A Tulane University Archiologist Discovers A Lost Mayan City

Lost in the Jungle Stumbling upon an undiscovered ancient city full of gold is usually the hallmark of great action films. But in real life, it is rare to find a lost city – especially by accident. However, that is exactly what happened when a doctoral student in anthropology was analyzing publicly available drone data of Mexico and stumbled across a huge ancient Mayan city buried beneath a dense jungle canopy. Archeologist Luke Auld-Thomas of Tulane University in New Orleans discovered the city while surfing the internet and examining data from modern aerial mapping technology known as LiDAR (light detection and ranging). “I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organization for environmental monitoring,” Auld-Thomas told the BBC. Auld-Thomas and co-author Marcello Canuto, in a new study, surveyed three different sites in the jungle and found 6,674 structures – essentially a huge ancient city that may have been home to 30-50,000 people at its peak from 750 to 850 CE, more than the population of the area today. The city, which was about 16.6 square kilometers (6.4 square miles), had two major centers with large buildings around 1.2 miles apart, linked by dense houses and causeways, according to the study. It had two plazas with temple pyramids, where Maya people would have worshipped, hidden treasures like jade masks and buried their dead. It also had a court where people would have played an ancient ball game and possibly a reservoir, indicating that people used the landscape to support a large population. The team named the city “Valeriana” after a nearby lagoon and said it has the “hallmarks of a capital city,” was second only to the density of the Calakmul site of the Mayans, which is about 62 miles away. The research team also believes that the city probably collapsed between 800 and 1,000 CE, due to issues such as climate variability and adaptation struggles because of the city’s density. At the same time, warfare with other cities and the conquest of the region by Spanish invaders in the 16th century also contributed to the eradication of Maya city-states, the BBC wrote. This study is the first to reveal Maya structures in the east-central Campeche region that runs from southeastern Mexico to Belize which the Maya inhabited from about 1000 BCE to 1500 CE. But with new technology such as laser and drone mapping, archeologists are finding more instances of ancient human activity. Now the team has emphasized the need for more field research along with drone usage to map the region. The problem is, added Auld-Thomas, there’s much more to find and too little time. “One of the downsides of discovering lots of new Maya cities in the era of Lidar is that there are more of them than we can ever hope to study,” he said. Share this story

A Small South American Country Shines

The Big Carrot Suriname The World Bank considers the South American country and former Dutch colony of Suriname to be an “upper middle-income” country due to its rich natural resources. But it noted that the country’s mining and other revenues declined in 2015, sparking a fiscal crisis that grew worse when the coronavirus pandemic struck. As a result, more than 17 percent of the country’s citizens lived in poverty in 2022. A year later, tensions in the country exploded over the economic situation: In February 2023, protesters broke into the country’s legislature in the capital of Paramaribo after President Chan Santokhi agreed to implement austerity measures such as an end to fuel subsidies and tax hikes to comply with an International Monetary Fund loan agreement, World Politics Review explained. Now new oil money might change that trajectory. French oil giant TotalEnergies recently announced $3 billion in engineering contracts for the GranMorgu offshore drilling project that could tap more than 700 million barrels of oil with production scheduled from 2028, reported Reuters. These investments were part of TotalEnergies and American exploration firm APA’s $10.5 billion offshore drilling plan for GranMorgu, Suriname’s first such project. In the local language Sranan Tongo, “GranMorgu” means “new dawn” and “Goliath grouper,” noted TotalEnergies in a statement that also promised a total of 6,000 new jobs for a country of about 600,000 people. “Today is a historic day for Suriname,” said Chan in early October when the project was announced, the Associated Press reported. “This is a game-changer.” Now the pressure is on the oil industry and Chan to demonstrate how regular people will benefit. Suriname has around 2.4 billion barrels in reserves, noted OilPrice.com, leading observers to believe that the country can expect a windfall of cash like neighboring Guyana did after opening up oil fields to international drillers. Ratings agency Moody’s agreed, boosting Suriname’s credit rating on the promise of oil revenues, Bloomberg wrote. The reality