CIA activities in Argentina
Encyclopedia
CIA activities in Argentina refer to the covert operations in Argentina by the Central Intelligence Agency
of the United States
.
, the Executive Branch, and the Intelligence Community within it, are, at least in principle, subject to the oversight of United States Congress
, and potentially to judicial review
. There are barriers between intelligence and law enforcement
, theoretically impervious in the case of the CIA and National Security Agency
, and carefully controlled with the FBI. Police
are largely decentralized at the state and local level. While there will be differences, especially with a parliamentary system
, most European countries, as well as Australia
, Canada
, and New Zealand
, have a workable set of controls, with continuing improvement.
Argentina, however, historically has not had such controls and the security and intelligence services remain today entirely exempt from this principle. In fact, there is no law regulating the powers or providing for accountability and control over the activities of the intelligence agencies
.
For Argentina, the consolidation
of democracy
is still the main political challenge in the 21st century. And within this overdue task, one of the most problematic issues is the control of the intelligence apparatus. It is problematic not only because of its historical relationship with the military dictatorship
, but also because it is a complicated issue in the most well established democracies..
There still needs to be external control, but a basic internal control mechanism is the separation of the intelligence community into different agencies. Although this might reduce effectiveness, it eliminates the dangers of domination and monopoly by a single agency. The separation must be accompanied by a clear delimitation of responsibilities by each agency, trying not to overlap functions in a single one. A common way to do this is by diving the faculties and jurisdiction into external and internal conflicts.
This type of control is only beginning to evolve in Argentina, where Argentina's intelligence community today must be understood within an historical context that includes a recent experience with state terrorism
, in which the military intelligence
forces were the principal practitioners of state terror. During the years of dictatorship, the main role of the Armed Forces in Argentina shifted form defending the country from external aggressions to defending it from its internal enemies.
With the return to democracy many steps were taken to dismantle the authoritarian legacy and the issue of the power and autonomy of the intelligence agencies came into public debate. The considerable autonomy it had from constitutional controls, either legislative or judicial, began to be questioned and gradually began to be reversed.
As soon as the civilian
government assumed power, the members of the military Juntas were tried and convicted for the atrocities they committed during the years of dictatorship. However, lower ranks were granted immunity after the enactment by Congress of two laws: "Punto Final" (Final Point) and "Obediencia Debida" (Justification Defense). Some other initiatives included the appointment of a civilian as head of the State Intelligence Agency and the functional delimitation of the different components of the intelligence community by the National Defense Law [Law No. 23.554, April 13, 1988] and the Internal Security Law [Law No. 24.059 , December 18, 1991.]
The intelligence agencies, moving forward, were not seen as effective or objective.
The Argentine system is, in some respects, more decentralized, and, in other respects, more decentralized than the US intelligence community. There is no equivalent to the US Director of National Intelligence, but there is a National Intelligence Center (CNI) that has a coordinating rather than management role. CNI, in principle, is responsible for medium and long-term analysis, while the State Intelligence Secretary (SIDE) is responsible for short-term strategic intelligence.
SIDE went through major changes in January 2000. First, the civilian head of the agency, Fernando de Santibañes, fired over 1000 employees. Many of the discharged agents were related to the military dictatorship of the 1970s
, with histories of extortion
, kidnapping
, torture, disappearances and assassination
s. A new set of priorities were established: rather than focus on a threat of internal and external subversion
, the new focus is on "illicit trafficking, corruption, white-collar crime
, terrorism, money laundering
, organized crime
, and the formulation of strategic policies in different areas for the President."
In the Argentine context, "security forces" are intermediate forces between police forces (provincial and federal) and the armed forces. They are coordinated, rather than commanded, by the National Direction of Internal Intelligence, located in the Interior Ministry. Still, they are national organizations, without decentralized police: the Naval Prefecture, National Gendarmerie, Federal Police Force, and Local Police Forces.
See for Argentinian methods used elsewhere in the Americas.
, and banned all political parties
. In addition, it embarked on a campaign of terror against leftist elements in the country. Thousands of leftist opposition supporters were persecuted, illegally imprisoned, tortured and executed without trial. Many of them disappeared and were never again seen by their families. The military dictatorship lasted until 1983, when democratic elections designed Raúl Alfonsín
(UCR) as President of the country.
