?Who's a Rat Message Board

Whats worse than an informant? A former law enforcement officer that turns against his brothers just for a few dollars. You are a disgrace.

Celerino "Cele" Castillo III
Author "Powderburns"
2709 N. 26 1/2 Street
McAllen, Texas 78601
Phone: 210-631-3818

Response by Celerino Castillo III, Ex-DEA Special Agent in Guatemala, To The IOB (Intelligence Oversight Board) Report on Guatemala (IOB Report Released June 28, 1996)

On June 28, 1996, a special panel appointed by President Clinton released its findings on CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) activities in Guatemala. This 67 page report by the IOB (Intelligence Oversight Board) reveals some of the disturbing aspects of covert operations in that country, but is incomplete and even erroneous in parts. The report alludes to the CIA's support of human rights violators in Guatemala but has barely scratched the surface in revealing the depth to which the CIA has been involved in murders and other crimes in that country.

I spent five years as a special agent for the DEA (US Drug Enforcement Administration) in Central America, based in Guatemala from 1985 to 1990. I participated in numerous joint operations with the CIA And Guatemalan security forces, principally the D-2 (Guatemala Military intelligence, formerly called the G-2). My biggest concern about the IOB investigation is that I see no evidence to indicate that the panel interviewed CIA or DEA agents that worked in the field in Guatemala. If they had, I am sure the report would have come to very different conclusions. The level of CIA and DEA involvement in operations that included torture and murder in Guatemala is much higher than the report indicates. With US Anti-narcotics funding still being funneled to the Guatemalan Military, this situation continues. It is important to be clear about both the CIA and the DEA support of criminal activities. I would urge the IOB to subpoena agents of the DEA and the CIA who were assigned to Guatemala to come forward. We have been ordered not to tell the truth, but many of us would do so if required to give sworn testimony. I, myself participated in several missions in which the Guatemalan Military Intelligence (D-2) killed civilians with the knowledge of DEA and CIA agents. One example in which the D-2, CIA and DEA worked together was the Puerto Barrios case, in which 2,404 kilos of cocaine was seized and in which the D-2 murdered and raped two Mexican females, torture and murder their father and several Colombians. Several US citizens were captured in Guatemala and served several years in a Guatemala prison. These Americans were on board the M/V Daring which was loaded by Guatemalan Congressman with 2,404 kilos of cocaine. CIA agent Randy Capster and myself witness the capture of the mexican females and the others involved. This was investigated by the DEA's OPR (Office of Personal Responsibility). Their conclusion was that the murders were committed by the D-2 with the knowledge of the CIA and the DEA. (See DEA case file number TG-86-0005 entitled "Carlos Ramiro Garcia de Paz", (Guatemalan Congressman). Under the Freedom of Information Act, ABC's "Prime Time Live" was able to obtain the documents that prove these allegations.

On page 20, the IOB report states that "the human rights records of the Guatemalan security services...the D-2 and the Department of Presidential Security (known informally as the "Archivos")...were generally known to have been reprehensible by all who were familiar with Guatemala. US policy makers knew of both the CIA's liaison with them and the services unsavory reputation." The report is referring to the fact that the D-2 and the archivos have been responsible for a continuous stream of kidnappings, tortures, killings and disappearances of civilians. The IOB clearly connects the D-2 and the Archivos to the CIA. ALSO, on page 19, the IOB Report alludes to the fact that there was "cooperation between the Guatemalans, the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration." The language here is vague, but it is important that the IOB know that the DEA has worked specifically with the D-2 on most operations in Guatemala. Therefore the IOB should investigate DEA as well as CIA activities in Guatemala. The reason that DEA agents work with the D-2 on most of their missions in Guatemala is that the US Embassy in coordination with DEA Headquarters have ordered them to do so, and because the D-2 controls all the eavesdropping equipment in Guatemala (wiretapping, monitoring fax machines and email, etc.)

The Administrator of the DEA, Thomas Constantine, claims that the "DEA has never engaged in any joint narcotics programs with the Guatemala military." (See DEA letter to Congressman Lloyd Doggett sent by Thomas Constantine, dated May 28, 1996, page 2). However, on September 13, 1989, SA Larry Hollifield and myself, as DEA agents, gave Colonel Ortega, then head of the D-2 (CIA and DEA Asset) $10,000 in traffickers funds. This is recorded in DEA case file number TG-90-0011 under the title "Dario Restrepo-Fernandez." This is only one of the many case files that documents the DEA's connections to the D-2. I know, because I filed many myself as part of my job.

