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German government cagey on spy cooperation in Pinochet’s Chile

  • January 03, 2019

The German government has offered only cagey responses to questions about cooperation between the German secret service, the BND, and military dictatorships in Chile and Greece in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

The socialist Left party’s Jan Korte submitted 68 questions to the German Foreign Ministry late last year, and the incomplete answers he got irritated the Bundestag member so much that he filed an official complaint about the noncooperation of the government. “These answers are an unparalleled insult,” he told DW. “And, by the way, that is no way to treat the parliament.”

The Foreign Ministry did admit that the administration of Chancellor Willy Brandt knew in advance about the imminent putsch being planned by Chilean military leaders under General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973, but offered few details on exactly how.

Otherwise, the government largely refused to answer any key questions about the cooperation between the CIA (which actively supported Pinochet’s coup) and the BND, citing “the good of the state” as the main reason. “The release of information related to the cooperation with foreign security forces would breach the strict and unlimited confidentiality that forms the basis of all intelligence cooperation,” according to the government.

The questions that remained unanswered include: When and in what way was the BND active in Chile? Did the CIA inform the BND about the putsch, which the US had supported both financially and actively through its intelligence agency? Was the BND involved in any way with the CIA operations in Chile? What was the central element of German foreign policy in Chile, if not human rights? 

“We can assume that there was close cooperation [between the BND and the CIA], and that it was legitimized by anti-communism,” Korte said. The German government also refused to say whether any Chilean military personnel had been trained in West Germany in the years between 1965 and 1995.

Franz Josef Strauss (left) met General Pinochet in 1977

Read more: 20 secret police convicted for Pinochet-era crimes

A transparent secret service?

Korte was particularly exercised by the fact the responses came from a ministry run by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has otherwise made a point of its concern for reevaluating German history. “It just shows that there is no awareness of the problem,” he said. “There is apparently no consciousness of history in [Foreign Minister] Heiko Maas.”

He also questioned the government’s excuses for not providing information: how events that happened decades ago could effect the BND’s current operations, or why the German government would want to respect its confidentiality agreements with a regime that maintained torture camps. He also formally complained to the government about the perceived lack of cooperation.

Korte got similar answers to his questions on the BND’s collaboration with the military junta that governed Greece between 1967 and 1974. The BND had maintained close contact with its Greek counterpart, the KYP, before and after the coup that brought the far-right regime to power, but could offer Korte no details from the BND’s own reports from the country.

The government is not obliged to release intelligence documents that are younger than 60 years old, but Korte and other critics pointed out that its reticence does not chime with the BND’s transparency initiatives.

Last October, the agency released a book produced by an independent panel of historians who had researched its archives from 1945 to 1968, supplying €2.4 million ($2.75 million) to support the project. Korte praised this report, commenting that it showed that critical historical reappraisal, even when funded by the government agencies being reappraised, was possible after all.

‘Life is pleasant if its sunny at the stadium’ – German politician’s comment on Chile’s national stadium became notorious

Read more: Greeks recall 1973 student defiance of junta

The lucrative dictatorship

The Foreign Ministry did offer some insight into German relations with Chile. The answers to Korte’s questions revealed that trade with Chile saw a major boost in the year after Pinochet took over, with exports rising by over 40 percent in 1974, and imports by 65 percent.

In fact, German newspaper reports from the time revealed that conservative politicians, along with sections of the media, initially celebrated Pinochet’s takeover and the economic benefits it promised.

Franz-Josef Strauss, government minister several times and leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) for over 25 years, told the Bayernkurier in 1973 that “the word ‘order’ once again has a sweet sound for Chileans.”

Meanwhile Bruno Heck, then general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), traveled to Pinochet’s Chile in 1973 as a show of solidarity. When asked about reports that the national stadium in Santiago had been turned into a detention camp where dissidents were being tortured, Heck infamously told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on his return, “life in the stadium is rather pleasant in sunny weather.”

For Korte, the government’s reticent responses to his questions raised bigger issues about what he called “blind-spots” in West Germany’s post-war history: “For example the government’s cooperation with the apartheid regime in South Africa, and others like Pinochet and the Greek military dictatorship,” he said. “And I think it’s time that this history is worked through and the government took a stance on it.”

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    Chile’s September 11

    September 11, 1973, changed the lives of many Chileans forever. General Augusto Pinochet, commander in chief of the Chilean army, overthrew the incumbent socialist president, Salvador Allende. The military bombarded the presidential palace “La Moneda” in the capital Santiago, arrested government supporters, leftists and Pinochet opponents.

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    Salvador Allende, a people’s president

    The socialist president had only been in office for three years before the coup. After having nationalized companies and dispossessed great land owners, his government faced massive opposition. The US didn’t approve of the socialist leader in South America either. With the help of the CIA, Washington boycotted Allende’s economic policies and incited Chile’s media against the government.

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    The president’s death

    President Allende committed suicide on the day of the coup, stating in his farewell speech that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out. The photo above shows soldiers and firefighters carrying his body from the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the Estadio Nacional stadium was used as a concentration camp: 40,000 people were detained there, thousands tortured and killed.

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    A stadium as a concentration camp

    Walter Ramirez, cameraman for DW’s “After the Escape” feature, was also arrested. A student at the time, he was walking with a friend when soldiers arrested the two of them on September 11, 1973. His friend not only had long hair, he also had Argentinian pesos on him, which he needed to travel to his wife and son in Argentine. For days, the alleged “traitors” were kept in the national stadium.

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    Shots in the changing room

    Walter Ramirez and his friend were locked into a changing room with nearly 100 other men. They all needed to share two bathrooms, while bored soldiers shot at the windows. After several days, Walter and his friend were released. To this day, he doesn’t know why. Could it be because his father worked for a US company? The topic is taboo in his family.

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    General turned dictator: Augusto Pinochet

    The head behind the coup was General Augusto Pinochet, supreme commander of the armed forces. He governed Chile from 1973 until 1990 in a dictatorial style. Political parties and leftist trade unions were forbidden. Freedom of opinion ceased to exist. Despite all this, the Pinochet regime continued to be supported by the US, as well as some politicians in Germany.

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    Antonio Skarmeta: exile in Berlin

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    Counted days for Pinochet

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    The dictatorship’s legacy in a divided society

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    Author: Susanne Spröer (ad)


Article source: http://www.dw.com/en/german-government-cagey-on-spy-cooperation-in-pinochet-s-chile/a-46949463?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom

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