might not be so great, however. Analyst John Gerdes of Gerdes Energy Research told Barron’s that Suriname might have only a third as much oil production potential as Guyana, for example. Some constituencies in Suriname also believe they are not set to benefit. For example, Suriname has one of the largest untouched rainforests in the world and is also the planet’s most densely forested country. But the country is the only one in South America that hasn’t recognized the land rights of Indigenous communities that want to protect the forest amid a logging boom, Mongabay reported. How Chan distributes the new capital will be key. Meanwhile, some believe that while the Indigenous peoples of the country may not benefit from the oil boom, the forest actually might, wrote the Financial Times. Officials in the country say the oil boom, ironically, presents an opportunity to jump-start demand for Suriname’s fledgling sovereign carbon credits scheme, which to date hasn’t been very successful, mainly because there aren’t many international companies operating in the country – yet. The idea, possibly to be voted on in the legislature this fall, is to require all companies operating in Suriname to purchase its sovereign carbon credits so as to offset their in-country emissions. That money would go to its climate fund, mainly to protect its forest. “We are following this mechanism in which we can receive climate finance through carbon credits – OK, we’re doing that, but it’s still not working,” Suriname’s minister of the environment, Marciano Dasai, told the newspaper. “But now, we have oil and gas.” Share this story

Drug Dealing And The Temptation Of Big Money

I wrote a biography of the international drug dealer Paul Lir Alexander (o barao da cocaina). Paul was born in the small fishing village of Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brasil to an unwed mother. He started life poor and humble. Before Paul became a drug dealer, he had a distinguished career as an Israeli Mossad agent. He earned two college degrees at a prestigious private university in Rio de Janeiro. He learned to speak six languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.) He created a brilliant talent agency, Sunshine Entertainment Limitada, that created the Brasilian superstar Xuxa. Just on that basis, he became a millionaire in his 20s. Then Paul became a drug dealer importing some $9 billion worth of cocaine to the US and Australia. At the time of his arrest in April 1993 at the age of 37, Paul had the following assets: 1) A Hawker Sidley corporate jet. 2) A $5 million apartment in the Barra da Tijuca section of Rio de Janeiro. 3) A $800,000 house in north Miami Beach. 4) A 6,400-hectare (15,874 acres) ranch in Brasil. 5) A $25 million mega yacht. 6) Paul was completing the raising of over $300,000,000 to buy The Manchete Television Network in Brasil. I asked Paul why he went into drug dealing. He calmly replied that he could not resist the temptation of so much money. Over 30 years later, the temptation of big money to be made from drug dealing is still alive and well. The senior Spanish officer in charge of fighting drug importation into Spain has been arrested for drug dealing and money laundering. Here is the story: Spain Spain arrested the former top law enforcement officer in charge of the unit investigating fraud and corruption after the Guardian reported this week that around $22 million was hidden in the walls of his house. Óscar Sánchez Gil, the former head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division of Spain’s national police force, was arrested last week along with 15 other people, including his girlfriend, also a police officer in the Madrid region. During the raid on his home, police found the cash hidden in the walls and ceilings of the couple’s home near the Spanish capital. Officers also found more than $1 million in his office. The couple has been charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption, and membership of a criminal organization and have been jailed until trial. Spanish media said the arrests were linked to the seizure last month of 13 tons of cocaine that arrived in the southern port of Algeciras from Ecuador, the largest-ever haul of cocaine in Spain and “one of the largest seizures in the world.” Police operations uncovered links between the importer of the drugs and Sánchez Gil. He was already under suspicion by his colleagues who had tapped his phone, the newspaper El Mundo reported. He is suspected of having worked for the drug traffickers for “at least five years,” providing information on the surveillance of containers in Spanish ports, which enabled them to avoid checks, Agence France-Presse wrote. Spain is a main entry point for drugs into Europe because of its close ties with former colonies in Latin America such as major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, and its proximity to Morocco, a top cannabis producer.

