BORDERLINE BEHAVIOR

In the '70s, US diplomat Jeffrey Davidow helped cover up the atrocities of
Chile's Pinochet regime. Today he consorts with drug traffickers. Is this
who we want representing US interests in Mexico?

In Madrid, Spain, six time zones away from Chile, General Augusto Pinochet
is standing trial for torture under international law. Pinochet came to
power in a violent US-backed military coup; his military junta deposed and
murdered elected president Salvador Allende in September 1973. But though
he was a brutal dictator by any measure, he was only a cog in the wheel of
Chilean oppression. US officials funded and protected his barbarity, which,
critics of US foreign policy now take for granted, was planned not in his
country, but in the United States.

Pinochet, 83, is taking the fall for his Washington sponsors, among them
the late president Richard Nixon and former secretary of state Henry
Kissinger. In the process, another name has surfaced from the wealth of
recently declassified documents released in connection with the trial --
that of Jeffrey Davidow, the current US ambassador to Mexico, who cut his
diplomatic teeth as an officer in the US embassy in Chile during the coup.

Exactly how large or direct a role Davidow played in US-Chilean politics in
the early '70s is difficult to pin down. Davidow, who refuses to answer
questions about his alleged involvement, was posted to the US embassy in
Chile from 1971 to 1974 and held the title of political officer. Last week,
Josie Shumake, Davidow's press secretary at the US embassy in Mexico,
downplayed Davidow's authority during that time, telling the Phoenix that
Davidow "was a junior member" of the US embassy during the Chilean coup.
But typically -- and judging by the high-profile political activities of
Jan Erik Hall, who currently carries the title of political officer at the
US embassy in Mexico under Davidow -- the post of political officer in a US
embassy is not an inconsequential one.

Declassified memos document Davidow's active support of the US's now
discredited pro-Pinochet policies, a position Davidow has never publicly
addressed. The Mexican press is poring over the Pinochet-trial evidence
looking for links between Davidow and specific events of the Chilean coup
-- just as the ambassador comes under fire, from critics on both sides of
the border, for diplomatic behavior reminiscent of the high-handed tactics
employed by the US embassy in Chile 25 years ago.

In 1973, in the aftermath of the Chilean coup, a US citizen and journalist
named Charles Horman was assassinated by the Pinochet military. The
incident returned to the international spotlight in 1982, when the Horman
murder was dramatized in director Constantin Costa-Gavras's film Missing,
starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. The Oscar-nominated screenplay
recounted the frustrated efforts of the Horman family to locate Charles
Horman in the face of US embassy officials' indifference. The martyred
journalist's widow, Joyce Horman, and the Center for Constitutional Rights
are currently preparing to re-open their lawsuit against the US government
and then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger for the wrongful death of Horman.

The global conscience was pricked again this past October 8, when a US
State Department memo, reported by London's Independent, revealed that US
officials may have played "an unfortunate part" in the murder of Horman by
members of Pinochet's military regime. According to the 1976 memorandum,
which was addressed to Harry Shlaudeman, then the chief of inter-American
relations, and kept secret for 23 years:

In the best of cases, US Intelligence may have been involved in providing
or confirming information that helped motivate [Horman's] murder by the
government of Chile. At worst, US intelligence was aware the government of
Chile saw Horman in a rather serious light and US officials did nothing to
discourage the logical outcome of the government of Chile's paranoia.

Further, the memo spelled out that the US government's role in the Horman
assassination was "negligent -- or worse -- complicit."

The newly released public document does not mention Davidow, but the Mexico
City-based magazine Milenio has laid some of the blame for the Horman
cover-up at Davidow's door. According to Milenio, at least 18 of the 5000
documents from the CIA and other agencies that were declassified on June 30
refer to Davidow's direct role in protecting the right-wing military coup
-- a role that included advising investigators on the US government's
official position on the Horman disappearance.

According to the widening public record of this shameful chapter in US
foreign relations, Davidow was certainly aware of the Pinochet regime's
massive violations of human rights. In a memorandum dated May 22, 1974,
Davidow acknowledged the existence of "many thousands of detainees who have
not been brought to trial," eight months after the coup d'etat. Chilean
security forces, according to Davidow's memo, "often arrest individuals,
interrogate them, keep them in custody, and, as much as two weeks later,
issue the warrant for arrest based on information they have extracted
during the interrogation."

The word "interrogation" here is a euphemism for electric shocks, savage
beatings, sexual violations, and mutilations -- the tortures for which
General Pinochet now stands trial. Davidow, according to the newly opened
files, was instrumental in relaying the State Department's hands-off
approach toward these atrocities when they occurred, parroting what was
then the US's standard policy of ignoring human-rights issues among its
Latin American allies.

"The US Government of course recognizes the internal security problems
confronting Chile," Davidow told the leaders of the military regime, as
documented in his own "talking paper" for a 1974 meeting with the generals.

He went on to acknowledge the concern of some US congressmen about "the
human-rights questions . . . and the adverse effect upon the American
public." Yet Davidow clearly instructed the Pinochet regime not to worry
too much about the US Congress: "It is not the desire of the US Government
to tie the question of human rights to that of assistance," he wrote.

And on March 3, 1974, Davidow wrote another memo -- presumably again to the
military government -- suggesting there was "a conspiracy on the part of
the enemies of Chile to paint the Junta in the worst possible terms."

Ambassador Davidow declined to be interviewed by the Phoenix about his role
in Chile and his behavior as ambassador to Mexico, requesting that
questions pertaining to the issues addressed in this article be submitted
in writing. The ambassador received 31 detailed written questions. He
responded by fax and declined to answer, citing "inaccuracies, falsehoods,
and apparent biases in the questions," and criticizing assumptions taken
"from other biased or poorly researched press accounts."

Davidow remains the highest-ranking official involved in the Chilean coup
who continues to make US policy abroad.