Orlando Letelier

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Orlando Letelier.

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (April 13, 1932 - September 21, 1976) was a Chilean economist, political figure, diplomat and, later, US-based activist. He was assassinated in Washington, D.C. by Chilean DINA agents.

[edit] Background

He was born in the city of Temuco, the youngest child of Orlando Letelier Ruiz and Inés del Solar. He studied at the Instituto Nacional and, at the age of sixteen, he was accepted as a cadet of the Chilean Military Academy, where he completed his secondary studies. Later he abandoned the military life to attend the University of Chile, where he graduated as a lawyer in 1954. In 1955, he joined the recently formed Copper Office (Departamento del Cobre, now CODELCO), where he worked until 1959 as a research analyst in the copper industry. In that year, Orlando Letelier was fired for supporting Salvador Allende's unsuccessful second presidential campaign. The Letelier family had to retreat to Venezuela, where he became a copper consultant for the Finance Ministry. From there, Letelier made his way to then recently created Inter-American Development Bank, where he eventually became senior economist and director of the loan division. He was also one of the UN consultants responsible for the establishment of the Asian Development Bank.

He married Isabel Margarita Morel Gumucio on December 17, 1955, with whom had four children: Christian, Jose, Francisco, and Juan Pablo.

[edit] Political career

His first political participations were as a university student, when he became a student representative at the University of Chile's Student Union. In 1959 Letelier joined the Chilean Socialist Party (PS). In 1971 President Allende appointed him ambassador to the United States because he had some unique leadership qualities rare among Latin American revolutionaries of the time: chiefly among them a sophisticated grasp of the complexities of American politics and an in-depth knowledge of the copper industry. His specific mission was to try to explain to the US government the Chilean nationalization of copper.

During 1973, Letelier was recalled to Chile and served successively as minister of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defense. In the coup d'etat of September 11, 1973, he was the first high-ranking member of the Allende administration seized and arrested, when he arrived to his office at the Ministry of Defense. He was held for twelve months in different concentration camps suffering severe torture: first at the Tacna Regiment, then at the Military Academy; later he was sent for 8 months to a political prison in Dawson Island and from there he was transferred to the basement of the Air Force War Academy, and finally to the concentration camp of Ritoque, until international diplomatic pressure especially from Diego Arria, then Governor of the city of Caracas in Venezuela resulted in the sudden release of Letelier on the condition that he immediately leave Chile.

After his release in September of 1974, he and his family resettled in Caracas, but then Orlando Letelier decided to head for Washington D.C., at the proposal of American writer Saul Landau. In 1975 Letelier moved to Washington where he became senior fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS is an independent research institute based in Washington, D.C., devoted to international policy studies), where Landau worked at the time. He also became director of the Transnational Institute (TNI is an independent research institute based in Amsterdam), and taught at the School of International Services of the American University, in Washington, D.C. He plunged into writing, speaking and lobbying the US Congress and European governments against Augusto Pinochet's regime, and soon became the leading voice of the Chilean resistance, preventing several loans (especially from Europe) from being awarded to the military government. On September 10, 1976, he was deprived of his Chilean nationality by decree.

[edit] Assassination

Main article: Letelier case

Memorial on Sheridan Circle, Washington DC

Letelier was killed by a car bomb explosion on September 21, 1976, in Sheridan Circle, along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt; her husband Michael Moffitt was injured but survived. Several people were prosecuted and convicted for the murder. Among them were Michael Townley, a DINA U.S. expatriate who had once worked for the CIA; General Manuel Contreras, former head of the DINA; and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, also formerly of DINA. Townley was convicted in the United States in 1978; Contreras and Espinoza were convicted in Chile in 1993. General Augusto Pinochet, who died on December 10, 2006, was never brought to trial for the murders, although Townley implicated him as being responsible for them.

[edit] Unfinished Business

Following the death of Pinochet in December of 2006, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), for which both Letelier and Moffitt worked, is calling for the release of all the classified documents related to the Letelier-Moffitt assassination.

According the IPS, the Clinton Administration de-classified more than 16,000 documents related to Chile, but withheld documents related to the Letelier-Moffitt assassination in Washington on the grounds that they were associated with an ongoing investigation. The IPS says that the Clinton Administration did re-activate the investigation into the Letelier-Moffitt murders and sent agents to Chile to gather additional evidence that Pinochet had authorized the crime. The former Chilean Secret Police Chief, Manuel Contreras, who, as previously mentioned, was convicted for his role in the crime in 1993 and later pointed the finger at his boss, claimed that all his orders came from Pinochet.

Although a draft indictment of Pinochet was reportedly prepared, the Bush Administration failed to take action. The 'family members of Orlando and Ronni deserve the full truth about this horrible act', IPS Fellow Sarah Anderson said. 'Releasing the documents is the very least the Bush Administration could do for these victims of international terrorism'.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Additional information

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

• Dinges, John, and Landau, Saul. Assassination on Embassy Row (London, 1981) ISBN 0-07-016998-5, (McGraw-Hill, 1981)
• Dinges, John. The Condor Years (The New Press: 2004) ISBN 1-56584-764-4
• Hitchens, Christopher, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, (Verso: 2001) ISBN 1-85984-631-9
• Taylor Branch and Eugene M Propper Labyrinth (Viking Press 1983, Penguin Books1983 ISBN 0-14-006683-7)

[edit] External links

• Orlando Letelier Archive held by the Transnational Institute.
• MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base Nine legal documents from the trials of Letelier's assassins. Includes trial transcripts.
• Institute for Policy Studies, where Letelier and Moffitt worked at the time, gives circumstances surrounding bombing.
• John Dinges John Dinges was a correspondent for the "Washington Post" in South America from 1975 to 1983, author of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press 2004) and (with Saul Landau Assassination on Embassy Row (Pantheon 1980), (Asesinato en Washington, Lasser 1980, Planeta 1990)
• Biography at Memoria Chilena
• Short biographical sketch