The Girl From Ipanema by Joyce Partise

Satellite Reconnaissance And The Falkland's War

Falklands The Royal Fleet Auxiliaries Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were attacked by Argentine A-4 Skyhawks on June 8, 1982, during the Falklands War. Both ships were hit, with heavy loss of life on Sir Galahad, which was still burning on June 13 when an American HEXAGON satellite took this photo. The war ended June 14 with the surrender of Argentine forces on the islands. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger. Satellite reconnaissance and the Falklands War by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 4, 2024 Bookmark and Share On June 8, 1982, Lieutenant Carlos Cachon was leading a flight of A-4 Skyhawk jets at low level over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Argentine forces had invaded the islands in April, prompting the United Kingdom to send a naval and amphibious force to retake them. The war had gotten bloody in May, with significant troop and ship losses on both sides. Now it was about to get even worse for the British. What remains largely unknown and unexplored is the degree of US intelligence support to the British forces in the Falklands War. According to Skyhawks Over the South Atlantic, by Santiago Rivas, Cachon and his fellow pilots crossed into and out of clouds and rain that hampered their visibility, then flew over a large number of British troops on the ground. Another pilot suddenly yelled “There are the ships!” and Cachon saw “two grey silhouettes” against the coast. He began his attack and released his bombs, which hit the center of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Sir Galahad. Another pair of pilots hit the RFA Sir Tristram. In total, 43 Welsh Guards and seven ship’s crew were killed in what became known to the British as “the darkest day of the fleet.” Sir Galahad burned and kept burning for days. Sir Tristram was less heavily damaged. Falklands The burning RFA Sir Galahad along with RFA Sir Tristram near Fitzroy on the eastern side of the islands. When this image was taken, Sir Galahad had been burning for five days. The ship would later be towed out to sea and sunk. RFA Sir Tristram was salvaged. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger. On June 13, a HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite overflew the islands. The weather was usually bad for overhead reconnaissance during the war, but on this day portions of the islands were clear. The HEXAGON photographed broad swaths of the islands. The HEXAGON could cover immense amounts of territory in a single image. Five days after the two ships had been successfully attacked, Sir Galahad was still burning, its smoke plume visible in one of the satellite’s images. But the downside of HEXAGON’s impressive capabilities was that it achieved them using film, and that film sat inside the satellite until the reentry vehicle that carried it was ejected on June 15 and recovered over the North Pacific. Then it had to be recovered, transported to Rochester, New York for development, and sent to Washington for imagery interpretation. The war ended on June 14; by the time the film showing the burning Sir Galahad reached an interpreter’s desk on June 24, the war had been over for ten days. Falklands The RFA Sir Galahad before the Falklands War. British forces suffered significant losses of ships and personnel during the war. Argentina also lost several ships and had a much higher loss of life. (credit: Wikimedia Commons) The Falklands War Although the history of the war has been extensively studied in the four decades since it took place, the extent of American support to Great Britain has only come to light in the past ten years or so. What remains largely unknown and unexplored is the degree of US intelligence support to the British forces. Now, more information on that subject is becoming available. British warships sailed from ports in the United Kingdom only a few days after the invasion, but it took them several weeks to arrive at the islands. When the war finally ended several months later, the toll was clear. The Argentines suffered 649 killed, including 323 men lost when the cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by a British nuclear submarine in early May, and Great Britain suffered 258 of its soldiers, sailors, and marines killed. The Royal Navy lost two destroyers, two frigates, and three other vessels to Argentine Exocet missiles and bombs. RFA Sir Tristram was eventually transported to the United Kingdom and salvaged, but RFA Sir Galahad was too heavily damaged and was towed out to sea and sunk. The Reagan Administration initially sought a diplomatic solution to maintain favor with Latin American countries that it was enlisting in opposition to communist influence in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. But behind the scenes, the United States offered access to American weapons, perhaps most importantly the latest version of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, which was hurriedly integrated onto British Harrier jump jets. Falklands The runway at Port Stanley was seized by Argentine forces soon after the invasion. The Royal Air Force carried out long-range bombing attacks on the islands in May and June. Although damage to the runway was minimal, the attacks prevented Argentina from operating fast jets from the runway and instead launched them from Argentina, which reduced their time over their targets. