Central Intelligence Agency . American organization dedicated to international espionage. Its legal framework establishes that the intelligence activity of the CIA must be:timely, objective, independent of political considerations and based on intelligence community sources.
But it has been involved in covert operations to destabilize governments and assassinate leaders in countries that have attempted to carry out transformations against American interests.
The CIA’s ties to the paramilitary forces of the dictatorial regimes of the Southern Cone during the 1970s and 1980s were well-known and fluid.
Origin
On July 26, 1947 , Harry S. Truman , President of the United States , signed the National Security Act that gave life to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Central Intelligence Agency or Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), heir to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which began to be organized by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt , to fight Italy , Germany and Japan , during the Second World War , but it only began its functions in 1947 , through the National Security Law number 153 of Congress and with the advent of the ” Cold War “.
The CIA—with some 16,000 employees and headquarters located on a 260-acre complex near the Potomac River in Langley , Virginia —was tasked with collecting and analyzing information on the United States ‘ foreign enemies to enable the president, the Pentagon, and Congress to address current and potential threats.
Activity
Although the legal framework establishes that the CIA’s intelligence activity must be ” timely, objective, independent of political considerations and based on intelligence community sources ,” it is naive to accept that the US intelligence strategy in the real world is apolitical, since since its foundation, the CIA has exceeded its own limits and developed clandestine operations aimed at modifying the internal policies of other countries, based on the interests and security of the US.
Since its creation, the CIA has been involved in covert operations to destabilize governments and assassinate leaders in countries that have attempted to carry out transformations in favor of their people and against American interests.
The CIA is involved in the most shady policies, actions and maneuvers against leaders, organizations and institutions that interfere with the interests of the empire, violating all ethical, legal and diplomatic norms that govern international political and economic relations. At the same time, a long history of corruption, illegal actions, denunciations and discredit are associated with this intelligence service and its top leaders.
In Latin America
Below, as an example, is a very brief summary of the CIA’s terrorist actions in Latin America and the Caribbean :
Guatemala
Financing and organization of the coup d’état against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. The violence provoked since then by successive military governments left a balance of 160 thousand dead and 40 thousand missing.
Cuba
Following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution , President Dwight David Eisenhower authorized the execution of the so-called covert operations in order to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro and thus put an end to the revolutionary project.
For such purposes he created a CIA station in Miami specifically directed against Cuba . He organized counterrevolutionary bands that committed murders of the civilian population and practiced sabotage against economic targets. He financed, armed and trained a mercenary brigade that invaded the Playa Girón area in the province of Matanzas in April 1961 , known as the Bay of Pigs invasion , with President John Kennedy assuming responsibility for the defeat .
Actions against Cuba, including constant threats of military invasion, economic warfare, economic blockade, biological warfare, and other modalities applied by the US government, have caused numerous human losses and serious material damage to the Caribbean country. Thousands of acts of a terrorist nature have been carried out against Cuba since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution .
On the evening of March 4, 1960 , the French ship La Coubre , carrying grenades for FAL rifles and Belgian-made ammunition, exploded in Havana Bay . Due to the number of casualties, it is considered the largest terrorist attack against Cuba in the long list of acts of this nature. All the evidence then – and now – indicated that it was the work of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), since the United States government had pressured the Belgian authorities to prevent the shipment of these weapons to the largest of the Antilles .
Another of the most monstrous CIA actions against Cuba was carried out by CIA agents Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles , both of Cuban origin, when they organized an attack that caused the explosion, in mid-flight, of a Cuban plane in Barbados, on October 6 , 1976. 73 people died in the attack.
In the late 1990s, CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles organized a series of bomb attacks against Cuban hotels, resulting in one death and numerous injuries. Salvadoran mercenaries participated in the attacks.
Santo Domingo
In 1963 , the CIA carried out a propaganda campaign against Dominican President Juan Bosch , which culminated in a coup d’état. Following an uprising by constitutionalist military officers who demanded Bosch’s return, the United States intervened on the island in 1965 in an operation coordinated by the CIA.
Brazil
In 1964 , the CIA took action against João Goulart , President of Brazil , which culminated in a military uprising.
Bolivia
The CIA participates in the training and operations of the Bolivian army against the Bolivian National Liberation Army . The Cuban-born CIA agent Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía is in charge of transmitting the order, received from La Paz , to assassinate Ernesto Che Guevara .
