Operation Charly
Operation Charly ( Spanish : Operación Charly ) was an intelligence operation of the Argentine Army , the US Army and the CIA in cooperation with various armed forces of Central American states in the so-called dirty war from 1977 to approx. 1985. The so-called French doctrine , the had already been used in the Algerian War , transferred from Argentina to Central America ( Guatemalan Civil War , Salvadoran Civil War , Contra War ).
The "Argentine" method
Argentine military and intelligence support for Central American governments began with the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1977–1979, when the Argentine military dictatorship sent military specialists to Nicaragua to support the government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle .
Five months after Somoza Debayle was overthrown, the Argentine junta leader General Roberto Eduardo Viola offered to coordinate Latin American armed forces against left-wing insurgents in November 1979 in Bogotá , Colombia, shortly before the 13th meeting of the American armies . In the context of the so-called Viola Plan, Argentina extended its counterinsurgency support to Guatemala , El Salvador and Honduras .
In December 1981, the new Argentine junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri presented a revised coordination concept in Miami . The aim was to create a joint Latin American military force under Argentine leadership in the fight against global communism . The US Army should also be involved in this. The plan included a landing in El Salvador, the expulsion of the insurgents there to Honduras and their destruction there, as well as an incursion into Nicaragua in order to overthrow the ruling Sandinista junta .
The personnel designated for this came from Operation Condor . According to US journalist Martha Honey , the goal was to export so-called "social control techniques". These counterinsurgency methods included the systematic use of torture , the use of death squads, and the technique of enforced disappearances .
According to research by the French journalist Marie Monique Robin, these methods were imparted to the Argentine military by French military instructors and US partners based on their experience in the Battle of Algiers and the Algerian War in general . According to Noam Chomsky , secret Argentine military training centers were established in Panama , Costa Rica , El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua from 1979 .
Nicaragua
As early as 1977, the Argentine military in Managua had promised unlimited support against the "Frente Sandinista" at a conference of the American armies Somoza Debayle and the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua (GN), whereupon members of the GN were sent to the Argentine police and military academies for training. In addition, advisors and weapons were sent to Nicaragua. Allegedly, the “Argentine Method” was also used in Nicaragua. After US military aid to the Somoza Debayle government was discontinued, Argentina became the Nicaraguan President's most important arms supplier, alongside Israel , Brazil and the Republic of South Africa .
As part of this support, members of the Argentine 601st Reconnaissance Battalion and the SIDE ( Secretaria de Inteligencia de Estado = State News Secretariat ) also operated in Nicaragua in cooperation with the Nicaraguan OSN ( Oficina de Seguridad Nacional = Office for National Security). The background was, among other things, the fact that Argentines from various left groups such as the Montoneros fought on the Sandinista side .
After Somoza Debayle was overthrown, the Argentine trainers were involved in building up the Nicaraguan Contras in Guatemala and Honduras. Members of the Batallón de Inteligencia 601 trained contra units in Lepaterique on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border in cooperation with Honduran security forces. In consultation with CIA director William J. Casey , the Contras received logistical and financial support via Argentina.
Honduras
A key figure in Operation Charly was the Honduran general Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez Martínez , who had been trained both at the Argentine Colegio Militar de la Nación and at the School of the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone and in 1979 the " Fuerza de Seguridad Publica " (FUSEP ), the State Police under the Ministry of Defense , commanded. Álvarez offered both the CIA and the Argentines Honduras as a base for the fight against the Sandinista junta in Nicaragua.
Argentine support for the Contras suffered a setback after Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War ; In 1984 most of the instructors were withdrawn from Honduras. With Argentine and CIA help, Álvarez built Battalion 316 , an elite counterinsurgency unit. The battalion allegedly killed 184 people in the 1980s, including teachers, politicians and union leaders .
El Salvador
Argentine support for the military in El Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War consisted mainly of arms deliveries and intelligence activities aimed at preventing Sandinista arms from being transported to the Salvadoran guerrillas .
Guatemala
Cooperation between the Argentine military and Guatemalan security forces during the Guatemalan Civil War was particularly intense during the presidency of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García . In October 1981 relations were formalized and 200 Guatemalan officers were sent to Buenos Aires to train in interrogation techniques .
In Guatemala itself, members of the 601st Reconnaissance Battalion worked directly with paramilitary death squads of the Lucas García government. Technological support played an important role in the discovery of conspiratorial housing in Guatemala City . With the help of Israeli computer technology and software , the Argentines were able to analyze the city's water and electricity consumption and identify the clandistine accommodations. As a result, a secret network of the ORPA ( Organización del Pueblo in Armas = Organization of the People in Arms) could be smashed.
Argentine military advisors were also involved in operations by the Guatemalan army in the departments of Huehuetenango and Quiché in 1981 , during which the scorched earth tactic was used in the so-called Operation Ceniza (Spanish: ceniza = ash ) .
See also
literature
- Noam Chomsky : What Uncle Sam Really Wants . 14th edition, Tucson 2003, ISBN 1-878825-01-1 .
- Martha Honey: Hostile acts: US policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s . University Press of Florida, Gainesville 1994, ISBN 0-8130-1249-X .
- Eduardo Luis Duhalde: El estado terrorista argentino . Buenos Aires 2013, ISBN 978-987-684-337-9 .
- Roberto Bardini: Monjes, mercenarios y mercaderes: La red secreta de apoyo a los Contras . Alpa Corral, Mexico City 1988.
- Peter Kornbluh: Nicaragua, the Prize of Intervention. Reagan's wars against the Sandinistas . Washington 1987, ISBN 0-89758-040-0 .
- Gilbert M. Joseph, Daniela Spenser: In from the Cold: Latin America's Encounter with the Cold War . Durham 2008, ISBN 978-0-8223-4102-4 .
- Ariel C. Armony: Argentina, the United States, and the anti-communist crusade in central America, 1977-1984 . Ohio University Center for International Studies, Athens 1997, ISBN 0-89680-196-9 .
- Marie Monique Robin : Escuadrones de la muerte: la escuela francés. Buenos Aires 2005.
Movie and TV
- Escadrons de la mort - l´école française - death squads - how France exported torture and terror (F 2003, directed by Marie-Monique Robin ), broadcast on ARTE , September 8, 2004.