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger American satellite reconnaissance and the war On May 11, a Titan IIID rocket roared off its pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying the 17th HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite. HEXAGON had first entered service in 1971, was the size of a school bus, and had earned the nickname “Big Bird,” mostly from people who did not know about the top secret satellite. The HEXAGON’s primary role was imaging large areas of the Earth to spot targets at medium resolution of approximately 30 to 90 centimeters. This was good enough to identify most military vehicles, but not sufficient to determine fine technical details—for example, it could spot a MiG-29 fighter at an airfield, but not determine if it was a single or two-seater. The HEXAGON had two powerful cameras and the film that ran through them was deposited in four satellite reentry vehicles at the front of the satellite. When a reentry vehicle was full, it was ejected and reentered northwest of Hawaii for recovery, and after the fourth reentry vehicle reached Earth about six months after launch, the satellite was useless. The time from when an image was taken until when it reached human eyes was a minimum of a few days but more likely a few weeks. The HEXAGON joined the third and fourth KH-11 KENNEN satellites already in orbit. KENNEN satellites had a near-real-time capability, beaming their images back to the ground within minutes of taking them. The KENNENs probably had resolution about 30 centimeters at the time, and they imaged far less territory than the HEXAGON, but they were fast. What is now known is that a HEXAGON satellite also photographed the islands on two days: May 31 and June 13. In their polar orbits, the two KH-11s made multiple passes near the islands during the conflict and flew almost directly over them approximately 30 times in two and a half months. Most of their passes were to the east or west, and the satellites would have had to turn to the side to image the islands, degrading their imagery. How often they imaged the islands is unknown, although they had many opportunities. The limiting factor was most likely cloud cover: the Falkland Islands were often clouded over during April, May, and June—fall heading into winter in the southern hemisphere. British forces reported that it was usually cloudy and often rainy during much of the conflict, and the two KENNENs probably had few opportunities even when they flew near the islands. KH-11-4 passed near the islands on May 28, but would have had to look 64 degrees off-nadir (i.e. 64 degrees off straight down), meaning that the satellite would have to turn far to the side and image at an angle through more atmosphere, degrading the imagery. But KH-11-3 also passed near the island, about 35 degrees off-nadir, a much more reasonable angle for imaging the ground. On that day the islands were relatively cloud-free. Falklands A HEXAGON image of the Port Stanley airfield taken on June 13, 1982. The craters from the Vulcan bombing raid are clearly visible. The war ended on June 14. This image did not get analyzed in the United States until June 24, demonstrating the primary limitation of the HEXAGON's film-return technology. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger On May 28, the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) produced a cable on “improved defensive measures, Port Stanley area, Falkland Islands.” The cable, which was declassified in 2011, reported that Argentina had improved its defensive positions around the Port Stanley area and deployed fighter and ground attack aircraft to the airfield. The Argentine forces had also constructed defensive positions on the southern outskirts of the town. They had deployed possible anti-aircraft sites on the coast to the east and erected 50 probable two-man tents as well as dug trenches. The cable does not state what satellite provided the imagery of the area, but it was most likely KH-11-3, because KH-11-4 was too far away on its passes near the islands, and the HEXAGON did not return its film until over two weeks later on June 15. Because the imagery was immediately available, it was almost certainly shared with the British government. Recently, at the request of Australian researcher Harry Stranger and this author, HEXAGON imagery was obtained of the Falklands during the conflict. What is now known is that a HEXAGON satellite also photographed the islands on two days: May 31 and June 13. On May 31, HEXAGON Mission 1217 imaged all the key locations, including Royal Navy warships then engaged in deploying troops to shore. Those ships, located in San Carlos Sound, had come under attack on several previous occasions, but on this day they were not attacked. On June 13, the HEXAGON again photographed the islands, again spotting the ships, but also spotting RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram on the eastern side of the islands. No intelligence cables about the British ships have been released. However, in 2011 the CIA declassified a cable from June 24 that refers to imagery “acquired on the day prior to the Argentine surrender,” i.e. June 13. That cable, titled “damage and defenses, Port Stanley, Falkland Islands,” refers to damage to the airfield and