[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E980-E981]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


   U.S. SHOULD INVESTIGATE GEN. PINOCHET'S ROLE IN U.S. ASSASSINATION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 22, 1998

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues the 
attached op-ed printed in the Los Angeles Times on May 17, 1998, 
concerning U.S.-Chile relations.
  One of the worst acts of state sponsored terrorism took place right 
here in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976. A bomb was placed under 
the car of Orlando Letelier, a Chilean exile and former Chilean 
chancellor under the democratically elected government of Slavador 
Allende. While driving to work that morning, the bomb was detonated as 
the car wound around Sheridan Circle, killing Letelier and his American 
assistant, Ronnie Karpen Moffitt and seriously wounding her husband, 
Michael Moffitt.
  With the help of the FBI, several people were brought to trial for 
the crime, but it was always believed that Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who 
seized power in Chile in a bloody coup in 1973 and is--incredulously--
now a sitting member of the Chilean Senate, had directed the 
assassination. There was not enough evidence at the time, however, to 
directly link him to the crime.
  More evidence has come to light since then, and other nations have 
launched investigations of state-sponsored killings directed by the 
Chilean secret police. Argentina, Spain and Italy for example are 
investigating past crimes, and Spain in particular is looking into 
whether Pinochet was directly involved in the Letelier assassination 
and other killings.
  Spain has asked the United States for cooperation in this 
investigation, and regrettably that assistance has not always been 
forthcoming. Along with my colleague Mr. Conyers of Michigan, I have 
written the Administration urging their complete and total cooperation 
with the Spanish investigation.
  As the following article points out, there is mounting evidence that 
Pinochet was directly involved in the killing of Orlando Letelier and 
Ronnie Karpan Moffitt.
  I urge the Administration to strongly consider reopening its own 
investigation of those murders as well as fully cooperate with the 
Spanish investigation.
  Neither Congress nor the Administration should forego the opportunity 
to send a strong and clear message that we will not tolerate terrorism 
on our soil. And our developing relationship with the new government of 
Chile should not shield Pinochet from responsibility if it is proven 
that he was responsible for the assassination of innocent civilians.

                Is a Terrorist Hiding in Chile's Senate?

                  (By Scott Armstrong and Saul Landau)

       When Bill Clinton addressed the Chilean legislature last 
     month, he did not see the face of Augusto Pinochet. Nor did 
     he mention the name of the recently retired army commander 
     and former president-dictator of Chile. But the unresolved 
     issue of Pinochet's involvement in the worst act of 
     international terrorism in Washington in the past 50 years 
     still hangs over U.S.-Chilean relations.
       Pinochet figures in problems Chile has with Spain, Italy 
     and Argentina. In each of these countries, official 
     investigations are underway that could link Pinochet directly 
     to overseas assassinations and unsuccessful plots to silence 
     his critics during his 17-year military reign.
       An Argentine judge is investigating Pinochet on charges 
     brought by the daughter of Gen. Carlos Prats, a former 
     Chilean chief of staff, and his wife. The two were living as 
     exiles in Buenos Aires in September 1974, when a car bomb 
     blew them nine stories high. Argentine authorities arrested a 
     former officer of DINA, the Chilean secret police, who has 
     implicated other senior Chilean secret-police officials.
       An Italian court is probing Pinochet's responsibility in 
     the September 1975 shooting in Rome, of an exiled Chilean 
     Christian Democrat legislator. Bernardo Leighton, and his 
     wife. A gunman put bullets in the backs of their heads, but 
     both survived. One month later, Pinochet met an Italian 
     fascist leader in Madrid, who was subsequently charged with 
     the shooting.
       One piece of evidence caught the attention of the Italian 
     magistrate: A Sept. 16, 1975, memo to Pinochet from Col. 
     Manuel Contreras, chief of DINA, Chile's intelligence and 
     secret-police agency. In it, Contreras requests for DINA an 
     additional $600,000 for ``reasons that I consider 
     indispensable,'' one of which is ``the neutralization of the 
     [Chilean] government junta's principle adversaries abroad, 
     especially in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, the U.S.A. and 
     Italy.'' These countries were all hosts to DINA assassination 
     attempts or to aborted DINA assassination plots.
       Spanish judges have studied this document, too. In July 
     1996, the Union of Progressive Spanish prosecutors and 
     lawyers, representing the families of victims of Pinochet's 
     reign of terror, accused Pinochet of international terrorism, 
     genocide and crimes against humanity. In 1978, Pinochet 
     granted an amnesty for himself and his military subordinates 
     who, according to the 1997 official Chilean government 
     record, killed more than 3,190 people and tortured thousands 
     more. Later, Pinochet arranged to retire from the military as 
     a ``senator for life,'' a status that, when combined with the 
     amnesty, amounted to impunity from prosecution in Chile. 
     Recently, a Chilean judge accepted the complaint of 
     Gladys Marin, a Chilean communist, who has accused 
     Pinochet of kidnapping her husband and other leaders, 
     torturing them and making them ``disappear.'' But few hold 
     out hope of an investigation, a prosecution and conviction 
     in Chile.
       Spanish Judge Garcia Castellon certified Spanish 
     jurisdiction in a similar case. More than a dozen Spanish 
     citizens, including priests, fell victim to the excesses of 
     Chile's military dictatorship. The judge also cast his 
     investigative net for evidence to Washington, where DINA had 
     struck on Sept. 21, 1976.
       On that day, Orlando Letelier, former Chilean chancellor 
     under President Salvador

