The idea of 140 old men from South America, the majority over 70, being hauled before the courts is not an attractive one. But if the allegations against them are indeed true, these are not very attractive men. It is alleged that these former officers and officials of six South American dictatorships in the 1970s colluded in a sinister plot to murder their political opponents. Operation Condor involved governments in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru kidnapping left-wing activists on each other’s territory and murdering them or handing them over to their own governments to be murdered. It was a deplorably brutal operation in which anyone deemed to be in the least “left wing,” either as a political activist or a passive supporter, was considered fair game for these extrajudicial killings.

The military juntas that seized power in these countries were seen by Washington as a defense against the regional Communist threat emanating from Moscow’s outpost in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Since the Americans reasoned that democratic governments were always vulnerable to left-wing agitation, in Latin America with its long history of coups, they were happy to sponsor the seizure of power generally by military dictators. Washington thereafter turned a blind eye as these individuals set about eliminating left-wingers, whether trade unionists or intellectuals. Indeed, in the case of Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet who toppled the freely elected communist government of Salvador Allende, the US was full of praise for the dictator’s economic record. This at a time when his thugs were still hunting down the last left-wingers and by way of variation, “executing” them by throwing them from helicopters. It is only in recent years that it has become better understood how these six Latin American dictatorships liaised with each other to track down political enemies. It was always known that the CIA provided local intelligence to secret police, but it is more than likely that they also coordinated relations between the different regimes.

Now justice is finally catching up with the men who led the murderous campaigns. In Argentina, 17 former officials are under house arrest awaiting trial on a range of serious charges, many relating to Operation Condor. In Italy, some of whose citizens were victims of the dictators, has just issued warrants for the arrest of 140 suspects and actually arrested a former Uruguayan intelligence officer living in Italy.

Even after the passage of almost 40 years, it is absolutely right that these men should be made to answer the charges against them. They may be frail and gray-haired now, but when they were in their pomp, they showed no mercy to their victims and should, therefore, now expect none themselves. These proceedings are also important in demonstrating that the world will no longer tolerate human rights abuses and that, one day, those guilty of such crimes can expect to answer at the bar of justice. The only pity is that no warrants have been issued against former US officials.