Chili
Following Salvador Allende ‘s electoral victory in Chile , President Richard M. Nixon allocates 10 million dollars to destabilize the new government. The CIA organizes and finances the fascist coup that installs Augusto Pinochet in power and leaves a terrible toll of dead and missing.
Nicaragua
Following the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua , US President James Carter authorised CIA operations in support of the Sandinista opposition. During the administration of Ronald Reagan, hundreds of millions of dollars were allocated to the creation of a mercenary army from neighbouring Honduras, which was dedicated to sabotaging Nicaraguan efforts to build a democratic and plural society.
The war cost the country 60,000 dead and 2,000 missing, in addition to 17 billion dollars in losses that the Americans refused to pay despite the ruling of the International Court of Justice in 1986. Finally, the opposition came to power in 1990 after an electoral process marked by US interventionism, with the participation of the CIA.
In 1986, a DC-3 plane carrying counterrevolutionary supplies was shot down in Nicaragua. The pilot, Eugene Hasenfus, revealed that the flights were directed by the CIA and originated from bases in El Salvador and Honduras .
El Salvador
The CIA played a key role in the conception and organization of the security agencies from which the paramilitary groups in El Salvador emerged . During the Salvadoran civil war, the United States supported successive military governments with more than 5 billion dollars. The war left a balance of 75 thousand dead and 8 thousand missing.
Grenade
In 1983 , American troops invade Grenada shortly after a coup d’état ended the government of Maurice Bishop . According to President Ronald Reagan , Grenada, an island of 340 km² and 110,000 inhabitants, represented a military threat to the United States. Reagan had expressed concern about an airport that Cuban workers were building to develop tourism. After the invasion, the United States announced its decision to complete the airport, although for other purposes.
Panama
In 1989 , the United States invaded Panama under the pretext of capturing Manuel Antonio Noriega , then President of that country, a well-known former CIA agent accused of drug trafficking. The American government had been aware, at least since 1972 , of Noriega’s illegal activities, but kept him on its payroll as long as he was useful. The invasion left a balance of seven thousand dead and missing, as well as millions in losses.
Recent years
The appointment of billionaire Porter J. Goss to the CIA, who took over as director on April 25, 2005, provoked skepticism among politicians and analysts, who expected a radical change in the leadership of the agency. According to critics, Goss ‘s tenure as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee since 1996 was marked by his close relationship with former CIA director George Tenet .
Retired Admiral Stansfield Turner , CIA director under President Jimmy Carter , calls Goss’s selection ” the worst in the history of the job ,” while Mel Goodman , a former CIA analyst and Center for International Policy specialist, says Goss has “all the wrong credentials” for the job, including having been a secret CIA agent in Latin America and Europe for nine years in the 1960s.
Torture and illegal prisons
In 2006, international organizations accused the CIA of using European airports to transport prisoners to their prisons and of having multiple secret illegal prisons throughout Europe where they hold various people who are allegedly being tortured. Along the same lines, the tolerance or collaboration of several governments such as Hungary , Spain or [1] in these events has been denounced.
A European Parliament report in 2006 confirmed that the CIA has been ” directly responsible for the abduction, transfer, kidnapping and detention of terrorist suspects ” in Europe.The CIA is ” directly responsible ” for some illegal actions in Europe, says the European Parliament
In the same year, following President George Bush ‘s revelation that there were indeed secret CIA detention centres for terrorist suspects, MEPs called for clarification of the possible involvement of European Union (EU) governments in the detention and transfer of prisoners by the CIA, as well as whether such prisons existed on EU territory. [2]
Finally, in 2007 , Dick Marty , the Swiss senator who was investigating the illegal activities of the CIA after the 9/11 attacks from the Council of Europe , issued his second report on the subject, which established that Poland and Romania had hosted illegal detention centres for the American intelligence agency between 2003 and 2005, where suspected Islamic terrorists were subjected to interrogation techniques “equivalent to torture”. Fernando Pescador (2007), [3]
Numerous journalists and media outlets around the world have made accusations against the US, and in particular against the CIA , of violating the Geneva Conventions by resorting to torture. [4]
In February 2009 , US President-elect Barack Obama appointed economist Leon Panetta as the new Acting Director of the Agency.New CIA Director ( February 2009 ). Regarding those responsible for torture at the agency, Panetta has stated that he will defend officers who “did what their country asked them to do.”