surrounding areas. The airfield had been bombed by Royal Air Force Vulcan bombers in a daring raid in May. Although the bombs barely hit the runway and it did not shut down the airfield, the attack prompted Argentina to decide not to base fighter planes on the island, which dramatically increased their distance from the attacking British forces and reduced their time over their targets. The cable continued: “Numerous craters were present throughout the area. The damage from three craters on the runway had been repaired.” (A possible reference to craters observed in the May 31 HEXAGON imagery.) “The hangar at the support area was partially damaged and one of the support buildings was completely destroyed.” Notably, the May 28 cable did not refer to destroyed aircraft at the airfield, but the June 15 cable did. Falklands Royal Navy warships near the port of San Carlos imaged by an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite on May 31, 1982. This area became known as “Bomb Alley” to the British, because several ships were successfully attacked and sunk here. This image was not analyzed in the United States until after the war was over. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger Falklands history The HEXAGON imagery arrived on analysts’ light tables after the war was over. The KENNEN imagery was more timely and could have had some value to British forces. It is unknown if any of the imagery was directly shared with the task force, or even if the information in the May 28 intelligence cable was shared, although it seems likely. It has also been previously reported that the United States shared signals intelligence data collected from satellites with the United Kingdom (see “Buccaneers of the high frontier: Program 989 SIGINT satellites from the ABM hunt to the Falklands War to the space shuttle,” The Space Review, November 7, 2022.) In 2011, the National Reconnaissance Office, which operated both the KENNEN and HEXAGON satellites, released a declassified film about the HEXAGON. Following a short clip of Argentine Skyhawks attacking Royal Navy ships, a HEXAGON photograph was deleted—that image was probably a HEXAGON image of ships in San Carlos Bay, which the British had nicknamed “Bomb Alley.” Falklands Close-up of several British ships in San Carlos on May 31. The HEXAGON imagery is sufficiently detailed to identify the types of ships. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger Both the United Kingdom and the government of Argentina have declassified substantial military records of the conflict, and pilots, sailors, and government officials on both sides have written memoirs about their involvement. The extent of US support to the British is still largely unknown, but these documents and photographs indicate that some new evidence is finally coming to light, over four decades since the guns went silent in the South Atlantic and the hulk of RFA Sir Galahad was sent to the bottom of the sea. The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Harry Stranger, Jonathan McDowell, and Ted Molczan. Special thanks to Mariano P. Sciaroni. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Rio de Janeiro Tour and Bossa Nova Playlist

Chile 50 Years Ago: The Assasination Of THe Prats Family

The Pinochet Regime at 50 The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert Wedding photo Car Bombing in Buenos Aires Marked First Act of State-Sponsored International Terror of Chilean Military Regime On 50th Anniversary of Prats’ Assassination, Archive Posts Key U.S. and Chilean Records on Pinochet’s Use of Terrorism to Eliminate Threats to His Regime Published: Oct 1, 2024 Briefing Book # 871 Edited by Peter Kornbluh For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Subjects Covert Action Human Rights and Genocide Regions South America Events Chile – Coup d’État, 1973 Project Chile BOOKS Lo Que Tarde La Justicia bookcover Lo que tarde la justicia by Sofía, Angélica, and Cecilia Prats Cuthbert, Debate (September 30, 2024) book The Pinochet File by Peter Kornbluh, The New Press, Updated edition (September 11, 2013) book cover Pinochet desclasificado by Peter Kornbluh, Un Día en La Vida/Editorial Catalonia (August 2023) The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents by John Dinges, The New Press (August 1, 2012) Los Anos del Condor book cover Los años del Cóndor (Spanish Edition) by John Dinges, DEBATE (June 1, 2021) Chile en el corazón book cover Chile en el corazón (Spanish Edition) by John Dinges, DEBATE (September 1, 2023) Washington, D.C., October 1, 2024 - On the 50th anniversary of the Pinochet regime’s first act of international terrorism, the National Security Archive is posting a compilation of documents, including CIA intelligence reports and a judicial confession of the Chilean secret police operative, Michael Townley, who constructed, placed, and detonated the car bomb that killed Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires on September 30, 1974. Only weeks after the bombing, a friend of the Prats daughters gave them a chilling message: the Pinochet regime planned to “celebrate the coup” every September by eliminating specific persons deemed a threat to the dictatorship. This information proved to be prescient. The following September, the Vice President of the Chilean Christian Democrat Party, Bernardo Leighton, and his wife were gunned down and critically