The 1975-1983 period was the one most vulnerable to excesses, which may have involved foreign forces.
in January 1977.
met Videla in Rome U.S. Ambassador Raul Castro reported that "General Viola received me smiling broadly and immediately volunteered the observation that he believed the Rome meeting had gone very well... Viola clearly indicated he had received some positive signals from the USG [U.S. government] referring to the release of FMS [Foreign Military Sales] purchases.""
asked him to help clarify the fate of two recent disappeared Montonero insurgents, Mendizabal and Croatto. Viola responded without hesitation, "Mendizabal and Croatto were terrorists ... who were eliminated ... with my authorization."
Ronald Reagan
. In February 1981, the Administration ordered representatives to "international financial institutions to stop opposing loans on human rights
grounds to Argentina and other Southern Cone
countries. It began a long certification battle in Congress to resume military sales, loans, and training programs to Argentina, arguing that human rights conditions had dramatically improved. It was true that "disappearances" had declined, but more than a thousand political prisoner
s were still being held without charges, and temporary "disappearances," arbitrary arrests, and torture
continued."
and stated in its report that "The General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez, head of the Hondurian military staff, has publicly defended the use of the Argentine method to confront the subversive threat in Latin America. As a matter of fact, Alvarez is responsible of having brought to Honduras the first Argentine military instructors, when he was commandant of the Fuerza de Seguridad Pública (Fusep [Public Security Force]).
and thus subject to the jurisdiction of any country, even though the acts had not taken place in that country, and the parties were not citizens of that country.
Further, a commander could be held liable for tortures performed by subordinates, as in the doctrine of command responsibility
. "The defendant in all but one of the cases was Gen. Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason
, whose clandestine
presence in the U.S after fleeing prosecution in Argentina triggered lawsuits from several of his victims. As commander of the First Army Corps, Suárez Mason participated in the preparation of the 1976 coup, oversaw the operations of task forces, and was ultimately responsible for secret detention camps in the densely populated region comprising Buenos Aires
and its suburb
s, La Plata
, Mar del Plata, and smaller cities."
Martínez Baca v. Suárez Mason (1988) used the Filartiga precedent
. While this was not an explicit human rights case, it added to the body of law of jurisdiction over extraterritorial events.
Ouiros de Rapaport v. Suárez Mason, (1989), followed in the steps of Filartiga.
", a National Security Council
staff member who often acted independently of the CIA, although he arranged orders to be given to the agency, was :reported to have arranged a false visa for Suárez to enter the United States. North had reportedly been discussing with him the possible establishment of a Pan-American counterinsurgency force, a proposal that emerged out of ongoing cooperation between the CIA and the Argentine military, in which Suárez Mason was an important actor.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Argentinian intelligence
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Executive Branch, and the Intelligence Community within it, are, at least in principle, subject to the oversight of United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, and potentially to judicial review
Judicial review
Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...
. There are barriers between intelligence and law enforcement
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
, theoretically impervious in the case of the CIA and National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
, and carefully controlled with the FBI. Police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
are largely decentralized at the state and local level. While there will be differences, especially with a parliamentary system
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
, most European countries, as well as Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, have a workable set of controls, with continuing improvement.
Argentina, however, historically has not had such controls and the security and intelligence services remain today entirely exempt from this principle. In fact, there is no law regulating the powers or providing for accountability and control over the activities of the intelligence agencies
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
.
For Argentina, the consolidation
Democratic consolidation
Democratic consolidation is the process by which a new democracy matures, in a way that means it is unlikely to revert to authoritarianism without an external shock...
of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
is still the main political challenge in the 21st century. And within this overdue task, one of the most problematic issues is the control of the intelligence apparatus. It is problematic not only because of its historical relationship with the military dictatorship
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
, but also because it is a complicated issue in the most well established democracies..
There still needs to be external control, but a basic internal control mechanism is the separation of the intelligence community into different agencies. Although this might reduce effectiveness, it eliminates the dangers of domination and monopoly by a single agency. The separation must be accompanied by a clear delimitation of responsibilities by each agency, trying not to overlap functions in a single one. A common way to do this is by diving the faculties and jurisdiction into external and internal conflicts.
This type of control is only beginning to evolve in Argentina, where Argentina's intelligence community today must be understood within an historical context that includes a recent experience with state terrorism
State terrorism
State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...
, in which the military intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
forces were the principal practitioners of state terror. During the years of dictatorship, the main role of the Armed Forces in Argentina shifted form defending the country from external aggressions to defending it from its internal enemies.
With the return to democracy many steps were taken to dismantle the authoritarian legacy and the issue of the power and autonomy of the intelligence agencies came into public debate. The considerable autonomy it had from constitutional controls, either legislative or judicial, began to be questioned and gradually began to be reversed.