The connection between the DEA, the D-2 and the CIA (as the liaison to the D-2) still exist, and anti-narcotics funds continue to support the activities of the D-2, despite the many people they murder. One example is the D-2's murder of DEA informant (STG-86-0004) Luis Montoya, "El Coyote". I have been under orders not to reveal the truth. Some of the agents have been forced to lie in their reports to hide the murders. Since we have to work with the D-2 we are not allowed to report on them. I ask that the IOB and Congress call us in for questioning. That is the only way the truth will come out.

THE MICHAEL DEVINE CASE AND THE PROTECTION OF A DRUG TRAFFICKING CIA ASSET:

The IOB Report refers repeatedly to the fact that the CIA misled Congress by not revealing that its Guatemalan assets had committed human rights violations that included kidnappings and assassination and refers to one protected CIA asset in particular, Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez. The report states on page 16 that Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez "clearly participated in the cover-up of the [Guatemalan] military's role in DeVine's death." Devine was an American innkeeper who owned an inn in Guatemala. He was killed in June 1990, murdered by Guatemalan soldiers, according to the IOB report. What the report does not mention, however, is that colonel Alpirez was the director of the notorious Archivos while he was also a CIA asset and that he had previously been reported to the DEA for drug trafficking. This is documented in DEA General file number GFTG-88-9077 with file name "Corrupt Official" dated June 09, 1988. I was the agent who initiated the file. Colonel Alpirez is also documented as a narcotics trafficker in DEA case file number TG-88-0009 entitled "Moreno-Campos, Aparicio", dated August 25, 1988 and submitted by me. In both case files, Alpirez is named along with his subordinate, Carlos Rene Perez-Alvarez, who was known as Won Ton of La Mano Blanca (the White Hand of the death squads). Carlos Rene Perez-Alvarez operated "la panel blanca" (the White Van) that has patrolled the streets of Guatemala for so many years, kidnapping and murdering people for the death squads. According to reliable DEA informants, Colonel Alpirez was Won-Ton's superior in these kidnapping and murder operations as well as in illegal drug dealing.

Both files I just mentioned are in the hands of Michael Tubach, the Assistant US Attorney involved in the ongoing Grand Jury investigation of the Dianna Ortiz and Michael DeVine cases. He showed me these reports in January, just before he attempted to discredit my testimony to the Grand Jury. I found out that the Grand Jury had been forewarned about my allegations, creating a very hostile environment for me. In defense of my character and my performance for the DEA, I would like to point out that all evaluations of my work as a DEA special agent have been "outstanding" and "excellent." ABC's Prime Time Live was able to document that fact when they researched my claims about Guatemala for an expose they aired on December 27, 1995. They did a great deal of research and found me credible.

Returning to the case of DeVine, the IOB report gives several possible motives for his murder, but consistently states that the actual killing was committed by Guatemalan soldiers. On page A-3, the report refers to a personality profile on DeVine that was "generally positive, but noted a somewhat aggressive manner and a readiness to denounce people involved in narcotics trafficking." The latter comment is, in my view, a key to the reason that he was killed. The connections of DeVine to Alpirez, Alpirez to the CIA, the CIA to the D-2 and the D-2 to the murder of DeVine can all be found in the IOB report, supporting what I was told about the case.

Here is what I believe to be the truth about the DeVine case, according to my sources.

1. Colonel Alpirez was trafficking drugs. (see DEA case file number GFTG-88-9077 and number TG-88-0009).
2. Colonel Alpirez was a CIA asset (according to the IOB report and numerous other sources).
3. DeVine gained knowledge of Alpirez's drug trafficking activities while Alpirez was training Kaibil forces in the Peten close to his farm.
4. DeVine reported Alpirez's drug trafficking activities to the US Embassy in Guatemala.
5. After DeVine reported Alpirez to the US Embassy, Randy Capister, a CIA agent operating out of the embassy, contacted Colonel Francis (Paco) Ortega, former head of the D-2, and a CIA and DEA asset. He told Ortega that DeVine had reported Colonel Alpirez (another CIA asset) for drug trafficking. (per phone conversation between myself and Randy Capister after the death of DeVine in 1990).
6. Colonel Ortega contacted the new head of the D-2, Colonel Cesar Cabrera, who had been under Ortega's command earlier (When Colonel Ortega was head of the D-2, Cabrera was a lieutenant colonel and Ortega's second in command).
7. Cabrera, chief of the D-2 ordered the so-called "interrogation" of DeVine and was therefore "indirectly responsible for DeVines death" (See IOB report page A-3). (This "interrogation" included a machete blow that almost completely severed DeVine's head from his body.)

