Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional

Logo of the DINA

The Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional ( DINA , Head of the National Secret Service ) was the Chilean secret police from November 1973 to 1977 , which was set up by the dictator Augusto Pinochet .

organization

The DINA was the head of the Chilean secret service of the army , General Manuel Contreras headed. In June 1974 DINA received its own administration. It was only with this secret service that the dictatorship of Pinochet was made possible. After 1977 the DINA was renamed Central Nacional de Información (CNI) ( Central National Information ). The members of the DINA and the CNI were trained by the then US facilities of the US School of the Americas .

Activities abroad

In 1976 the deaths of 119 left-wing opposition activists became known. In 1975, the DINA had these opposition members disappeared on behalf of Pinochet , which was carried out as part of Operation Colombo . In 1974 the DINA, in cooperation with the agent Michael Townley, had the Chilean general Carlos Prats murdered in Buenos Aires . The same agent was involved in the assassination of the former Chilean Foreign and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier in the USA in 1976 on behalf of DINA .

In Europe, the member of the Organization de l'armée secrète (OAS), Albert Spaggiari , as well as the Italian neo-fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie (alias ALFA) worked for the DINA, as emerged from files released by the CIA in 2000 . In a letter dated 1979 and released in 2000, Townley reported that Contreras and Pinochet met with Italians in Spain after Franco's death in Spain. It became known that the Italians carried out numerous espionage activities in Europe and South America against the Peruvians and Argentines.

Townley worked in 1970 in the Lo Curro district of Santiago de Chile with Eugenio Berríos on the production of the nerve gas sarin . Berrios, who was murdered in 1995, was also involved in the transport of drugs, but at the same time was in contact with the US drug enforcement administration (DEA) and its agents.

Colonia Dignidad prison camp

According to investigations by Amnesty International and information from the Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, it appears that the Colonia Dignidad settlement served as a prison camp for the DINA. Contreras' son reported that his father and Pinochet visited the camp in 1974. His father and the head of the camp, Paul Schäfer , like his son Contreras, were friends.

In March 2005, Townley confirmed DINA's relationship with Colonia Dignidad . Townley also confirmed biological warfare experiments that took place on Via Naranja de lo Curro street. According to a statement by Townley, the former Christian Democratic President Eduardo Frei Montalva was murdered with a biological poison that was produced in the Colonia Dignidad .

Planned action against Great Britain

An undated letter from Townley to Pinochet also shows that the ex-Cuban Virgilio Paz Romero took photos of British prison camps in Northern Ireland for DINA in 1975. These recordings should enable the Chilean government to prosecute the UK for human rights violations at the UN . These photos did not arrive in time to serve their purpose and were then published in El Mercurio magazine.

Aftermath 2007

In January 2007 a Chilean court found that DINA was an illegal association . Proceedings have been opened against eight DINA suspects aimed at clarifying the murder of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert. Prats was the predecessor of Pinochet as Supreme Commander of the Chilean Armed Forces.

An Argentine judge had previously tried in vain to extradite Pinochet to Argentina, as Pinochet was believed to be responsible for the attack. In this context, the Chilean agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel was sentenced to life imprisonment in Argentina as a participant in the attack. DINA's agent in Chile, Marianna Calleja , is accused of having carried out the attack.

Web links

History of the organization of DINA

Individual evidence

^ CIA documents, published by the National Security Archives , 2.1 2.5 2.6 (see 2.6 the work of Spaggiari and Delle Chiaie for the DINA)
^ Meeting of Pinochet, Spain in November 1975 with General Contreras, where they met with h "ALFA" , in: document approved in 2000 by the CIA, published by the National Security Archive
↑ Maxine Lowy and Joanna Klonsky: From Perpetrator to Victim: The Case of Eugenio Berrios Sagredo. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on November 24, 2014 .
↑ El coronel que le pena al ejército ( Memento of March 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), La Nación , September 24, 2005 (Spanish)
^ Michael Townley fue interrogado por muerte de Frei Montalva. Radio Cooperativa , March 30, 2005, archived from the original on April 4, 2006 ; Retrieved November 24, 2014 (Spanish).
↑ Virgilio Paz Activities in Northern Ireland in 1975 , National Security Archive
↑ Pinochet's secret police "illegal association", article in the FAZ from January 27, 2007

[1] CIA documents, published by the National Security Archives , 2.1 2.5 2.6 (see 2.6 the work of Spaggiari and Delle Chiaie for the DINA)

[2] Meeting of Pinochet, Spain in November 1975 with General Contreras, where they met with h "ALFA" , in: document approved in 2000 by the CIA, published by the National Security Archive

[3] Maxine Lowy and Joanna Klonsky: From Perpetrator to Victim: The Case of Eugenio Berrios Sagredo. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on November 24, 2014 .

[4] El coronel que le pena al ejército ( Memento of March 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), La Nación , September 24, 2005 (Spanish)

[5] Michael Townley fue interrogado por muerte de Frei Montalva. Radio Cooperativa , March 30, 2005, archived from the original on April 4, 2006 ; Retrieved November 24, 2014 (Spanish).

[6] Virgilio Paz Activities in Northern Ireland in 1975 , National Security Archive

[7] Pinochet's secret police "illegal association", article in the FAZ from January 27, 2007