injured on a street in Rome. A year later, on September 21, 1976, a car bomb similar to the one that killed the Prats took the lives of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his young colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt in Washington, D.C. Parats Memories book cover After Gen. Prats was assassinated, his daughters salvaged the manuscript of his memoir, which was subsequently published in Mexico. “The first [assassination] was our parents,” Sofía, Angélica and Cecilia Prats write in their new book, Lo que tarde la justicia, published in Chile this week. The compilation of records posted today marks an anniversary that was commemorated in Buenos Aires, where the attack took place, as well as in Chile, where the atrocities of the Pinochet era continue to cast a shadow over present-day politics. “The Prats case,” notes Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh, “provides a dramatic reminder of the true terrorist nature of the military dictatorship—and of Pinochet himself.” Targeting General Prats The target of the Pinochet regime’s first act of international terrorism was not a renowned leftist or socialist militant but rather Pinochet’s own predecessor as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, General Carlos Prats González. A pro-constitution officer, General Prats assumed the top military position in Chile in October 1970, after his own predecessor, General René Schneider, was assassinated in a CIA-supported plot to block the inauguration of president-elect Salvador Allende. During Allende’s tumultuous three years, Prats used his powerful position to safeguard Chile’s constitutional order. In 1972, he entered Allende’s cabinet and even held the position of vice president of the nation. In June 1973, he quickly suppressed a coup attempt—known as the “Tanquetazo”—by junior officers and the extremist paramilitary group, Patria y Libertad. In late August 1973, however, protests against Prats’ continuing support for the Allende government forced him to resign. Prats personally recommended General Augusto Pinochet to replace him as commander-in-chief, erroneously believing that he would support the constitutional order against pro-coup officers. Only four days after the coup, General Prats and his wife went into exile in Argentina. Prats “was living quietly in Buenos Aires,” the CIA later reported. “He was not permitted to make any public appearances or statements and had faithfully carried out the restrictive instructions pertaining to his exile.” But General Pinochet clearly considered the highly respected Prats to be a potential threat to his power. Only six weeks after the coup, Pinochet dispatched one of his top deputies, General Sergio Arellano Stark, to Buenos Aires to conduct secret talks with the Argentine military. Arellano’s top priority, according to a CIA source, was to “discuss with the Argentine military any information they have regarding the activities of General (retired) Carlos Prats. Arellano will also attempt to gain an agreement whereby the Argentines maintain scrutiny over Prats and regularly inform the Chileans of his activities.” In June 1974, Pinochet met with the director of the Chilean secret police, DINA, Colonel Manuel Contreras, and ordered him to eliminate Prats. Contreras first assigned this mission to his DINA station chief in Argentina, Enrique Arancibia Clavel, who was instructed to enlist Argentine paramilitary groups to kill Prats. When that effort failed to advance, DINA’s deputy director, Colonel Pedro Espinoza, enlisted DINA’s newest recruit, an American expatriate named Michael Townley who was an electronics specialist and had collaborated with Patria y Libertad in anti-Allende operations. In secret testimony given to an Argentine judge in 1999, Townley recalled how Colonel Espinoza had described Prats as a potential leader of a government-in-exile and asked Townley if he could “do something” about the exiled general. Eliminating Prats “was for the wellbeing of the country,” Townley testified. “It was a patriotic request,” he stated. “So, I did it.” Townley traveled to Buenos Aires twice; the first time he was unable to locate Prats. Accompanied by his wife Mariana Callejas—also a DINA agent—he returned on September 10, 1974, and spent several weeks plotting the assassination. At one point, Townley followed Prats into a neighborhood park and considered shooting him in broad daylight, but, he testified, “there were too many people around.” Instead, Townley fashioned a remote-controlled car bomb made of two C4 cartridges, establishing his signature modus operandi as an international terrorist. On September 29, he managed to slip into the parking garage and attach the device to the chassis of Prats’ small Fiat 125. Townley and Callejas then staked out the Prats’ building until they returned from visiting friends just after midnight on September 30. Callejas tried to detonate the bomb, “but it did not function,” Townley confessed. “I took [the detonator] from her, pressed it, and it worked.” Prats car The Prats' Fiat 125 was destroyed by a car bomb planted by DINA agents on Pinochet's orders. The Pursuit of Justice For over thirty years, the Prats family pursued efforts to identify the perpetrators of this atrocity and prosecute them. In 1983, two daughters, Sofía and Angélica Prats, traveled to Washington, D.C., to work with Argentine lawyers