The steps I just outlined are what happened according to the information I received. I believe that the account that soldiers were attempting to recover a rifle or two rifles from DeVine was a cover story to justify an "interrogation" that resulted in his decapitation.

THE CIA'S CONTINUED PERCEPTION OF A COMMUNIST THREAT.

The writers of the IOB Report found that even after the end of the Cold War, the CIA in Guatemala continued to see themselves battling the War on Communism as their top priority. On page 20, the IOB report states "Station officers continued to view the communist insurgents--who seemed to threaten a more democratic government--as the primary enemy, and they viewed the Guatemalan government and security services as partners in the fight against this common foe and against new threats such as narcotics and illegal alien smuggling."

While in Guatemala working together with he DEA, I learned that the CIA actually planned and supervised raids, allegedly participating in the murders of the 1980's, according to my informants. CIA agent Randy Capister stated that Guatemala and El Salvador were our training ground for CIA agents, the place to see if they had what it took to be CIA operatives, In my view, the US continues to support murders in Guatemala because there is very little oversight by Congress and others over their activities, and because the CIA personnel have an attitude that it has always been that way and have not motive to change. As the IOB Reports suggests on page 20, the CIA justifies its actions by stating that they are fighting the War against Communism. There is more to this attitude that the CIA agents perceiving the rebels (e.g. the URNG and OPRA) as communist enemies. The CIA and Guatemalan army also label as communist sympathizers anyone who opposes the traditional oppressive role of the Guatemalan military. Therefore, they label as communists or communist sympathizers, priests and nuns who work to elevate the position of the poor in society, union organizers endeavoring to achieve just wages and fair working conditions (opposing the elite power structure aligned with the military), indigenous leaders (the Indians are kept down so that they can be used as cheap laborers by the rich, who are supported by the military) and student activists in the university system and the high schools (who are working for a better education and for justice in the Guatemalan society against the forces of corruption and oppression.) The CIA supports the intimidation, kidnapping and torture, surveillance and murder of these people. As an example, look at the case of Dianna Ortiz, the American nun who was working with poor children and was kidnapped, raped and tortured by Guatemalan soldiers. (The IOB report refers briefly to the incident, declining to comment because the case is presently under investigation by the Department of Justice). I was present at the US Embassy in Guatemala, when, just after the incident, several members of the DEA, State Department and CIA jokingly asked me if Dianna Ortiz had been good at sex. The reason they were teasing me was that she had said that an American Hispanic with possible ties to the US Embassy had been present during her torture and rape. Since everyone at the Embassy knew that I worked with the Guatemalan Military's D-2, and Sister Ortiz reported that soldiers had captured her, the people at the Embassy assumed that I was the American involved. (She was later shown photos of me and stated that I was not the person she had seen there, referred to by the soldiers as their boss.) I believe the reason that these DEA, State Department and CIA personnel would joke about such a thing is that they label Dianna Ortiz as a communist sympathizer. People with that mind set do not believe that she should be protected.

FACTS MISSING IN IOB REPORT ON US FUNDS GOING TO GUATEMALAN SECURITY FORCES:

Speaking of the funding of covert actions in Guatemala, the IOB Report states on page 20, "The funds the CIA provided to the Guatemalan liaison services were vital to the D-2 and the Archivos... The CIA, with knowledge of ambassadors and the State Department and National Security Council officials, as well as Congress, continued this aid after the termination of overt military assistance in 1990... Overall CIA funding levels to the Guatemalan services dropped consistently form $3.5 million in FY 1989 to about $1 million in 1995."

