>Carlos Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert in Buenos Aires and advising him >to appoint a lawyer. These papers were delivered only days before press >leaked Michael Townley's confession to having detonated the bomb that >killed the General and his wife. Townley, a former DINA agent, was also >convicted in the September 1976 car-bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier >and Ronni Karpen Moffitt in Washington, DC. > >The Prats case is being investigated by Argentine judge Maria >Servini-Cubria. Servini traveled to Chile last December to take testimony >from Gen. Manuel Contreras and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza. Both Contreras and >Espinoza are completing a prison sentence in Chile for their role in the >Letelier-Moffitt assassination. > >In his confession, Townley testified that Contreras gave the order for the >Prats assassination. Townley also implicated Chilean agents Raul Iturriaga >Neumann and his brother Jorge as well as Argentine Juan Mart�n Ciga Correa, >who remains in jail in Buenos Aires, refusing to testify. Although Townley >claims that Pinochet did not directly give the order for the hit, he >acknowledges that, nothing was done without his approval. Townley, who is >currently a part of the witness protection program in the US for testimony >he gave in the Letelier-Moffitt investigation, was guaranteed immunity in >Argentina in exchange for his confession. > >Townley's confession came as a shock to many Chileans. President Ricardo >Lagos acknowledged that, "My hope is that, for the good of the country, the >assassination of former Army Commander-in-Chief Carlos Prats may finally be >solved," emphasizing that Townley's confession "has had a profound impact >on me." Prat's daughters, Sofia and Maria Angelica, emphasized that they >were not surprised by the admission and indicated that they had long known >of Townley's participation and had even requested his extradition as early >as 1985. > >Pinochet Watch is a campaign by the Institute for Policy Studies in >cooperation with the Transnational Institute > >Copyright 2000 Institute for Policy Studies > >***** > >INSURGENCE RECORDS & PUBLICATIONS >2 Bloor St. W. Suite 100-184 >Toronto, Ontario >M4W 3E2 CANADA >E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Web: http://www.insurgence.net >- Monday, 29 May 2000 - > >----- >____________________________________________________________________ > >Press release from Insurgence Records & RASH >ANGELIC UPSTARTS TOUR - POSTPONED >____________________________________________________________________ > >29/05/2000 >For immediate distribution: > >Due to immigration-related complications in London, the Angelic Upstarts >are unable to attend the planned North American dates in June. However, we >are doing our best here at INSURGENCE to accommodate the situation and work >with our friends to arrange an alternate set of dates within the next few >months. In fact, we aim to knock this setback on the head and build a >bigger and better tour with the addition of several North American cities. >Right now we want to minimize potential inconvenience for fans that plan on >traveling great distances for this show - only to find that the dates have >been changed. Please spread the word and watch this space for updated tour >information. > >INSURGENCE RECORDS > >NEW INSURGENCE MUSIC RELEASES: > >IR 001 - V/A - Class Pride World Wide (CD) IR 002 - Angelic Upstarts - >Anthems Against Scum (CD) IR 003 - Klasse Kriminale - Electric Caravanas >(CD) IP 001 - Blaggers ITA - It's Up To You - (VHS/NTSC video) > >***** >____________________________________________________________________ > >APARTHEID'S TOP ASSASSIN PARDONED FOR MORE KILLINGS >____________________________________________________________________ > >AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE >Friday, June 2, 2000 6:14 PM SGT > >JOHANNESBURG, June 2 (AFP) - South Africa's truth commission on Friday >granted self-confessed assassin Eugene de Kock amnesty again for >apartheid-era atrocities he committed, this time for killing liberation >activists in Botswana and Swaziland. > >De Kock and other policemen were pardoned for killing five African National >Congress members in Swaziland -- one of them the brother of South African >defence force chief Siphiwe Nyanda -- between 1983 and 1986, as well as >seven members of a South African family in Botswana in 1990. > >The Chad family were supporters of the Pan Africanist Congress, one of the >liberation movements that fought to end apartheid. > >The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) also gave De Kock and members >of his Vlakplaas secret police unit, which acted as a state hit squad for >the apartheid regime, amnesty for killing two ANC operatives who had become >police informers. > >De Kock, dubbed Prime Evil for his proficiency at killing, has confessed to >shooting one of the informers, Johannes Mobatha, in the heart at close >range in 1989 and then blowing his body up with explosives. > >The former police commander was found guilty of 89 apartheid-era crimes >including several murders and sentenced to 212 years in prison in 1996. > >He has however