[[Page E981]]

     Allende, and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a U.S. citizen and 
     colleague of his at the Institute for Policy Studies, were 
     killed by a bomb planted under the seat of their car. FBI 
     agents tracked the murders back to DINA's Contreras. A 1978 
     Washington grand jury indicted him and eight other named 
     conspirators and several unindicted co-conspirators. Two 
     former U.S. prosecutors and two of the FBI agents who worked 
     the Letelier-Moffitt case have declared they believe Pinochet 
     was responsible for the murders.
       The U.S. government also learned some details about Chile's 
     overseas terrorism from Michael Townley, a U.S. citizen 
     working for the Chilean secret police, who confessed to 
     organizing the Letelier assassination. In 1980, Townley told 
     a U.S. court that he had received orders from Contreras to 
     assassinate Letelier. Townley flew to the United States under 
     a false name, recruited a gang of anti-Castro Cubans to help 
     him do the job, then made the bomb and detonator and placed 
     the explosives under Letelier's car seat. Two Cuban exiles, 
     who later pleaded guilty, detonated the bomb.
       After plea-bargaining for a reduced sentence and testifying 
     against his fellow conspirators, Townley gradually disclosed 
     to the FBI other information about DINA. After the September 
     1973 Pinochet-led coup that overthrew the Allende government, 
     Townley had ingratiated himself to DINA by demonstrating his 
     electronic expertise. He also showed an aptitude for more 
     exotic tasks and, by 1974, he had received an assignment to 
     kill abroad.
       Townley, according to bureau agents, began to think of 
     himself as DINA's jackal, referring to the 1960s French 
     killer who almost assassinated President Charles DeGaulle. 
     FBI Special Agent Robert Scherrer slowly developed a father-
     confessor relationship with Townley, who told him how he and 
     other elite Chilean agents organized the killing of Gen. 
     Prats. The FBI learned of ``Operation Condor,'' an agreement 
     among six Latin American secret-police agencies to spy on 
     their enemies abroad and even eliminate them. In the Prats 
     case, for example, Townley recruited Argentine agents to 
     detonate the bomb he had built.
       Scherrer also extracted from Townley details about the 
     Leighton hit in Rome, in which an Italian fascist leader 
     pulled the trigger and a Cuban exile group in Miami took the 
     public credit. In 1997, the Italian court condemned (in 
     absentia) Contreras and Townley for attempted murder of the 
     Leightons in Rome.
       Townley's stores have been reinforced by other evidence to 
     the point that the Letelier case may be reopened. All nine 
     conspirators listed in the 1978 indictment have been 
     tried. The unindicted co-conspirators could include 
     Pinochet himself. Yet, prosecutors lacked direct evidence 
     that would warrant an indictment of the former Chilean 
     president.
       Then, last December 23, Contreras, now serving a seven-year 
     sentence in Chile for his role in the Letelier-Moffitt 
     murders, declared that he was following Pinochet's orders in 
     every action that he undertook. Since his statement was 
     offered as part of an effort to get his sentence reduced, 
     it's self-serving. But it appears to corroborate the 
     conclusions of the U.S. officials involved in the case.
       Pinochet has escaped prosecution in Chile because of the 
     amnesty he granted himself and his cronies. But there is one 
     exception: U.S. pressure could compel his prosecution in the 
     Letelier-Moffitt case in Chile. But there is little 
     likelihood justice will be done there unless it is pursued 
     here in the United States.
       Although he failed to confront Pinochet while visiting 
     Chile, Clinton still can ask Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to reopen 
     the Letelier-Moffitt investigation into Pinochet's role as 
     its alleged author. Such a request would signal a formal end 
     of official impunity under which Pinochet has hidden for more 
     than two decades. It would send a message to state terrorists 
     everywhere.

     

                          ____________________