This last statement fails to take into account at least two factors:

1. The DEA has also been supplying funds to the D-2 asset and yet there is no mention of DEA monetary contributions to the D-2 in the report.
2. There is no mention of the ongoing funds confiscated in drug busts that were jointly conducted by the CIA, DEA and D-2. These moneys went into the coffers of the D-2 for further support of covert operations. For instance, $5 million in cash was allegedly taken in during the Puerto Barrios drug bust in which I participated. Informants said the money was split between the CIA and the D-2. In the field, we saw that every time there was a narcotics operation by the CIA, DEA and D-2 working together, the D-2 kept money. On every flight that came clandestine with drugs there was on average, approximately $100,000 in cash on board (intended to be front money for future illegal drug operational expenses). On several occasions I saw these moneys on the drug busts in which I participated as a DEA agent. This money was confiscated by the D-2 with the knowledge of the CIA and allegedly used as a slush fund for any type of D-2 operations.
3. On Dec. 03, 1988, the DEA and the D-2 seized 356 kilos of cocaine (Case file number TG-89-0002, Hector Sanchez.). Several Colombian pilots were murder by the D-2 with the knowledge of the DEA. Action pictures of the D-2 were taken during the arrest and other photos were taken after their torture. This case documented the Piper Company in Guatemala City. The company is owned by Gregory Valdez also document as a narcotic trafficker in said file.

For the past several years before and after the seizure, the DEA and the CIA still rented hangers, purchase gasoline and paid large quantities of Money for storage of our helicopters and aircraft both for the CIA and DEA. Several contract pilots for the DEA and CIA worked out of Piper and most were documented narcotic traffickers. We utilized all operation with the D-2 out of Piper.

EMBARRASSMENT TO US GOVERNMENT AS REASON FO THE COVER-UP

I realize that one foreign policy objective is to save the US government from embarrassment. Therefore scandals are covered up. However, I believe there are other considerations more important than saving the US government from embarrassment. If the activities that I have described here are not exposed, then they will continue. There is too much at stake here to allow a cover cover-up. The truth must be brought to light and the facts examined and analyzed so that the problems in our system of covert activities can be addressed. Changes must be made in the congressional oversight process and in the method of recruiting and training CIA and DEA personnel. Every day more drugs flow into the US, destroying the lives of our young people. There is no excuse for the CIA and DEA aiding and abetting drug traffickers.

I still have contact with informants in Guatemala. They tell me that the CIA atrocities continue. The death squads continue, according to MINUGUA (the UN Mission to Guatemala) reports. Only by bringing in DEA agents and CIA agents to testify under oath can this situation begin to be changed. Many CIA and DEA activities go against stated US foreign policy (e.g. the support of human rights and the democratic process.) The US government entities in Guatemala have been focused on how to deal with the communists there and have totally lost sight of what drug trafficking is doing to the United States. They allow powerful individuals in Third World countries to carry on high level narcotics trafficking and justify this in the name of protecting democracies. To illustrate the magnitude of the narcotics problem in Guatemala, the most notorious drug lord (Juan Garcia Abrego) is being prosecuted in the US because of his conspiracy to export large quantities of cocaine from Colombia to the US via Guatemala. It is crucial for the US to stop supporting these activities.

Sincerely

[Signed]

Celerino Castillo III
July 22, 1996
210-631-3818

In an attempt to communicate the structure of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, I need to touch on the history of these units that scorched the earth.  History has revealed them as some of the worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere; more significantly, history will also reveal that U.S. government agencies were complicit in drug trafficking, assassinations, gun trafficking, and the birth of the "escuadrones de la muerte," death squads.

In third world countries the United States government has supported dictatorships like Gen. Augusto PINOCHET in Chile and Ngo Dinh DIEM in Vietnam.  In Central America we used the death squads in part of U. S. interest.  U.S. companies like Del Monte, and Libby took land by force in Latin America and used it for their profits.  This was done with the assistance on the death squads.

In September 1987, an airstrip in the U.S. company's properties (Hopi, Guatemala) was used by international drug trafficking organizations. These drug cartels had paid off the administrators of the banana farms. We conducted surveillance on the clandestine cocaine laden aircrafts that landed at the farms. The rail road cards, mostly used for transportation of banana shipment to the port of Puerto Barrios, was used to transport over 2,000 kilos (seized) of cocaine from Hopi to Puerto Barrios.  CIA agent Randy CAPSITER once told me that in these third world countries, "the U.S. had bought and paid for the countries". We chose the presidents, scheduling elections when the previous puppet wore out their welcome.  Most of the time the ruling elite and the military have a chokehold on the republic that no mere politician could pry loose.

