[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 100 (Thursday, July 27, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1382-E1383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      BRING GEN. AUGUSTO PINOCHET TO JUSTICE IN THE UNITED STATES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 27, 2000

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the murder in 
Washington, D.C. of Orlando Letelier and his assistant Roni Karpen 
Moffit by the Chilean intelligence agency (DINA) has been a point of 
contention for the Chilean and United States governments since it 
occurred in September of 1976. Letelier was an important figure in the 
democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende and he 
came to this country after being imprisoned and beaten in Chile and 
then released by the Pinochet dictatorship from the position he had 
held, Chile's ambassador to the U.S. There is compelling evidence that 
Gen. Pinochet ordered his assassination. Moffit died because she 
happened to be driving in the car with him which had been wired with a 
bomb.
  Now that Pinochet has had his immunity revoked by a Chilean court, 
U.S. authorities have begun to review whether sufficient grounds exist 
to authorize his extradition.
  Joshua G. Hill, a Research Associate with the Washington-based 
Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), authored a brief research 
memorandum on Pinochet's involvement in the assassinations and steps 
being taken to bring him to justice. I commend to my colleagues this 
brief paper on a case that has remained of such great importance to so 
many people in the U.S. and Chile.
  ``Pinochet and the Letelier Case,'' by Joshua Hill, research 
associate, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington, D.C.

                     Pinochet and the Letelier Case


                               Background

       Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's seventeen-year reign 
     was one of terror and murder. Not only were well over three 
     thousand political opponents killed or ``disappeared'' in 
     Chile (including several U.S. citizens), but Pinochet's 
     murderous group extended into the United States as well. 
     Orlando Letelier, one of the most famous Chilean dissidents 
     living abroad was murdered September 21, 1976 on the streets 
     of Washington, D.C. Now that the Santiago Court of Appeals 
     has removed General Pinochet's immunity, the U.S. Department 
     of Justice is reviewing the possible extradition of Pinochet 
     to stand trial for the car bombing murders of Letelier and 
     Roni Moffitt, an American colleague of Letelier's at 
     Washington's Institute for Policy Studies. According to the 
     evidence presented at the time of the trial, the bomb was 
     detonated by remote control. Letelier was killed instantly, 
     while Roni Moffitt died when a metal shard pierced her body. 
     Her husband, Michael, who was in the back seat, miraculously 
     survived the blast.


                           The initial trials

       The Department of Justice led by Attorney General Janet 
     Reno reopened the Letelier case once Pinochet returned to 
     Chile after being held under house arrest, in Great Britain. 
     Accusations arising in Chilean and Spanish courts have 
     rejuvenated interest in


                 The mounting evidence against Pinochet

       In March and April of this year, the U.S. Justice 
     Department and FBI investigated and interviewed witnesses in 
     Chile. They were allowed to submit questions through a 
     Chilean judge to forty-two subpoenaed people. John Dinges, a 
     journalist and author who obtained a secret memo from a 
     Chilean reporter, claims that an affidavit exists attesting 
     to the existence of an order from Pinochet to Espinoza to 
     murder Letelier. Compounding this testimony, it is a fact 
     that Pinochet revoked Letelier's Chilean citizenship only ten 
     days before his assassination in a response to growing 
     outcries by Letelier against Chile's atrocious human rights 
     policy. ``What was important to me about the stripping of his 
     citizenship was the timing of it--just 10 days before the 
     assassination,'' said E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., a former 
     federal prosecutor who won two other cases against Chileans 
     involved in the murder of Letelier. ``It clearly shows that 
     the efforts of Letelier was making to bring pressure on 
     Chile-were working. He was getting under the junta's skin.''
       After his imprisonment in the United States, the Chilean 
     government sentenced Contreras in 1995 to seven years for 
     murder. Since it is highly doubtful that Contreras was acting 
     without the President's approval,

[[Page E1383]]

     this conviction strengthens the case against Pinochet. In 
     fact, in Contreras's 1997 affidavit, he stated that no DINA 
     missions were ever undertaken without prior consent from 
     Pinochet.


                   U.S. domestic pressure is applied

       Adding to the domestic political pressure in the U.S., on 
     May 26 California Congressmen George Miller and thirty-four 
     other Congressmen sent a letter to President Clinton to 
     insist that the U.S. continue to press the Chilean government 
     for greater assistance in carrying out the investigation of 
     Pinochet's complicity. They labeled the Letelier case the 
     worst incident of terrorism committed by a foreign government 
     on U.S. soil and the letter requested the president to focus 
     on discussing the investigation in his meeting with Chilean 
     President Ricardo Lagos in Berlin on June 2. It also called 
     for the possible extradition of Pinochet to the United States 
     if the evidence continues to point toward a significant 
     connection between the former Chilean dictator and Letelier's 
     murder.
       The extradition of Pinochet may be unlikely due to his 
     advanced age and ailing health, but many members of Congress 
     and others still are calling for a trial and a conviction to 
     reinforce the principle that the U.S. will not tolerate 
     terrorism on its soil. The Letelier case represents the 
     effort to demonstrate that no one is above the law, not even 
     a former dictator and self-proclaimed president.

     

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