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Latinamerika
It was a mistake. It shows a lack of politeness to kill people when the Pope asks us not to do it.
Guatemalan govemment official on the execution of political prisoners just before the Pope's visit 
...de nya ledarna står på vår sida och vill göra affärer i ordets vidaste bemärkelse
Reginald Seconde, brittisk ambassadör i Chile, efter Pinochets statskupp 1973
Den nuvarande regimen har mycket mer att erbjuda brittiska intressen än den föregående.
Reginald Seconde, brittisk ambassadör i Chile, efter Pinochets statskupp 1973
Specific tasks will be assigned to others, in order to create a 'martyr' for the cause, taking the demonstrators to a confrontation with the authorities, in order to bring about uprisings or shootings, which will cause the death of one or more persons, who would become the martyrs, a situation that should be made use of immediately against the regime, in order to create greater conflicts.
CIA, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare", 1984, a manual designed for the US-backed Contra forces in Nicaragua
[In producing and disseminating this manual, the United States] encouraged the commission ... of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law [including the Geneva Conventions of 1949].
The World Court on the CIA manual "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" from 1984, used by the Contras fighting in Nicaragua
There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region ... U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua ... In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter ... Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems.
The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations (the Kerry Committee), 1989
It is clear that the flow of US military aid is encouraging the Colombian government to bolster the mechanisms of impunity to protect the perpetrators of human rights violations. ...
The security forces has pursued a counter-insurgency strategy characterized by the systematic and widespread violation of human rights. Civilians in conflict zones accused of being guerrilla sympathizers or collaborators have subsequently been the victim of extrajudicial executions, "disappearance" and other serious human rights violations at the hands of the security forces and their paramilitary allies.
Amnesty International, 11 October 2001
[Nicaragua under the Sandinistas was] exceptional in the strength of that government's commitment ... to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process.
Oxfam, an international development organization, comparing their experiences from working in 76 different developing countries
I beseech you, I beg you, I order you, in the name of God - stop the repression.
Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Romero, the day before his execution by U.S.-sponsored death squads
He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but at least he's our son-of-a-bitch.
President Franklin Roosevelt -- justifying support for Nicaragua's dictator Anastasio Somoza
We enjoy the economic stability that the Armed Forces guarantee us. This [economic] plan can be fulfilled dispite its lack of popular support.
Martinez de Hoz, financial minister of the Argentine military government, 1976
Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.
New York Times, April 13, 2002, elements of the Venezuelan military forced president Hugo Chavez from office
Human Rights Watch also calls on the United States to immediately suspend all military aid, arms sales, and military training to Colombia since it is clear that aid has supplied units implicated in gross human rights violations.
Human Rights Watch 1996
The troops came and told the peasants the land was theirs now. They could elect their own leaders and run it themselves. The peasants couldn't believe their ears, but they held elections that very night. The next morning the troops came back and I watched as they shot every one of the elected leaders.
Testimony by an ISTA technician overseeing U.S.-sponsored "agrarian reform" in El Salvador 1980
We do not have a policy of scorched earth. We have a policy of scorched Communists.
Guatemalan General Ephrain Rios Montt, on the success of the "beans and bullets" counterinsurgency program
Part of his training by eight American Green Berets consisted of "teaching how to torture". He witnessed a boy of about fifteen, suspected of supporting the guerrillas, being subjected to a demonstration torture by the Green Berets They tore out the youth's fingernails, broke his elbows, gouged out his eyes, and then burned him alive. The author reports that the torture sessions continued into the next day and included a thirteen year-old girl. Another victim had various parts of his body burned and was then taken up in a helicopter while still alive and thrown out at 14,000 feet. The defector noted that "often the army goes and throws people out over the sea."
The Other Side magazine, describing the story of a young Salvadoran who deserted the army in 1982
In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here... We wish your government well.
Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State, to Augusto Pinochet, dictator of Chile
What we are really seeing is a ratcheting up of a counterinsurgency policy masquerading as a counter-drug policy.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), in 1999, about the US military support to the Colombian regime
Well, there is just not one iota of truth in this. It's just not so in any way, shape or form.
Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, in 1964, about US involvement in the overthrow of the government of Brazil
Far from being punished, the junior and mid-level officers who tolerated, planned, directed, and even took part in paramilitary violence in Colombia in the 1980s have been promoted and rewarded and now occupy the highest positions in the Colombian army.
Human Rights Watch 1996
We instituted civil affairs [in 1982] which provides development for 70 percent of the population, while we kill 30 percent. Before, the strategy was to kill 100 percent.
Guatemalan Defense Minister Hector Gramajo Morales, on "a more humanitarian" means used to deal with perceived dissenters
Here at the ministry we have other, more urgent, situations to deal with.
Jorge Luna of the Peruvian Labor Ministry after hearing that gold miners in the jungle were enslaving thousands of children
[The Mexican government] will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy ... [and] will need to consider carefully whether or not allow opposition victories if fairly won at the ballot box.
Riordan Roett, a consultant working for Chase Manhattan Bank, in a memorandum from 1995
It is time to clear the smokescreen of official denial and identify the military-paramilitary partnership for what it is: a sophisticated mechanism, in part supported by years of advice, training, weaponry, and official silence by the United States, that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it.
Human Rights Watch 1996
...Arbenz [har], i överensstämmelse med de kommunistiska parollerna, igångsatt en radikal jordreform, som bl a berövat United Fruit Co deras vidsträckta domäner, som kostat så mycket i investeringar och skötts med mönstergill omsorg.
Svenska Dagbladets ledare i juni 1954, om orsaken till den CIA-stödda statskuppen mot Guatemalas folkvalde president Jacobo Arbenz
Ända sedan den kubanska revolutionens första dagar har den varit en inspirationskälla för alla frihetsälskande folk.
Nelson Mandela
U.S.-supplied military equipment, ostensibly delivered for use against narcotics traffickers, was being used by the colombian military to commit these abuses in the name of 'counter insurgency'.
Amnesty International, 1994, estimating that more than 20,000 people had been killed in Colombia since 1986, mainly by the military and its paramilitary allies
En terrorist är inte någon som bara bär på ett skjutvapen eller en bomb, utan också någon som sprider idéer som står emot den västerländska och kristna civilisationen.
General Jorge Videla, en av ledarna i Argentinas militärdiktatur (1976–1983)
...smärtsamma omvandlingar genomförs naturligtvis effektivare av ett auktoritärt styre. ...andra latinamerikanska länder har haft mycket stora svårigheter att genomdriva förändringar.
Mauricio Rojas 1991, om militärjuntan i Chile
Latinamerika lider av en nyliberal överdos. Globaliseringen är en väg till helvetet.
Hugo Chávez, Venezuelas president
The income generated by working children in Guatemala is more than the total budget of the Ministry of Education.
Guillermo Monroy, Guatemalan Archbishop's office on Human Rights, 1998
Naturligtvis är det på sitt sätt beklämmande att ännu en hård militärdiktatur upprättats i Latinamerika. Det är emellertid svårt att se att någon annan än militären åtminstone under en övergångstid skulle kunna skapa förutsättningar för en återgång till mera normala förhållanden.
SvD:s ledare den 25 mars 1975 om den statskupp i Argentina som tillsatte Jorge Videlas miliärjunta
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people.
Henry Kissinger about the chilean election of Salvador Allende in 1970
President Rios Montt [is] a man of great personal integrity and commitment who wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans, and [is] getting a bum rap on human rights.
Ronald Reagan, praising Guatemala's military dictator in 1982
I'm very much aware that it's you who brought democracy to Chile.
Margaret Thatcher to Augusto Pinochet
All under the protective umbrella of the United States Government.
Celerino Castillo, former DEA officer, on how Contra planes loaded with cocaine could land with impunity in the United States, and then returned laden with cash to finance the war
Shock Troops. These men should be equipped with weapons knives, razors, chains, clubs, bludgeons) and should march slightly behind the innocent and gullible participants.