requesting the extradition of Townley—then under witness protection in the United States after serving a short sentence for assassinating Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt with a car bomb—to Buenos Aires. But a U.S. judge ruled that Townley’s plea bargain agreement in the Letelier-Moffitt case prevented his extradition. A Chilean judge also denied Argentine legal efforts to have Mariana Callejas extradited from Santiago to Buenos Aires to stand trial. In 1987, the Prats daughters repeatedly approached the U.S. Embassy in Chile seeking information and legal assistance in the case. Eventually, their efforts led an Argentine judge, Maria Servini, to travel to Washington in 1999 and officially depose Townley. For a number of years, his secret testimony remained sealed. (See Document 8) “We instinctively understood that the search for justice would be a lengthy journey,” Sofía, Angélica and Cecilia Prats write in their new book. “We knew it would be arduous, beginning with a period of mourning that would last an unknown amount of time.” Argentine authorities did eventually arrest DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, charging him first with espionage and then as an accessory to the Prats assassination. He was imprisoned in Argentina for almost two decades. More than 35 years after Prats and Cuthbert were assassinated, and 20 years after the return to civilian governance, in June 2010 the Chilean courts finally convicted and sentenced former DINA chief Manuel Contreras and his deputy Pedro Espinoza, along with several other DINA officials and operatives in the Prats case. Pinochet himself was never prosecuted for the Prats assassination, nor for the other acts of terrorism and repression he ordered. After he died on December 10, 2006—ironically, international Human Rights Day—the Chilean military arranged for his open coffin to be viewed by his admirers. Francisco Cuadrado Prats, the grandson of Carlos and Sofía Prats, stood in the viewing line with hundreds of Pinochetistas; when he reached the coffin, he spit on the glass covering Pinochet’s face. “It was a spontaneous act to spit on him out of revulsion,” the young Prats recalled after he was beaten by Pinochet supporters and then arrested for his sacrilegious conduct, “because he had my grandparents murdered.” The Documents ebb 871 doc 1 Document 1 CIA, Intelligence Cable, [Special Mission of General Arellano Stark to Argentina], Secret, November 27, 1973 Nov 27, 1973 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project Only six weeks after the coup, General Pinochet dispatched one of his top deputies, General Sergio Arellano Stark, to Buenos Aires to conduct secret talks with the Argentine military. Arellano’s top priority, according to a CIA source, is to “discuss with the Argentine military any information they have regarding the activities of General (retired) Carlos Prats. Arellano will also attempt to gain an agreement whereby the Argentines maintain scrutiny over Prats and regularly inform the Chileans of his activities.” Instigated by “the Junta leadership,” according to the cable, this “special mission” provides the first evidence of Pinochet’s direct role in the Prats assassination case. ebb 871 doc 2 Document 2 DINA, [Prats Surveillance Report from Captain Juan Morales Salgado to DINA Director Manuel Contreras], Confidential, June 26, 1974 Jun 26, 1974 Source Prats family archives In June 1974, following a reported meeting in which General Pinochet ordered the elimination of General Prats, DINA director Manuel Contreras dispatched an operative to conduct surveillance on the movements of General Prats in Buenos Aires. In this rare DINA cable, Captain Juan Morales files an intelligence report that provides Prats’ addresses for home and work, as well as the workplace of his wife, Sofia Cuthbert. The surveillance report describes the models of the cars used by the Prats couple, provides an account of his movements, and notes the lack of security personnel to protect him. Morales also provides a hand-drawn diagram of the street and entrance to the Prats’ parking garage. ebb 871 doc 3 Document 3 Chilean Embassy, Buenos Aires, [Letter from Consul Álvaro Droguett del Pierro to the Foreign Ministry regarding Prats Passports], August 12, 1974 Aug 12, 1974 Source Prats family archives In this communication between the Chilean consulate in Buenos Aires and the Chilean Foreign Ministry, Consul Álvaro Droguett requests guidance on whether to provide General Prats and his wife Chilean passports so they can travel to Brazil. The response he receives only four days before the assassination is that it would be “inconvenient” to provide the passports to the Prats couple. After the Prats family demands a copy of the denial, Droguett provides them with a Xerox copy of his letter with a handwritten note at the bottom quoting the Ministry’s response and claiming that he only became aware of the denial on September 30th—the day of the assassination. ebb 871 doc 4 Document 4 CIA, Weekly Situation Report on International Terrorism, “Assassination of Former Chilean General Carlos Prats,” Secret, October 2, 1974 Oct 2, 1974 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project The CIA includes an initial report on the Prats assassination in its weekly summary of international terrorism. Their initial description cites erroneous police reports