Americas Desk, Nov 30 (EFE).- Former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger left a dark legacy in Latin America during his administration for his support of the dictatorships in the Southern Cone, the so-called Plan Cóndor, and the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.
Documents declassified by the US, as well as testimony from Latin American politicians and historians, show that Kissinger played a decisive role in the promotion of dictatorial regimes in the region and in plans against leftist movements that led to human rights violations.
The former president of Uruguay, Julio María Sanguinetti (1985-1990 and 1995-2000), told EFE on Thursday that Kissinger was “a strange case”, a pragmatic chancellor who was also “a great theorist and historian.”
“He left for the United States a policy with lights and shadows, but some of the first were very relevant, such as the withdrawal from Vietnam and the opening of relations with China,” Sanguinetti pointed out.
In 2023, when Kissinger celebrated his centenary, Chileans commemorated the 50th anniversary of the military coup against Salvador Allende, whose government was not in Kissinger’s favor.
In Chile, Kissinger is remembered for the lapidary phrase he said before the socialist Allende became president: “I don’t see why we need to stand idly by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
According to documents declassified in the United States about Richard Nixon’s administration after Allende’s victory in November 1970, Kissinger sent a memorandum in which he made a detailed analysis of the situation in Chile, describing it as “one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere.”
Later, in 1976, Kissinger met with then-dictator Augusto Pinochet in Santiago de Chile, where he thanked him for his “great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”
According to additional declassified files, Kissinger also influenced the so-called “Plan Cóndor,” an operation allegedly coordinated from the US to persecute opponents of the dictatorships of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) in the 1970s and ’80s.
In Argentina, Kissinger is a key figure to understanding the role of the US in the 1976 coup and the military dictatorship that lasted until 1983, according to historian Leandro Morgenfeld, researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) and author of the Argentine chapter in the book “Only the Good Die Young.”
The former US Secretary of State led a policy of “duplicity,” publicly expressing concern about human rights violations while privately supporting state terrorism in Argentina and providing diplomatic and political cover for it within the US State Department.
Declassified documents released by the National Security Archive show that in a June 10, 1976, meeting in Santiago de Chile, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti:
“If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you should get back quickly to normal procedures.”
In the same meeting, the then-US Secretary of State also praised Guzzetti for the Argentine government’s policies at a time when the international community was crying foul over the Argentine military’s indiscriminate human rights violations.
“We are aware that you are going through a difficult time. It is a strange time when political, criminal and terrorist activities tend to merge without a clear separation. We understand that you have to establish authority,” Kissinger told Guzzetti.
In 1978, as criticism of human rights abuses in Argentina mounted, Kissinger attended the World Cup soccer tournament in the South American country.
The American joined dictator Jorge Videla in visiting the players’ locker room after the host team’s scandalously defeated Peru in a World Cup tainted by suspicions that FIFA favored the host country to cover up blatant human rights abuses in a championship in which Argentina won its first title.
For Morgenfeld, Kissinger’s presence with Videla at the World Cup was “a high-profile signal of support” that was “clearly” designed to counter pressure from then-US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Patricia Derian.
On the subject of soccer, Sanguinetti recalled that Kissinger was passionate about the sport and had once told him that soccer was “a very revealing cultural expression” of people’s character.
Kissinger’s administration also coincided with the Mexican governments of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970) and Luis Echeverría (1970-1976), who were accused of using the army and paramilitary groups to repress dissent.
According to documents declassified by the National Security Archives Association and others leaked by WikiLeaks, Kissinger expressed his admiration for Mexico’s one-party system, the then-hegemony of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for some 70 years.
The documents show a close relationship with Echeverría, with whom Kissinger met several times at the Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City.
Regarding Cuba, Kissinger was initially in favor of improving relations between the two countries, but after the so-called Operation Carlota, the Cuban military intervention in Angola’s struggle for independence and the subsequent civil war, the American was implacable, as he was with leftist politicians and groups in the region.
The most famous diplomat of the 20th century, who died Wednesday in Connecticut (USA) at the age of 100, remained active until the end as a political adviser and often expressed his opinion on current affairs such as the war in Ukraine or artificial intelligence. EFE
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