Operation Condor

   A clandestine Latin American military network whose charter members, in 1975, were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Ecuador and Peru would join in 1978. Condor was formed by Colonel (later General) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, head of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA, Directorate of National Intelligence), Chile’s secret police. Condor allowed the militaries of these countries to share information on political opponents and to cooperate in their capture. Consequently, refugees escaping repression in their own countries could no longer find asylum in neighboring countries. They would be tracked down and either returned to their own countries or executed in the countries to which they fled. In addition, Condor allowed the assassination of high-level political leaders perceived to be a threat to the current military regimes. Among its victims were the Chilean Orlando Letelier del Solar and his associate Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in Washington, D.C., and the Uruguayan legislators Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez, in Buenos Aires. Although the existence of Condor had long been suspected, proof began to emerge only in 1992, when Martín Almada, a Paraguayan educator and torture victim, discovered in Asunción, Paraguay, Condor’s secret archives, a collection of documents now known as the Archives of Terror.