confessed to more than 100 incidents of murder, torture and >fraud before the TRC and has asked the body for pardon in a bid to be freed >from jail. > >To date he has been amnestied for blowing up the Johannesburg headquarters >of the anti-apartheid South African Council of Churches (SACC) in 1988, for >bombing the house of the doctor in the following year and for killing a >student activist in 1985. > >The TRC, which probed apartheid era human rights atrocities, is compelled >to grant amnesty to perpetrators who make a full confession and prove a >political motive for their actions. > >De Kock's case poses a dilemma for the commission. > >South Africans wants to see him punished but he has yet to be caught >telling a lie in his evidence to the TRC and has steadfastly maintained >that he was following political orders. > >Another reviled apartheid operative, Craig Williamson, was on Thursday >pardoned for killing prominent activist Ruth First with a letter bomb in >Mozambique in 1982 and two years later blowing up activist Jeanette Schoon >and her daughter Katryn with a parcel bomb in Botswana. > >Copyright 2000 AFP. All rights reserved. > >***** > >WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE >Published by the International Committee >of the Fourth International (ICFI) >Web: http://www.wsws.org/ >E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >- Thursday, 1 June 2000 - > >----- >____________________________________________________________________ > >US DRUG CZAR TIED TO ATROCITIES IN GULF WAR >____________________________________________________________________ > >News & Analysis: Middle East: Iraq >By Bill Vann >http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/iraq-j01.shtml > >Barry McCaffrey, the director of the White House Office of National Drug >Control Policy and point-man for the escalating US military intervention in >Colombia, was responsible for a military operation at the close of the 1991 >Persian Gulf War that claimed the lives of thousands of fleeing Iraqi >soldiers, prisoners of war, civilians and even children, according to a >recent article in the New Yorker magazine. This slaughter was carried out >after a negotiated cease-fire already had been put in place. > >Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with scores of current and former >military personnel who witnessed the carnage, the article by veteran >reporter Seymour M. Hersh provides a devastating exposure of war crimes >allegedly carried out under McCaffrey's direction, and an indictment of the >US war in the Persian Gulf as a whole. > >Hersh gained his reputation as a reporter by exposing the 1968 My Lai >massacre, in which US troops killed nearly 600 Vietnamese women, children >and old men in a ditch. His latest article, "Overwhelming Force: What >happened in the final days of the Gulf War," undermines the claims made by >the government, the military and the media nearly a decade ago that the US >attack on Iraq had put an end to the "Vietnam syndrome." The Gulf War, the >argument went, had demonstrated Washington's capacity to wage a "clean" and >relatively casualty-free war with international support. > >Hersh's investigation demonstrates that the atrocities committed in the >Persian Gulf differed from those carried out in Vietnam principally in that >US forces were able to carry them out from a discreet distance. Killing was >accomplished either through the use of "smart bombs," like the one that >killed hundreds of women and children in the Al-Almariya air raid shelter, >or, as is reported in McCaffrey's case, the deployment of missile-firing >attack helicopters to incinerate Iraqi troops from a safe distance. > >The principal lesson of the Vietnam War that the US military carried into >the Persian Gulf was the so-called "Powell Doctrine," named for then-Joint >Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin Powell. It called for the use of >overwhelming force to obliterate the enemy and prevent American casualties, >thereby minimizing opposition at home. The result was the most savage >aerial bombardment in history, one that reduced the modern infrastructure >of Iraq to rubble, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and creating >conditions of malnutrition and disease which, compounded by US-backed >sanctions, have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands more over the >past decade, most of them children. > >In Kuwait, millions of tons of explosives were dropped on trenches and >bunkers manned by Iraqi soldiers, killing untold thousands while leaving >survivors shell-shocked and virtually unable to engage in combat. > >The so-called "ground war" initiated by the US invasion lasted all of four >days. Most of the few dozen US casualties were the result of "friendly >fire," when American units were caught in the massive fire power thrown >against the Iraqis. > >Some indication of the slaughter emerged with televised images of the >so-called "highway of death" from Kuwait to Basra in southern Iraq. The US >carpet-bombed Iraqis as they fled in panic, leaving the six-lane highway >littered for miles with the blackened shells of trucks, cars and military >vehicles and