The Unites States also had always supported Gen. Manuel Antonio NORIEGA, Panama's dictator. But when he refuses to train the CONTRAS in Nicaragua, the U.S. government had him arrested and extradited to the U.S. These are just a few reasons how our government built these third world counties, so called democracies.

In El Salvador, from 1961-1979, the death squads were initiated within a new vigilante organization called Democratic National Organization ("La Orden", which means "to keep order").  This became known as "La Mano Blanca," literally translated "a hand with a white glove that cleanses the country."  The CIA, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the DEA violated U.S. laws.  One law in particular, the third of five Boland Amendments prohibiting U.S. assistance to the CONTRA rebels had been in effect for a year at that point and in April, 1985, the House of Representatives had rejected $14 million in non-military aid to the Contras, despite President Reagan's energetic lobbying for his favorite Rebels.  The other law was a violation of the Neutrality Act, a joint resolution providing for the prohibition of the export of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to belligerent countries; the prohibition of the transportation of arms, ammunition, and implements of war by the United States for the use of belligerent states.

The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America was a case heard in 1986 by the International Court of Justice which ruled in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States. As part of its judgment, the International Court of Justice awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The International Court of Justice found that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting Contra guerrillas in their war against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The Court ruled in Nicaragua's favor after the States lost the argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

The President's Intelligence Oversight Board (1980s IOB) found that even after the end of the Cold War, the CIA in Central America continued to see the War on Communism as their top priority.  The report reveals that station officers continued to view communist insurgents who seemed to threaten a more democratic government as the primary enemy, and they viewed government and security services as partners in the fight against the common foe and against new threats such as narcotics trafficking. In my opinion, the communist in our "back yard" was a myth, a pretext to gather support from the American people to fight bogus wars.  As we know today, most of Latin America has gone "left," as they say, because the United States government has never implemented a true democracy in Latin America.  Recently, the FLMN won the presidential elections in El Salvador.

As I traveled through Central America for five years, I kind of figure out that the only way that I was going to do my job, was to step on toes of the White House.  There were already several serious violations that our government had been implicating in from drug trafficking, arms trafficking, or human rights violations.  Upon my arrival in Central America I was forewarned by my boss Bob STIA that what was happening in Central America were covert operations that had been green lighted by the White House.

At first, when I was exposed to these atrocities, I felt that an explanation would be coming soon, as how the end justified the means.  And when that didn't happened, I was in a state of denial. I could not understand why one arm of our government were putting their lives on the line, while the other, was sleeping with the evil doers.  I was so confused because we had just lost (murdered) DEA agent Kike Camarena in Mexico, and yet here we were dancing with the enemy. STIA had also warned me that if I continue to report these atrocities that I would be send back to the states, as a persona non grata.  This was not what I had joined up for; I was looking for a job when I had found this one.  But I also had to be realistic, that because of my continuing actions, no other government agency would hire me.  I also knew that my days were numbered, so I decided not to wait for the beast, but to chase it.

Surprisingly, I received another warning from my ex-wife.  She warned me, "your country is not going to stand by you, for embarrassing them."  I smiled with an expression of concerns.  I have never run from anything in my life, and so I did what my father had always taught me to do, do the right thing. I continued to keep journals and take lots of pictures of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I had a feeling that one day, I would use these materials and here I am writing this story.

It did not surprise me that most of my life, I was always the first to get to an accident as a police officer, the first to go through the door on a drug raid, or the first out of an assault helicopter into a cocaine lab. I was realizing, I was still looking for the bullet with my name that I had evaded in Vietnam. The beast had become the hunted.  Here I was wearing several hats as a special agent of my government; I was training the death squads, running covert operation for my government, conducting undercover assignments against corrupt governments and drug cartels.  When the military of a third world government wanted to dispose of a General or Colonel, I was used to entrap him into whatever they wanted. I kept asking myself, is this my government, which 58,000 Vietnam veterans gave their lives for?

