The story resumes after a mass death in Argentina during the 70s.
[What the USG [United States Government] hoped was that the GOA [Government of Argentina] could soon defeat terrorists, yes, but as nearly as possible within the law."]
Even this admonition, which might be seen by some as containing a loophole or two, was considered too harsh by Kissinger. Guzzetti set off for Washington, Hill subsequently minuted, "fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices."
However, having met Guzzetti on his return to Buenos Aires, he concluded: Rather than that, he [Guzzetti] has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the United States over this issue.
The link is here.
Based on what Guzzetti is doubtless reporting to the GOA, it must now believe that if it has any problems with the US over human rights, they are confined to certain elements of Congress and what it regards as biased and/or uninformed minor segments of public opinion ....
While this conviction exists, it will be unrealistic and ineffective for this Embassy to press representations to the GOA over human rights violations. This is even more grave in its implications than may at first appear.
In October 1976 the rate of state-sponsored kidnapping and "disappearance" was relatively slow and could, Ambassador Hill believed, be made slower still. But the declassified documents show Kissinger advising Guzzetti, in effect, to speed up the pace.
He told him that “if the terrorist problem was over by December or January, he [Kissinger] believed that serious problems could be avoided in the United States." These and other reassurances were, according to Hill-and in a phrase that has since become obscenely familiar -“the green light" for intensified repression.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will you have hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Malcolm X
When Kissinger and Guzzetti first met, the number of "disappeared" was estimated at 1,022. By the time that Argentina had become an international byword for torture, for anti-Semitism, for death-squads and for the concept of the desaparecido, a minimum of 15,000 victims had been registered by reliable international and local monitors. In 1978, when the situation was notorious, Kissinger (by then out of office) accepted a personal invitation from the dictator General Videla to be his guest during Argentina's hosting of the soccer World Cup.
The former Secretary of State made use of the occasion to lecture the Carter administration for its excessive tenderness concerning human rights. General Videla, with whom I had a horrifying interview at about this time in the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, has since been imprisoned for life.
One of the more specific charges on which he was convicted was the sale of the children of rape victims held in his secret jails. His patron and protector, meanwhile, is enjoying a patriarchal autumn that may still be disturbed by the memory of what he permitted and indeed encouraged.
East Timor
On more than one occasion Henry Kissinger has absolutely and publicly denied that he had any foreknowledge of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, any interest in the subject, or even any awareness of its importance.
That this is a huge falsehood, or perhaps a series of interlocking falsehoods, has long been apparent from independent evidence. What might be called conclusive or “smoking gun” proof however, only became available in December 2001, when a fresh document became available.
True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.
Saul Alinsky
Declassified by the State Department, and publicized by the National Security Archive, it is the official record of a conversation that took place in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on 6 December 1975.
Present were Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford, and the Indonesian dictator Suharto with a group of his military advisers. Since Kissinger himself had received a cable from Washington two days before, informing him that the Indonesian junta had "plans" to invade East Timor, he cannot have been very much surprised to be told exactly that.
Nor can he have been startled to hear from Suharto that: “We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action." President Ford did not attempt to mask his endorsement in any ambiguity. “We will understand and will not press you on the issue," he said.
"We understand the problem and the intentions you have." Kissinger, more experienced in the spin-problems that could result from unleashing extremist dictatorships, employed language similar to that which he had lavished upon Admiral Guzzetti of Argentina.
"The use of US-made arms could create problems," he mused, adding that "it depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self-defense or a foreign operation." This was an absolute untruth, since Kissinger knew perfectly well that the use of American-supplied (not “American made") weaponry would violate international law and United States law as well.
Brightening somewhat, he assured Suharto that: "We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return .... If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home." As ever, he was willing to act as errand-boy for an unelected foreign dictatorship and to consider only Congress as his enemy.
It was therefore agreed, in an early instance of the now-famous pseudoscience of "deniability," that the aggression be timed to suit the fact that "The President will be back on Monday at 2.00 pm Jakarta time. We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned."
With these words, Kissinger made himself directly complicit in the letter and the spirit of Indonesia's attack. A certain nervousness prompted him to ask Suharto if he anticipated “a long guerrilla war"; proof in itself that he did not believe Suharto's claim of popular support in East Timor.
The dictator was reassuring, predicting that there would "probably be a short guerrilla war," while refusing to be drawn on its actual duration. The announced imperative of speed, as in Argentina above, was a spur to ruthless methods that had in effect been demanded by Washington.
"It is important," said Kissinger coldly, “that whatever you do succeeds quickly."