The Condor plan consisted of a strategic organization of international scope in which the South American dictatorships that ruled Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay participated, and which took place between the years 1970 and 1980. In this article we will provide you the summary of the Operation condor.

These countries organized in order to eradicate and persecute communism, as well as to establish neoliberal policies in South America under the coordination, influence and funding of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The plan was proposed by Henry Kissinger, then secretary of the presidency of the United States, during the context of struggle between capitalism and communism.

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THE ORIGINS OF THE CONDOR PLAN

Plan Cóndor, also known as Operation Condor, was a campaign of political repression and state terrorism backed by the United States that included intelligence operations and assassinations of opponents. It was officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by the leaders of the dictatorial regimes of the Southern Cone – Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and sporadically, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela – . The United States government provided planning, coordination, torture training, technical support, and provided military assistance to military boards during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations. This support for human rights violations was frequently channeled through the CIA. 

The Condor Plan was produced within the framework of the United States‘ strategy in the Cold War, guided by the National Security Doctrine, promoting dictatorships, in order to suppress left-wing political sectors and promote a new economic model centered on guarantee increasing benefits to the most conservative sectors with greater material resources. 

This coordination involved, officially and directly, the monitoring, surveillance , detention , interrogations with torture , transfers between countries, rape and disappearance or murder of people considered by these regimes as ” subversive of the established order, or contrary to their policy or ideology.” ¹ The Condor Plan became an international clandestine organization for the strategy of State terrorism that implemented the murder and disappearance of tens of thousands of opponents of the aforementioned dictatorships, most of them belonging to movements of thepolitical left , Peronism , trade unionism , student groups , teaching, journalism , the artistic field, liberation theology and the human rights movement. The so-called ” Archives of Terror ” found in Paraguay in 1992 give the figure of 50,000 people murdered, 30,000 missing, and 400,000 imprisoned. 

Objectives of the Condor plan

The main objective of this international coordination was both to fight against communism in the region and to install new neoliberal policies. To carry it out, the plan sought to eliminate anyone who posed a threat to the liberal policies posed by the United States.

At the same time, the project would facilitate the exchange of information between the 6 countries of the South American dictatorship.

Some of the precise objectives of the Condor plan were the following:

• The exchange of information that would be received by the CIA.
• Eliminate the armed activity of communist guerrillas .
• Strengthen the security forces to achieve a greater reach throughout Latin America.
• The persecution, surveillance, detention and torture of those people who were considered threats to the policies of the established order.

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Consequences

As the objective was to eradicate all opponents, the Condor plan left many victims; among them, thousands of politicians and militants from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay who died under torture.

The figures indicate that there were around 50,000 dead and more than 30,000 missing, who are estimated to have been transferred and detained in other countries. In addition, 400,000 people were arrested.

The atmosphere of tension in the affected countries, during this time, was suffocating. Public enemies were kept in obsessive surveillance and the entire population, in general, was repressed.