the charred corpses of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. > >On February 28, 1991, the Bush administration declared a cessation of >hostilities and called for a negotiated end to the war. Washington had no >interest in a permanent occupation of Iraq and feared that the complete >destruction of the military forces of Saddam Hussein would create >conditions for revolutionary upheavals and chronic instability in the >strategically important country. > >At the time of the cease-fire, McCaffrey's 24th Infantry Division, a >mechanized unit of 18,000 troops with battle tanks and heavy artillery, had >driven into southern Iraq in a flanking maneuver designed to cut off Iraqi >columns fleeing from Kuwait toward Basra. Hersh reports that while other US >units ceased offensive operations and stayed in place after the cease-fire, >McCaffrey's division pressed on until it came within striking distance of a >road that was one of the principal exit routes for Iraqi forces fleeing >from Kuwait. The Iraqis had been assured safe passage, but, according to >Hersh, the 24th Division's forward deployment was to make that impossible. > >In the pre-dawn hours of March 2, a scout unit in the forward edge of the >division reported that it had been fired upon by Iraqis. Thus, according to >the official version, began the "Battle of Rumaila," named for the oilfield >through which the road passed. Troops in the unit commonly referred to the >engagement as a "turkey shoot." > >Officers and soldiers interviewed by Hersh questioned whether any Iraqi >shots had been fired. Several interviewed for the article had been with the >units closest to the road and saw no hostile actions by the retreating >Iraqis. "Somebody panicked and thought they saw something they didn't see," >was one explanation given for the reported Iraqi attack. > >Nonetheless, the alleged incident was seized upon by US commanders to >launch a murderous assault that McCaffrey claimed was designed to protect >"the safety of my soldiers." By the time the US attack began, however, the >bulk of the Iraqi column had proceeded north well past the 24th Division's >lines, with Iraqi tanks loaded onto flatbed trucks and their gun turrets >locked and pointed backwards, as had been agreed upon in cease-fire talks. > >Hersh claims that McCaffrey chose to use massive force. Helicopter gunships >were ordered to destroy vehicles crossing a bridge over the marshlands, >effectively cutting off the road, while artillery sealed off the other end >to the south. The rag-tag column of trucks, cars and armored vehicles was >trapped in a killing zone, with Iraqis abandoning their vehicles and >fleeing in panic into the ditches along the roadside. Apache helicopters >pounded them with missiles, while US tanks poured cannon fire on the >defeated and unresisting column. > >"We went up the road blowing the shit out of everything," one soldier with >a tank platoon told Hersh. "It was like going down an American >highway--people all mixed up in cars and trucks. People got out of their >cars and ran away. We shot them. My orders were to shoot if they were armed >or running. The Iraqis were getting massacred." > >According to McCaffrey, the attack destroyed more than 400 trucks and 187 >tanks and armored vehicles. How many Iraqis were slaughtered has never been >estimated, either for the one-sided battle in Rumaila or for the war as a >whole. > >At least one of the vehicles destroyed by a US Hellfire missile was a bus >carrying Iraqi children. The same tank soldier said that a sergeant came >and told him and other members of his unit to prepare for a grim task. "He >said, 'We've blown away a busload of kids,' and warned us that we were >going to get called for a burial mission." However, the US soldiers were >never sent to bury the children's bodies. In all likelihood the corpses >were plowed under the sand together with the rest of the Iraqi dead. > >Other actions that fall into the category of war crimes were also reported >in connection with the 24th Division's operations. One involved a scout >platoon sent to block traffic on the same road the day before the >cease-fire went into effect. The Americans were besieged by "scared and >crying" Iraqis desperate to surrender. Among them were wounded and bandaged >soldiers aboard a clearly marked hospital bus. The total number of >prisoners reached 382. > >According to the New Yorker article, the US scout unit disarmed the Iraqis >and herded them into a space sealed off on three sides by the hospital bus >and two trucks. They gave them food and water and assured them they would >be safe, radioing their status and position to headquarters. When the unit >received radioed instructions to move on, US soldiers gave each of the >Iraqis propaganda leaflets printed in Arabic that promised that any soldier >who surrendered would be allowed to return home. > >As they rode away, members of the scout unit reportedly saw a column of >Bradley armored vehicles approach and begin firing machine-guns into the >prisoners, some of whom attempted to run. "I had fed these guys and gotten >them to trust me," said Sgt. James Testerman, a member of the scout unit. >He recalled