CIA agent Randy CAPISTER, who worked with me for approximately five years in Latin America, once said to methat Central America was a suitable place for CIA operatives to prove themselves. From the very beginning he attempted to get close to me, to spy on me.  As I later learned, he had my telephones tap because I had one of the best intelligence networks in Latin America.  I could be trusted by my sources.   He also warned me that I could write all the reports I wanted, that history would show that this was business as usual in Latin America AND that no one was going to stop the CIA of doing what they did best.  He even put a little smile on his statement. In 1994, we were both subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington D.C., as to our knowledge of what occurred in Central America during the 1980s.  Not surprisingly, our testimony was sealed for National Security purposes.

U.S. Army Col. James STEELE, (MILGROUP COMMANDER) had been in El Salvador for a couple of years, before I arrived in Central America. As documented, he was the primary advisor to the death squads in that country.  He was also in charged with smuggling weapons to the CONTRA operation in Nicaragua.  He took it upon himself to lie, in protecting higher ups, about his involvement to the Senate Intelligence Committee. This was well documented in the Final Report of the Iran/Contra Special Prosecutor Report.  Col. STEELE was a soldier's soldier. Every time I met with him, he wore his Vietnam jungle fatigues, heavily starched and spit-shined boots.

Col. James STEELE surprisingly indicated to me when I first met him, that El Salvador was the training grounds for the U.S. military to see if our special units had what it took to be a soldier's soldier. In the early 1980's, a U.S. Army Ranger unit was deployed covertly into El Salvador on a "search and destroy" mission.  This was an illegal act by the U.S. government to send U.S. troops into a combat zone in a foreign country, without the approval of Congress and Senate.  This was not the first time that the U.S. military invaded a third world country in conducting covert operations.  The civil wars were an excellent place to run operations without any check and balances. The Ranger unit was ambushed by the guerrillas (Gs) and took heavy losses.  Soon after, the body bags of the casualties were placed into a U. S. military cargo plane (C-130) and transported to a U.S. military base in Georgia, where a helicopter accident was staged to justify their deaths.  Several years back family members of the Ranger units went to the media in an attempted to ascertain what really happened to their love ones. They were not satisfied with the government's version of what had occurred.  This incident was reported in the media in one of the Rangers' family out of Seattle, Washington. At one time I had a newspaper clipping of the story, but misplaced it in thousand of newspaper clippings that I had gather over the years.  However, this information was revealed to me by U.S. Lt. Col. Albert Adame, who worked under Col. James STEELE in El Salvador.

In one particular case I came to Col. STEELE because an American Walter Grashien was hanging around hangers 4 & 5 at Ilopango, El Salvador.  He immediately denied that he had anything to do with him.  I gave him some intelligence that this individual was documented in FBI files and DEA files as a bad guy.  He said that GRASHIEN might be a CIA asset.  At the end of the day, no one would claim him.  When I raided his house in El Salvador, he had weapons, radios, and vehicles belonging to Col. James STEELE. It was revealed that he was part of a covert operation at Ilopango who supported the CONTRAS.

    The co-founder of El Salvador's death squads was a former major with the Salvadoran Military.  His followers addressed him as "Mi Mayor" Roberto D'AUBUISSON.   He conducted selective assassinations of community leaders, labor organizers, human rights workers, rural activists and others.  These assassinations replaced wholesale massacres.  He was also instrumental in planning and carrying out the assassination of Archbishop Romero.  Roberto D'AUBUISSON was a graduate of the notorious the School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), which has an extensively documented history of training some of the hemisphere's worst human rights abusers.  It acquired its nickname the "School of Assassins" for obvious reasons.  D'AUBUISSON was also on the payroll of the CIA, like most Salvadoran Military Command.  While I was in El Salvador, the DEA received information that the El Mayor was involved in drug trafficking utilizing his shrimp company.  He requested a meeting with me to explain that the drug trafficking had been approved by the U.S. government.  He wanted to assure me that he was going to deny the DEA allegation, but on the other hand, he wanted to let me know, that he had a green light by the CIA, and that there was nothing I could do about it.  This was just another way of supplementing his income for covert operations.

