On 9 and 10 July 2015, the Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), Dr. David Donat-Cattin, attended the public hearings of the 'Operation Condor' Trial in the Aula Bunker of the High Court of Rome's Penal Tribunal in Rebibbia.
Dr. Donat-Cattin represented the political will of the largest transnational network of Parliamentarians committed to protect human rights and support the fight against impunity of those responsible for the most serious crimes, including – but not limited to – the mass-atrocities perpetrated as part of the Operation Condor, one of the most terrible criminal plans perpetrated in the second half of the last century.
In the 1970s, many thousands of opponents, dissenters or perceived opponents to the military regimes, that replaced democratically elected Governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, were eliminated through targeted assassinations, mass-incarceration and the infamous systematic criminal policy of enforced disappearances.
The situation was also characterized by the pervasive use of torture, perpetrated by State armed forces as well as secret intelligence forces such as the triple A in Argentina and Chile. This escalation of violence in “Plan Condor” has been labelled by some writers as Phase III:
Victims of Condor's Phase III, conducted during the mid-1970s, included Chilean Orlando Letelier - foreign minister under President Salvador Allende and a fierce foe of the Pinochet regime - and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt, in Washington D.C., and Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife, in Rome. Condor assassinations in Buenos Aires were carried out against General Carlos Prats, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean army; nationalist ex-president of Bolivia Juan Jose Torres; two Uruguayan legislators known for their opposition to the Uruguayan military regime, Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez Ruiz.” Operation Condor: Deciphering the U.S. Role, By J. Patrice McSherry, Crimes of War, July, 2001
The largest bloodbath took place in Argentina, regarding which scientific sources refer to up to 30,000 victims of the repression between 1976 and 1982 (cf. Christopher Mullins, ‘Conflict Victimization and Post-Conflict Justice 1945-2008’, in “The Pursuit of International Criminal Justice: A World Study on Conflicts, Victimization, and Post-Conflict Justice”, M. Cherif Bassiouni Ed., Vol. I, page 102).
While several trials took place in the relevant territorial States, which were stimulated by a significant jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the right to truth, justice and reparation, some perpetrators are still at-large and have used their dual nationality to avoid extradition to the requesting State.
Several victims, many of whom have also dual nationality and took refuge in Third States (i.e. Italy), have not yet had access to justice.
Against this background, in early 2015 Italian prosecutorial authorities launched a major trial against a group of 32 high-ranking and mid-level militaries who took an active role in the preparation and execution of Plan Condor, including the former military ruler of Bolivia (see www.telesurtv.net/english/
PGA issued a Press Statement on the occasion of the Secretary-General’s trial observation mission, and will continue to monitor the trial, which has a particular relevance for survivors and other victims of crimes against humanity from Uruguay, due to the presence on Italian territory of an accused person who was never been brought to justice before Uruguay Tribunals.
