Batallón de Inteligencia 601
Encyclopedia
Military of Argentina
The Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, in Spanish Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina, are controlled by the Commander-in-Chief and a civilian Minister of Defense...
intelligence service
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
of the Argentine Army
Argentine Army
The Argentine Army is the land armed force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of the country.- History :...
whose structure was set up in the late 1970s, active in the Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
and Operation Condor
Operation Condor
Operation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...
, and disbanded in 2000. Its personnel collected information on and infiltrated guerrilla groups and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
organisations, and coordinated killings, kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
s and other abuses.
The Batallón was under the orders of Guillermo Suárez Mason
Guillermo Suárez Mason
Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason was an Argentine military officer convicted for Dirty War crimes during the 1976 — 83 military dictatorship. He was in charge of the Batallón de Inteligencia 601.-Biography:...
and ultimately reported to junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri
Leopoldo Galtieri
Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli was an Argentine general and President of Argentina from December 22, 1981 to June 18, 1982, during the last military dictatorship . The death squad Intelligence Battalion 601 directly reported to him...
. The unit took part in Luis García Meza Tejada
Luis García Meza Tejada
Luis García Meza Tejada is a former Bolivian dictator. A native of La Paz, he was a career military officer who rose to the rank of general during the reign of dictator Hugo Banzer...
's Cocaine Coup
Cocaine Coup
Cocaine Coup is a term that has been applied to* the July 1980 coup in Bolivia of Luis García Meza Tejada* the August 1978 coup in Honduras of Policarpo Paz García...
in Bolivia
History of Bolivia
This is the history of Bolivia. See also the history of Latin America and the history of the Americas.Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America...
in 1980 and trained Contra units in Lepaterique
Lepaterique
Lepaterique is a municipality in the Honduran department of Francisco Morazán.A military base located in Lepaterique was used during the 1980s by the Contras and by the Argentine 601 Intelligence Battalion, which was involved in Operation Condor....
base in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
in the 1980s. It also trained members of the Honduran Battalion 316.
The Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian government is known to have collaborated with members of the group in the kidnapping, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and disappearance of a group of Montoneros
Montoneros
Montoneros was an Argentine Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing...
living in exile in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
in June 1980.
Declassification of documents
On 1 January 2010, President Cristina Fernández of ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
ordered that documents pertaining to Batallón 601 be declassified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
. The documents presented before federal Judge Ariel Lijo contain data on 3,952 civilians, from university professors to concierges, and 345 army personnel who worked for Battalion 601, according to the director of the National Archive of Memory
Archivo Nacional de la Memoria
The Archivo Nacional de la Memoria is an archive set up by decree 1259/2003 of the president of Argentina Néstor Kirchner on 16 December 2003 to obtain and process data pertaining to human rights violations by the Argentine State, obviously referring to events of the illegal dirty war of 1976 to...
.
See also
- Agustín FecedAgustín FecedAgustín Feced was a Major and Commander of the Argentine National Gendarmerie, and the head of the Police of the Province of Santa Fe for the city of Rosario, during the Dirty War...
- Archivo Nacional de la MemoriaArchivo Nacional de la MemoriaThe Archivo Nacional de la Memoria is an archive set up by decree 1259/2003 of the president of Argentina Néstor Kirchner on 16 December 2003 to obtain and process data pertaining to human rights violations by the Argentine State, obviously referring to events of the illegal dirty war of 1976 to...
- Argentine ArmyArgentine ArmyThe Argentine Army is the land armed force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of the country.- History :...
- Dirty WarDirty WarThe Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
- National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons
- Operation CharlyOperation CharlyOperation Charly , according to journalist María Seoane, was the alleged code-name of a right-wing covert operation to extend the illegal methods of repression used in the so-called "Dirty War" in Argentina to Central America...
- Operation CondorOperation CondorOperation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...
- Army Intelligence ServiceServicio de Inteligencia del Ejército (Argentina)Servicio de Inteligencia del Ejército is the Argentine Army's intelligence agency. It is a division of J-2 and reports to the Army's Jefatura II ....