Chile to ask US for further details on CIA activities

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) -- Chile said on Tuesday it will ask Washington for more details of a report claiming the head of the South American nation's secret police was a paid CIA informant during the regime of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear, referring to a report to the U.S. Congress that revealed last week the CIA had contacts with Manuel Contreras, head of Pinochet's feared DINA, said a diplomatic note will be sent to the United States in the coming days.

"We are going to send...a note to the U.S. government in a bid to attempt to clear up some situations," Alvear told a news conference.

• Story Archive   • Pinochet Image Gallery   • Key Dates in the Pinochet Case   • Message Board     RESOURCES Read the CIA Report on its Activities in Chile     ALSO Pinochet's defense to appeal medical test order

"As with all diplomatic notes, it is not public information and only once it had been dispatched will we make public the timing of its sending and its content," she said.

Contreras, who was convicted of plotting a car bomb assassination in Washington and is serving out a sentence in a Chilean jail, has denied last Wednesday's reports that he was a CIA agent and received a one-time payment from the agency.

Contreras is scheduled to be released from jail in January at the end of his sentence for having masterminded the car bomb attack that killed exiled Chilean socialist Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt in 1976 in Washington.

The report to U.S. Congress, which was required by an amendment sponsored by New York Democrat Representative Maurice Hinchey in legislation funding U.S. intelligence for 2000, claimed the CIA had contact with Contreras between 1974 and 1977.

The CIA was encouraged to have contact with Contreras, despite U.S. concerns he was involved in human rights abuses, because of his position as chief of the main intelligence organization in Chile, the CIA report said.

Despite human rights concerns, CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters met Contreras in Washington in August 1975 in the interest of maintaining good relations with Pinochet, the report said.

Among the information the CIA sought from Contreras was about "Operation Condor," set up by South American dictatorships to track dissidents who fled their home countries.

Contreras confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied it had a role in extra-judicial killings, the report said.

It also repeated past CIA assertions that no information was found to indicate the CIA was involved in the death of ousted Chilean President Salvador Allende.

The CIA tried unsuccessfully to block Allende from being elected and was directed to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office, the report said.

But efforts toward that goal failed after one of three groups of plotters abducted and assassinated Chilean Army Commander Rene Schneider.

The coup that overthrew Allende took place three years later in September 1973. The CIA said it did not instigate the coup but had been aware of the plotting by the military.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

See related sites about Americas

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.