Michel Chossudovsky: Washington's Pope? Who is Pope Francis 1? c

Cardinal Jorge Mario Berogoglio and Argentina's Dirty War. The Vatican conclave has elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis 1. Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio? In 1973, he had been appointed Provincial of Argentina for the Society of Jesus. In this capacity, Bergoglio was the highest ranking Jesuit in Argentina, during the military dictatorship led by General Jorge Videla 1976-1983. He later became bishop and archbishop of Buenos Aires. Pope John Paul II elevated him to the title of cardinal in 2001. When the military junta relinquished power in 1983, the duly elected president Raul Alfonsin set up a Truth Commission, pertaining to the crimes underlying the Dirty War (La Guerra Sucia). The military junta had been supported covertly by Washington. US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger played a behind the scenes role, in the 1976 military coup. Kissinger's top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that the coup that'we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long." (National Security Archive, March 23, 2006). "Operation Condor" Ironically, a major trial opened up in Buenos Aires on March 5, 2013, a week prior to Cardinal Bergoglio's investiture as Pontiff. The ongoing trial in Buenas Aires is: "to consider the totality of crimes carried out under Operation Condor, a coordinated campaign by various US backed Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, to hunt down, torture and murder tens of thousands of opponents of those regimes. For further details, see Operation Condor: Trial On Latin American Rendition And Assassination Program By Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh, March 10, 2013. The military junta led by General Jorge Videla was responsible for countless assassinations, including priests and nuns, who opposed military rule, following the CIA sponsored March 24, 1976 coup which overthrew the government of Isabel Peron: "Videla was among the generals convicted of human rights crimes, including disappearances, torture, murders and kidanappings. In 1985, Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment at the military prison of Magdalena. Wall Street and the Neo liberal Economic Agenda. One of the key appointments of the military junta, on the instructions of Wall Street, was the Minister of Economy, Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, David Rockefeller and General Jorge Videla. The neo-liberal macro economic policy package adopted under Martinez de Hoz,was a carbon copy of that imposed in October 1973 in Chile by the Pinochet dictatorship, under advice from the "Chicago Boys", following the September 11, 1976 military coup.