As soon as the civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
government assumed power, the members of the military Juntas were tried and convicted for the atrocities they committed during the years of dictatorship. However, lower ranks were granted immunity after the enactment by Congress of two laws: "Punto Final" (Final Point) and "Obediencia Debida" (Justification Defense). Some other initiatives included the appointment of a civilian as head of the State Intelligence Agency and the functional delimitation of the different components of the intelligence community by the National Defense Law [Law No. 23.554, April 13, 1988] and the Internal Security Law [Law No. 24.059 , December 18, 1991.]
The intelligence agencies, moving forward, were not seen as effective or objective.
During the 1990s1990sFile:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
Argentina experienced two of the biggest terrorist attacks in its history: the AMIA (Israeli Association) and the Israeli Embassy bombings, that left a total of more than one hundred people dead. Till today, the authors of the bombings are still unknown. The inefficiency of the intelligence services is seen as the principal reason of this institutional failure. In August 2000, the head of the State Intelligence Agency, Fernando de SantibañesFernando de SantibañesFernando de Santibañes is an Argentine politician and banker. He was the Secretary of Intelligence of the Argentine Republic from 1999 to October 23, 2000, during half of Fernando de la Rúa's presidency. De Santibañes resigned the position in 2000 after the media discovered the Secretariat's...
, was accused of paying bribes to opposition senators in Congress in order to enact a labor law. The scandal created an institutional crisis within Argentina. The head of the agency and several senators resigned in the last month. Additionally, the vice president Carlos AlvarezCarlos Álvarez (vice-president)Carlos Alberto "Chacho" Álvarez is an Argentine politician; he was Vice-President of Argentina during part of President Fernando de la Rúa's mandate, and currently heads the Aladi Secretariat....
also resigned as an act of protest because he believed that the Executive Branch was not actively condemning the episode. A Federal Judge is still investigating the case
The Argentine system is, in some respects, more decentralized, and, in other respects, more decentralized than the US intelligence community. There is no equivalent to the US Director of National Intelligence, but there is a National Intelligence Center (CNI) that has a coordinating rather than management role. CNI, in principle, is responsible for medium and long-term analysis, while the State Intelligence Secretary (SIDE) is responsible for short-term strategic intelligence.
SIDE went through major changes in January 2000. First, the civilian head of the agency, Fernando de Santibañes, fired over 1000 employees. Many of the discharged agents were related to the military dictatorship of the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
, with histories of extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...
, kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
, torture, disappearances and assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s. A new set of priorities were established: rather than focus on a threat of internal and external subversion
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
, the new focus is on "illicit trafficking, corruption, white-collar crime
White-collar crime
Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" . Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was...
, terrorism, money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
, organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
, and the formulation of strategic policies in different areas for the President."
In the Argentine context, "security forces" are intermediate forces between police forces (provincial and federal) and the armed forces. They are coordinated, rather than commanded, by the National Direction of Internal Intelligence, located in the Interior Ministry. Still, they are national organizations, without decentralized police: the Naval Prefecture, National Gendarmerie, Federal Police Force, and Local Police Forces.
See for Argentinian methods used elsewhere in the Americas.
Argentina 1965
CIA trains police and military of Argentina.Argentina 1975
A military junta took control, and suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, imposed strict censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, and banned all political parties
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
. In addition, it embarked on a campaign of terror against leftist elements in the country. Thousands of leftist opposition supporters were persecuted, illegally imprisoned, tortured and executed without trial. Many of them disappeared and were never again seen by their families. The military dictatorship lasted until 1983, when democratic elections designed Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically-elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization...
(UCR) as President of the country.
The 1975-1983 period was the one most vulnerable to excesses, which may have involved foreign forces.
Argentina 1976
Human Rights Watch observed,Until the 1976 coup, and for months afterwards, the United States relied to a large extent on the armed forces as its main interlocutors in Argentina's turbulent politics. Unlike in ChileChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and UruguayUruguayUruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, where the U.S had backed reformist parties (at least until the emergence of a serious left-wing challenge in the early 1970s), it was consistently hostile to the most popular political movement in Argentina, PeronismPeronismPeronism , or Justicialism , is an Argentine political movement based on the programmes associated with former President Juan Perón and his second wife, Eva Perón...
. In the face of Peron'sJuan PerónJuan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
populist rhetoric, economic nationalism, and fascist sympathies, the military seemed to provide a moderate alternative, favorable to American investment, and just as staunchly anti-communist.
Argentina 1977
The U.S. did not explicitly denounce the systematic nature of the abuses until the beginning of the Carter AdministrationJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
in January 1977.
