Manuel Contreras conflict Operation Condor
Operation Condor
From 1973 to 1977, Contreras led the agency on an international hunt to track down and kill the political opponents of the Junta, particularly members of the Communist and Socialist Parties and the former guerrilla group and political party Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). On 25 November 1975, 
Pinochet's 60th birthday, leaders of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Contreras in Santiago de Chile and officially created the Plan Condor. According to the report "CIA activities in Chile," which was released on September 19, 2000, the US government policy community had approved the CIA's contact with Contreras from 1974 to 1977 to accomplish the CIA's mission in Chile in spite of his role in human rights abuses. By 1975, American intelligence reporting had concluded that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Pinochet government, but the CIA was directed to continue its relationship with Contreras and even gave Contreras a one-time payment in 1975. The CIA became concerned with Contreras's role in the assassination of a former Allende cabinet member and ambassador to Washington, Orlando Letelier, and his American assistant, Ronni Karpen Moffit in Washington, DC, on 21 September 1976. The CIA was said to have gathered specific detailed intelligence reporting alleging Contrera's involvement in ordering the Letelier assassination, but the purported material remains classified and has been withheld at the request of the US Department of Justice (CIA, 2000) CIA contacts with Contreras continued until 1977.
It cost me four years to pacify this country, and once again I will put it all together...Me costó cuatro años pacificar este país y otra vez voy a armarlo...
After Orlando Letelier was assassinated, tensions between Contreras and Pinochet grew over the course of his tenure, and the DINA was closed down in 1977 and replaced with a new apparatus, the National Informations Center (CNI).Contreras, Gerhard Mertins, Sergio Arredondo, and an unidentified Brazilian general traveled to Tehran in 1976 to offer a collaboration to the Shah regime to kill Carlos the Jackal. It is unknown what actually happened in the meetings.By 1979, Contreras was retired from the army at the rank of general, a rank that he held until his death.
battle warfare struggle fighting combat