Nobel Laureate: “Plan Condor Should Never Have Happened”

In Bolivia, a CIA-backed military coup led to the overthrow of leftist President Juan Torres. Following the coup, dictator Hugo Banzer had over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, tortured, raped and executed.

teleSUR | May 28, 2016

Adolfo Perez Esquivel voiced his opposition to celebrations over the conviction of 15 military officials in Argentina. In his view, there is nothing to celebrate.

Perez Esquivel, recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize, said Friday that Plan Condor was a conspiracy to kill leftist movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In his view, there is no reason to celebrate the conviction of those who participated in Plan Condor in Argentina. An Argentine court found 15 military officials guilty Friday.

“Plan Condor should never have happened,” the Argentine Nobel laureate and human rights defender wrote on the social network Twitter.

Photographs of the disappeared in Argentina. Photo:Colección AGRA, Archivo Memoria Activa

After the sentencing of several of the military officials, Chilean journalist and diplomat Odette Magnet said “justice was achieved, but we need the truth,” referring to her sister Maria Cecilia Magnet who was disappeared during the dictatorship in the country.

The journalist explained that for 40 years she has played an active role in seeking the truth about repression during the military dictatorships in Latin America.

“I want to know where they are, where (the death squads) threw them, where all the victims of this macabre plan are,” Magnet said. Officials from the dictatorships across Latin America would often throw victims out of helicopters and airplanes into the ocean.

“Nobody knows what really happened to our people, we have no information because the murderers do not speak, they will not talk and that is very frustrating because we have the facts,” Magnet concluded.

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