A U. S. advisor, Lt. Col. Alberto Adame, a fellow Texan, recommended one of his friends as a firearms instructor for the newly formed DEA drug task force in El Salvador.  When he introduced the short, middle-aged man, the name clicked in my head immediately.  Dr. Hector Antonio REGALADO was a household name in the country's power corridors.  I was shaking hands with "Dr. Death," as he was known in U.S. political circles, the man reputed to be the Salvadoran death squads' most feared interrogator.  On the surface, REGALADO was a friendly, genteel man.  Underneath his gentle demeanor, though, he was the type who would shoot a man between the eyes, then spit on him to make sure the point got across.

In El Salvador, he was known simply as "El Doctor."  REGALADO'S prestige among the right wing stemmed from his ability to extract teeth - and information - without anesthesia.  He was also the right hand man of "Mi Mayor".  I wanted no part of "El Doctor".  I asked the Colonel if the embassy had approved REGALDO as an advisor.  He said Col. James STEELE had given REGALDO his blessing.  Because the task force funding was by way of the CIA, I had to use him as the firearms instructor.At first, I contacted Jack MACAVET, CIA chief of station in El Salvador.  As I closed the door to his office, I saw him open the top drawer of his desk and pulled a bundle of money, $45,000.00.  Before, I could ask any question he said, "Go buy yourselves some cars." I signed a receipt and gave it to him. At the end, I took my concern to my boss Bob STIA, who shrunk his shoulders and said, in broken Spanish, "Que sera, sera!" He was not about to make any waves in Washington. It was a fact; REGALADO had been green lighted before he had come to me.

REGALADO turned out to be one hell of a shooter.  In a demonstration to the young cadets, he pulled his .45 from its waxed holster, removed the clip, and smiled at the eager faces around him.  Without saying a word, he ran straight at the wall, his eyes fixed on an imaginary assailant to his left.  The click-click-click of the empty .45 echoed in the room as REGALADO ran up the wall and snapped into perfect back flip, landing on his feet.  The recruits looked at each other, grinning.  El doctor knew how to get his point across.  He was amazing.

After a couple of years working with him, he realized that he could trust me. After the attempts on his life became frequent, because for the first time, the guerillas were fighting back.  He called me one day and asked me to meet me at his office.  The fact that he could trust me was no indication that I trust him. I had learned later in life that I trusted no one, not even myself at times. I decided to bring along with me a DEA source (Ramiro Guerra) who had worked with me for a while. We picked the doctor up and drove around El Salvador for the whole day.  He literally showed us, "where the bodies were buried".  This were not quite the "killing fields" of Cambodia, but were of los desaparcidos (the disappeared).  Most of the time, the death squads' victims were never found.  Unless they wanted them to make their point and dropped you in front of the victim's homes, as an example of what was to come to those who opposed oppression.  Some of the burials later turned out to be mass graves.  I took notes and drew sketches of the burial sites as we drove.  I found Dr. Death to be a very intelligent individual who was able to remember dates and names of some of the victims. Since this intelligence information was more of a CIA issue, so I thought.  It never really crossed my mind that maybe the CIA participated in these atrocities. I delivered the intelligence to Janis Elmore, CIA political officer at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador. Well, needless to say, she turned out to be a CIA agent, whose cover was to be a political officer. The CIA had their whole operations pretty well covered at the U.S. embassy, incase information like mine was ever revealed to U.S. personnel.

In 1989, I was in San Salvador when members of the death squads killed six Jesuit priests.  A Salvadoran Military Major had been assigned to the task force to give and gather intelligence.  He came to me and asked to meet him at a local hotel.  He stated that he had received intelligence on some rebels that were gathering at some church grounds. I asked him why he was coming to me, when this had nothing to do with drug trafficking.  He stated that members of the Milgroup would be assigned to this operation.  Of course, by this time I knew something was not right and my instinct turned out to be right. I became involved in the initial planning of the operation as too who from the task force would take part in this operation.  However, I advised him that I would need to get approval from my supervisor. I did not need approval but that was the excuse I had to give him.  At the end, I pulled the group out of it and sure enough, it was a massacred.  As I found out later, the plot was to blame the guerillas for the murders backfired because a U.S. advisor on the operation blew the whistle after returning to the states a couple of days later. What the Major was attempting to do was to get as far away from the Salvadoran military so that others would take the fall for the massacred, but at the end, he had to use his own people and did what they did best, kill innocent people. The Salvadoran officers involved in the killings were, without surprise, graduates of the School of the America.  The United States government had a sure thing with the factor of producing these American made home grown terrorist.  Between 1989 and1990, while I was in El Salvador, Joya MARTINEZ testified about the role played by U.S. officials in death squad killings carried out by the U.S. trained first infantry Brigade's intelligence unit.  His unit performed 74 executions between April and July 1989.  He said his first brigade unit was attached to a U.S. trained ATLACATL battalion, which slaughtered the Jesuit priests.