one Iraqi who refused to touch the food placed in front of him, >prompting the sergeant to take a bite of it to show him it wasn't poisoned. >"The tough guy broke down crying," he recalled. "I can only imagine what he >thought" when the armored vehicles "started shooting--that we were sending >him to the slaughter. You think about it. All those people." > >In another incident, a unit searching a village for weapons reportedly >opened fire with machine-guns on a group of villagers walking behind a man >waving a white flag. Soldiers who witnessed the shooting estimated that 20 >civilians were killed. > >As the 24th Division prepared to go home, McCaffrey praised his troops for >their one-sided victory. The war in the Gulf, he said, was "probably the >single most unifying event that has happened in America since World War >II.... The upshot will be that, just like Vietnam had the tragic effect on >our country for years, this one has brought back a new way of looking at >ourselves." > >More than a few of McCaffrey's soldiers saw the conflict differently, >however, feeling shame and revulsion. Major David Pierson, who served as an >intelligence captain with the 24th Division, indicated that many felt >guilty: "guilty that we had slaughtered them so; guilty that we had >performed so well and they so poorly; guilty that we were running up the >score.... They were like children fleeing before us, unorganized, scared, >wishing it would all end. We continued to pour it on." > >Within months of the division arriving back at Fort Stewart, Georgia, an >anonymous letter arrived at the Pentagon detailing the massacre of the >Iraqi prisoners and charging that McCaffrey had initiated the March 2 >battle without any Iraqi provocation. The letter, which included detailed >information that could have only come from within the general's command >staff, referred to the actions as "war crimes." > >Other soldiers assigned to the division also came forward and told military >investigators what they had seen. In each case, the army conducted cursory >and secretive investigations and suppressed the charges, driving some of >those who had made them out of the service. Among McCaffrey's officers, few >dared contradict the official version, certain that their careers would be >destroyed. > >That the reports of these atrocities have only surfaced in public nine >years after the fact is a testament to the subservient role played by the >US media throughout the Gulf War. Officially barred for the first time from >any coverage of US military operations on the front line, the media >contented itself with acting as propaganda cheerleader for the US effort >and lionizing men like McCaffrey and General Norman Schwarzkopf as heroes. > >Accepting de facto military censorship, the television networks and major >news organizations repeated every pretext provided by Washington for its >military action, while remaining silent on the devastating impact the US >war machine had upon the people of Iraq. > >The silence continues. Hersh's well-founded charge of US war crimes has >received scant treatment in the broadcast and print media. > >While these atrocities were carried out under the Bush administration, the >Clinton White House has rushed to McCaffrey's defense, participating in an >extraordinary government campaign aimed first at suppressing Hersh's >article, and then vilifying its author. This included pressure on former >military officers to change their stories and efforts to induce human >rights groups to issue statements defending McCaffrey and denouncing the >piece before it was even published. > >The White House and the Pentagon have serious and immediate concerns about >the retired general being implicated in war crimes. As the Clinton >administration's "drug czar," McCaffrey has played the leading role in >campaigning for the US Congress to pass a $1.7-billion military aid package >for Colombia that would substantially increase US involvement in that >country's protracted civil war. He has also toured Latin America, >attempting to win support from the region's governments for Washington's >escalation. > >Copyright 1998-2000 World Socialist Web Site. All rights reserved. > >** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, material >appearing in Antifa Info-Bulletin is distributed without charge or profit >to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information >for research and educational purposes. Submissions are welcome. ** > >* * * > >ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN (AFIB) >750 La Playa # 730 >San Francisco, California 94121 >To subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Inquiries write: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Via the Web --> http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aff/afib.html >Archive --> http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aff/afib-bulletins.html > >ANTI-FASCIST FORUM (AFF) >Antifa Info-Bulletin is a member of the Anti-Fascist Forum network. AFF is >an info-group which collects and disseminates information, research and >analysis on fascist activity and anti-fascist resistance. 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