploit the country's natural resources. UNDER TUTELAGE OF CIA The progressive forces of Paraguay have been regrouping after decades of fascist terror. In collaboration with the movements of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, they have begun a campaign to open the "Archives of Terror" so the truth about the period of the dictatorship can at last be known. They are demanding compensation for victims of state terror. The archives are now in the custody of the judicial system. But it is feared they could already be in danger of being "sanitized" by the shadowy secret police, whose crimes are detailed in the thousands of documents. The newsmagazine Proceso of Mexico City reports that the documents reveal extensive collaboration among Operation Condor agencies in the "disappearance" of political prisoners from all five countries. Perhaps the greatest danger to the files comes from such U.S. agencies as the CIA, whose agents are reported to have collaborated with and coordinated the activities of their Latin American counterparts. As the campaign to open the archives gathers steam, it can damage even further Washington's spurious claims to be a champion of "human rights" around the world. Detailed files on U.S. collaboration with the torturers and executioners of an admittedly pro-Nazi regime will be hard to explain away. -30- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 West 17 St., New York, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@blythe.org.) + Join Us! Support The NY Transfer News Collective + + We deliver uncensored information to your mailbox! + + Modem:718-448-2358 Fax:718-448-3423 E-mail: nyt@blythe.org +