           In 1987, Times Magazine reported that Central American death squads were operating in the Los Angeles, CA area.  The death squads had taken their assassinations into the U.S.  The death squads were now gunning for Salvadorans who were speaking against the Salvadoran Military in the United States of America.  These death squads members were attending protest rallies in Los Angeles and taking pictures of their targets. There were several cases where there were actual civil suits filed against members of the Salvadoran Military Generals.  At the request of the CIA agent Randy CAPISTER, I was able to obtain from one of my sources in the Guatemalan government some "blank" Guatemala passports.  According to CAPISTER these passports were going to be used by assets of the CIA to travel abroad.  CAPISTER later stated that passports were use by the death squads to enter the U.S.

In Guatemala, the former Vice-President of Guatemala, Mario SANDOVAL-ALARCON, became the grandfather of the death squads.  For several years, SANDOVAL was the driving force behind the Guatemalan government and became the legitimized of his paramilitary operations.  Ronald REAGAN once praised SANDOVAL for declaring war against communists in Latin America at any cost.  SANDOVAL once boasted to the mediathat he had a private army of three thousand and the ability to put thousands more paramilitary troops into action on short notice.  For his efforts, President REAGAN invited SANDOVAL to attend his inaugural ceremonies. This information is well documented in the REAGAN archives.

Guatemala Military Gen. Francisco "Paco" ORTEGA- MENALDO ran the death squads for SANDOVAL.  Former G-2 agents described ORTEGA'S program of surveillance backed by a web of torture centers and clandestine body dumps.  On several occasions, I traveled with G-2 to a Guatemalan base in Huehuetenango, where they maintained their own crematorium and "processed" abductees by chopping off limbs, singeing flesh and administering electric shocks. When I was stationed in Guatemala, the DEA was instructed to work with Gen. ORTEGA.  Even though the General was on the CIA payroll, DEA agent Larry HOLIFIELD paid the General $10,000.00 of trafficker's funds.  The U.S. government had also assigned other individuals to train these units.  The CIA assigned CIA agent Randy CAPISTER and CIA asset, Victor RIVERA, a Venezuelan, to work hand in hand with the Guatemalan G-2.  CIA agent Randy CAPISTER supported financial assistance and logistics.  CAPISTER was known to develop bombs out of letters and books.  Most of these explosives ended up in the hands of individuals who opposed the Guatemalan government.  The recipients were mostly professors, politicians, activists, and students.  These two individuals would travel with me all over Central America in Delta Force, American's Special Forces unit on Counter-Intelligence.

            I was also instrumental in the training of Guatemala's notorious Special Forces counterinsurgency Unit, LOS KAIBILES.  The unit is known for its grueling jungle-survival training.  The unit was given birth in the 1970s and named after an insurgent Mayan prince, Kaibil Balam.  The KAIBILES unit became notorious in the early 1980s, where tens of thousands of indigenous people were slaughtered as the unit swept across rural Guatemala, systematically destroying villages. There was a civil war in Guatemala and the military was always targeting the oppressed.  Most of the guerilla movement was made of indigenous people.

In the late 1980s, the head of this unit was Guatemala Col. Julio Roberto ALPIREZ, also another graduate of the School of the Americas and on the CIA payroll.  Col. ALPIREZ was later implicated in the murders of a Guatemalan guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez and in the murder of a U.S. citizen Michael Devine who resided in Guatemala.

In 2005, American newspapers and Mexico's Attorney General confirmed that the KAIBILES had been hired by a Mexican drug trafficking organization for their counterinsurgency operations.  The reports identified that 30 KAIBILES had found employment with the ZETAS, a group of ex-elite Mexican soldiers.

Even though the education you have just received is appropriate to understand the failed U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.  I offer as further evidence the following DEA cases, just some of the injustices committed by U.S. agents. Though these atrocities were covered up, I will furnish pictures of the murder victims as evidence of what DEA commits in Latin America.