CIA, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare", 1984, a manual designed for the US-backed Contra forces in Nicaragua
What we did yesterday, and the day before, this is called war. This is what war is. War is hell. And, God damn it, if I order you to kill your mother, that is just what you're going to do.
Captain Salazar of the U.S.-sponsored Atlacatl Battalion to his troops after the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador
You are guerrillas and this is justice.
Soldiers of the U.S.-sponsored Atlacatl Battalion to peasants being massacred in El Salvador in december 1981
We found that the State Department chose four companies controlled by drug traffickers to provide assistance to the Contras. As a result, drug traffickers got funds out of the U.S. Treasury as part of our contra humanitarian assistance to them.
Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations
[Manuel Noriega] was providing valuable support for our policies in Central America, especially Nicaragua
William Casey, CIA director, on why he didn't denounce Noriega for his relationship with drug traffickers
I will observe the constitution whenever it does not contradict military decrees.
Colonel Hugo Banzer, U.S.-sponsored President of Bolivia, 1971-1978
Why should we be worried about the death squads? They're bumping off the commies, our enemies. I'd give them more power. Hell, l'd get some cartridges if I could, and everyone else would too ... Why should we criticize them? The death squad - I'm for it ... Shit! There's no question we can't wait until Reagan gets in. We hope Carter falls in the ocean real quick ... We all feel that he [Reagan] is our savior.
Testimony of Fred Sherwood, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala, September 1980
If the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) will deliver democracy, why do concerned citizens not currently have access to the FTAA text?
Martin Olszynksi
The guidance that was sent from the U.S. was that what had to be done with the captured guerrillas was to get information, and that afterwards they didn't deserve to live.
Eladio Moll, retired Uruguayan Navy rear admiral and former intelligence chief, testifying in 1998 on US involvement in Uruguay's "dirty war", 1972-1983
American diplomats exercise more control over domestic politics in Honduras than in any other country in the hemisphere, and in private that fact is universally acknowledged here.
New York Times, 1988
A melding in the American public's mind and in Congress of this connection would lead to the necessary support to counter the guerrilla/narcotics terrorists in this hemisphere ... Congress would find it difficult to stand in the way of supporting our allies with the training, advice and security assistance necessary to do the job. Those church and academic groups that have slavishly supported insurgency in Latin America would find themselves on the wrong side of the moral issue. Above all, we would have the unassailable moral position from which to launch a concerted effort using Department of Defense (DOD) and non-DOD assets.
Col. John Waghelstein, Special Forces commander, in 1987 about the importance of linking Latin American guerrillas to narcotics trade
When history is written, the Contras will be folk heroes.
Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State under President Reagan
It is possible to neutralize carefully selected and planned targets, such as court judges, mesta judges [justices of the peace], police and State Security officials, CDS [Sandinista Defense Committees] chiefs, etc.
CIA, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare", 1984, a manual designed for the US-backed Contra forces in Nicaragua
People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador - they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch.
Daniel Santiago, Catholic priest
The only way to stop fuelling the human rights crisis in Colombia is to stop pouring military aid into the country. ...
It is inexcusable to continue sending military aid while the Colombian government has not only failed to fully implement reiterated UN recommendations to confront the human rights crisis - especially in relation to combating and dismantling paramilitary groups - but has passed legislation which threatens to worsen the situation. ...
Unconditioned military aid, over which there is little end-use control, sends a clear signal to the Colombian army that it is free to pursue its counter-insurgency strategy - of which paramilitary groups and their "dirty war" tactics are an integral part - thus permitting the continuation of the systematic and widespread violation of human rights.
Amnesty International, 11 October 2001, on the US military aid to Colombia
Det som står på spel i Chile är alldeles för viktigt för att låta de chilenska väljarna bestämma om.
Henry Kissinger
Skolans talesmän skryter med att tio före detta elever senare har blivit statsöverhuvuden i sina hemländer. Vad man inte säger är att ingen av dessa tio var demokratiskt vald.
Roy Bourgeois, grundare av organisationen School of the Americas Watch, om skolan (som nu är omdöpt)
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