that the Prats were “killed by the blast of a bomb thrown at their car” along with machine gun fire as they returned to their home. The report accurately states that “the assassins were waiting for Prats and his wife as he drove up to his apartment building.” Further investigation soon revealed that the bomb had planted under the Prats’ Fiat 125 and later detonated by the assassins—DINA agents Michael Townley and his wife Mariana Callejas—who were waiting in a car across the street for the Prats to return. ebb 871 doc 5 Document 5 State Department, Cable, “Assassination of General Prats,” Limited Distribution, October 24, 1974 Oct 24, 1974 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project Reacting to press reports that point the finger of responsibility at the Chilean secret police, the U.S. Embassy reveals how detached it is from the ruthless reality of Pinochet’s repression. Ambassador David Popper dismisses a Radio Moscow report that DINA had assassinated General Prats “on basis of rationale that Chilean military leaders were afraid Prats would attract loyalty of Chilean armed forces personnel disaffected with performance of Junta.” “This explanation makes no sense to us,” Ambassador Popper reported. Nor do we see significant interest in killing Prats of any other Chilean group with capacity of doing so.” ebb 871 doc 6 Document 6 CIA, Intelligence Report, [Overview of Prats Assassination, Possible Perpetrators and Motivations], Secret, October 25, 1974 Oct 25, 1974 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project Almost a month after the Prats assassination, the CIA station files a report providing important details from official and confidential sources. The intelligence brief states that “official Argentine government circles consider the assassination of General Prats to be the work of Chileans,” although they are not sure “whether the assassination was the work of a Chilean left-wing or right-wing group.” The report reveals that Prats had received “a phone call from a Chilean attempting to assume an Argentine accent” warning that his life was in danger and urging him to leave the country. The CIA concluded the cable by citing a possible motivation for the assassination. “Prats had nearly completed his memoirs which strongly condemned many non-Popular Unity politicians and military officers” for their roles in the coup. ebb 871 doc 7 Document 7 State Department, Cable, “Prats Family Again Seeks Information,” Confidential, June 2, 1987. Jun 2, 1987 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project In a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, the daughters of Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert press their efforts to hold the murderers of their parents accountable. A top DINA officer, Armando Fernández Larios, who participated in the car bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, has recently turned himself in to U.S. officials, and the daughters seek to have him questioned in the Prats case. They also inform the Chargé that the Argentine courts are seeking the testimony of Chilean officers, but that the military regime has refused to cooperate. In this cable to Washington, Ambassador Harry Barnes requests information on whether the Argentine courts have the legal latitude to formally interrogate Michael Townley, who has finished his short incarceration for the Letelier-Moffitt assassination and is living in the United States under the witness protection program. ebb 871 doc 8 Document 8 U.S. Federal District Court, “Argentina’s Request for Assistance Through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty Regarding the Investigation of the Death of General Carlos Santiago Prats Gonzalez: Testimony of Michael V. Townley,” November 9, 1999. Nov 9, 1999 Source U.S. Federal District Court As part of Argentina’s legal effort to prosecute the perpetrators of the Prats’ murders in Buenos Aires, the DINA operative who planted and detonated the car bomb, Michael Townley, was officially interrogated by Argentine Judge Maria Servini in Washington, D.C., with the assistance of U.S. Justice Department attorney, John Beasley, Jr. In his sworn testimony, Townley recalled how a top DINA officer, Colonel Pedro Espinoza, had repeatedly approached him in late July and August 1974 about “doing something” about General Prats, who Espinoza described as a potential leader of a government-in-exile. Eliminating Prats “was for the wellbeing of the country,” Townley testified. “It was a patriotic request,” he stated. “So, I did it.” Townley described two trips to Buenos Aires in September 1974; during the first trip, he was unable to locate Prat’s address; during the second trip, another DINA officer provided him with the location of the apartment building at Malabia 3351. He described how he managed to sneak into the parking garage and attach the bomb he had assembled with two sticks of C4 explosives and an electronically activated detonator to the undercarriage of Prats’ Fiat. Although Townley repeatedly attempted to convince Judge Servini that he had acted alone in the bombing, under intense questioning he was forced to admit that his wife, Mariana Callejas, had accompanied him to Buenos Aires and participated in the mission. “She tried to detonate the bomb, but it did not function,” Townley confessed. “I took [the detonator] from her, pressed it, and it worked.”