Argentina 1978
"In September 1978, after Vice-President Walter MondaleWalter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
met Videla in Rome U.S. Ambassador Raul Castro reported that "General Viola received me smiling broadly and immediately volunteered the observation that he believed the Rome meeting had gone very well... Viola clearly indicated he had received some positive signals from the USG [U.S. government] referring to the release of FMS [Foreign Military Sales] purchases.""
Argentina 1979
"A 1979 telegram reveals how U.S. policy placed U.S. officials in a moral and political predicament while dealing with those responsible for human rights atrocities. At a meeting with General Viola, then-U.S. Ambassador Raul CastroRaúl Castro
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who has been President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba since 2008; he previously exercised presidential powers in an acting capacity from 2006 to 2008...
asked him to help clarify the fate of two recent disappeared Montonero insurgents, Mendizabal and Croatto. Viola responded without hesitation, "Mendizabal and Croatto were terrorists ... who were eliminated ... with my authorization."
Argentina 1981
HRW said that the climate for human rights changed radically with the election of PresidentPresident
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. In February 1981, the Administration ordered representatives to "international financial institutions to stop opposing loans on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
grounds to Argentina and other Southern Cone
Southern Cone
Southern Cone is a geographic region composed of the southernmost areas of South America, south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Although geographically this includes part of Southern and Southeast of Brazil, in terms of political geography the Southern cone has traditionally comprised Argentina,...
countries. It began a long certification battle in Congress to resume military sales, loans, and training programs to Argentina, arguing that human rights conditions had dramatically improved. It was true that "disappearances" had declined, but more than a thousand political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s were still being held without charges, and temporary "disappearances," arbitrary arrests, and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
continued."
Argentina 1983
In June 1983, the NGO Americas Watch visited HondurasHonduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and stated in its report that "The General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez, head of the Hondurian military staff, has publicly defended the use of the Argentine method to confront the subversive threat in Latin America. As a matter of fact, Alvarez is responsible of having brought to Honduras the first Argentine military instructors, when he was commandant of the Fuerza de Seguridad Pública (Fusep [Public Security Force]).
Argentina 1987
In the landmark case of Forti v. Suárez Mason (1987), the Court held that torturers were hostis humani generisHostis humani generis
Hostis humani generis is a legal term of art that originates from admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law, maritime pirates and slavers were held to be beyond legal protection, and could be dealt with as seen fit by any nation, even if that nation had not been directly...
and thus subject to the jurisdiction of any country, even though the acts had not taken place in that country, and the parties were not citizens of that country.
Further, a commander could be held liable for tortures performed by subordinates, as in the doctrine of command responsibility
Command responsibility
Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
. "The defendant in all but one of the cases was Gen. Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason
Guillermo Suárez Mason
Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason was an Argentine military officer convicted for Dirty War crimes during the 1976 — 83 military dictatorship. He was in charge of the Batallón de Inteligencia 601.-Biography:...
, whose clandestine
Clandestine operation
A clandestine operation is an intelligence or military operation carried out in such a way that the operation goes unnoticed.The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by governmental...
presence in the U.S after fleeing prosecution in Argentina triggered lawsuits from several of his victims. As commander of the First Army Corps, Suárez Mason participated in the preparation of the 1976 coup, oversaw the operations of task forces, and was ultimately responsible for secret detention camps in the densely populated region comprising Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
and its suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
s, La Plata
La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
, Mar del Plata, and smaller cities."
Martínez Baca v. Suárez Mason (1988) used the Filartiga precedent
Argentina 1989
In Amerada Hess Shipping Corp. v. Argentine Republic (1989),, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a ship that had been attacked by Argentine aircraft during the Falklands WarFalklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
. While this was not an explicit human rights case, it added to the body of law of jurisdiction over extraterritorial events.
Ouiros de Rapaport v. Suárez Mason, (1989), followed in the steps of Filartiga.
Argentina, date uncertain
"The other face of U.S. policy toward Argentina at this time was shown by the sympathetic treatment Suárez Mason received from certain U.S. authorities. ...Oliver NorthOliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
", a National Security Council
National Security Council
A National Security Council is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security...
staff member who often acted independently of the CIA, although he arranged orders to be given to the agency, was :reported to have arranged a false visa for Suárez to enter the United States. North had reportedly been discussing with him the possible establishment of a Pan-American counterinsurgency force, a proposal that emerged out of ongoing cooperation between the CIA and the Argentine military, in which Suárez Mason was an important actor.