On Dec. 23 Italian authorities arrested former Uruguayan navy captain Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli in Salerno. Fernandez Troccoli, who headed Uruguay's secret services for the 1973-1985 military dictatorship, had been ordered arrested on Dec. 17 by an Uruguayan judge investigating Operation Condor, a clandestine program of cooperation between South American militaries. The arrest led Italian authorities to renew their request for the detention of a total of 140 military officers and soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in connection with crimes against more than 25 people of Italian origin.

Giancarlo Capaldo, a prosecutor for the Criminal Court in Rome, has been investigating these cases since 1998. The victims include the Argentines Horacio Campiglia, Lorenzo Vinas, Dora Landi and Alejandro Logoluso; and the Uruguayans Gerardo Gatti, Maria Emilia Islas, Armando Bernardo Arnone, Juan Pablo Recagno, Daniel Banfi, Andres Domingo and Hector Giordano. Capaldo has indicated that Operation Condor also involved paramiltary groups, including Italian fascists, the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance and rightwing Cuban Americans in Miami. (La Jornada, Mexico, Dec. 26)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 6

See our last posts on Italy, Uruguay and Argentina's "dirty war" legacy.