The Dictator's Claw

Volume 123. Issue 178

July 5, 1977

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PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO

outsiders. Less than 10% of the inmates in Tarakimo prisons are believed to come out alive, and those that do usually wish they hadn't survived the ordeal." When informed of this statement, Isamu returned quickly: "We have no problem eliminating once and for all these groundless rumors as to the conditions of our prisons, which are some of the most advanced in the world. Once the blockade is lifted, we will put to rest these statements that tarnish the name of the General and his hospitable country."

When Mr. Stevenson heard this statement over the wire, he said he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "When we [Miss Palmer and I] arrived in Tarakimo on June 30, we were greeted as heroes by the people of the country. We arrived in a convertible, and there were crowds all around calling and shouting to us. Even the dozens of armed soldiers couldn't keep them back. At the time, I thought it might very well be how they welcomed all foreigners...." As he says this, his eyes acquire a hard, distant look that speaks of regret. "I guess I knew something wasn't right in the back of my mind, but  I didn't want to believe it, for my sake or for Diana's. In retrospect, the greet

General Tara's orders are carried out in a "expeditious and cold manner" by Lt. Major Jorge Isamu, CIA officials say.

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PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO

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PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO

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China to host UN torture envoy amid brutality claims

SA policeman on trial for torture

BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy on torture is to visit China this year as Beijing grapples with a series of high-profile cases in which people have been wrongly convicted, and even put to death, after giving forced confessions.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s Special Reporter on Torture, would arrive on November 21 and stay for nearly two weeks, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
China has condemned forced confessions and asked courts to think twice before handing down the death penalty, but it is still widely criticized for its arbitrary verdicts.

In one widely publicized case in April, a man was freed after serving 11 years in jail for his wife's murder after his wife turned up not only alive but with another husband.
The man said he had been tortured into admitting the crime, sparking outrage within China over police brutality.
In June, the children of a Chinese butcher executed for murdering a waitress appealed against his conviction after his "victim" also turned up alive.

China is home to the world's biggest prison population and has a legal system the U.S. State Department says is characterized by mistreatment of prisoners and an "egregious" lack of due process in the use of the death penalty. Apart from Beijing, Nowak's stops will include Xingjian, home to a large population of ethnic Uighur Muslims, and the capital of Tibet, Lhasa.

Several of China's most high-profile political prisoners have been Tibetan or Uighur, accused of instigating separatism in the far west.

The U.S. embassy in Beijing has said that as a condition for the reporter's visit, China had agreed to include unannounced visits to prisons and guarantees there would be no reprisals against anyone who spoke to him.

SOWETO (AP) - A South African policeman is on trial over the alleged torture of four detainees during the 1974 elections.

The case follows the detention of activists from the Landless People's Movement, who had demonstrated on polling day, 14 April.

Simangaliso Patrick Simelane, head of Crime Intelligence Services at a Soweto police station, faces assault charges. He has not yet entered a plea.

Two women say they were suffocated with a rubber sheet inside a police cell.
The four are among a group of 52 who still face charges in connection with the demonstration.

No other charges have been laid in the case, though lawyers for the four plaintiffs say that other police officers were also present during the incident.

Maureen Mnisi, chair of the Landless People's Movement in Gauteng province, was detained at the police station overnight together with activists Ann Eveleth, Samantha Hargreaves and Moses Mahlangu.

This followed an election day demonstration intended to draw attention to the situation of landless people in South Africa.

Eighty per cent of agricultural land is owned by white South Africans, who make up only 10% of the population.
According to the LPM, Ms Mnisi was assaulted in her cell by a woman officer, who has not been charged.
Ms Eveleth and Ms Hargreaves were allegedly interrogated, assaulted and tortured with a sheet of rubber, while Mr Mahlangu was allegedly interrogated and assaulted.

Evidence is to be led over the next four days, after the case was postponed several times to give Mr Simelane time to prepare his defense.

South African forces utilize dogs to torture prisoners "on a more or less regular basis," according to Mnisi.

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Volume 123. Issue 178

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Wake up US!:

It's only the beginning of General Tara's reign….

As the world gapes incredulously at what appears to be another brutal kidnapping carried out with brazen bravado and icy precision by General Tara, it's time to assess the dangers this tyrant and his thugs present to the world community at large.

Up until late 1973, no one gave Tara the time of day. He was looked upon as yet another third-world paper tiger: a mustache-twirling, cigarette-holder-chewing villain who looked to be more of

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The Wages of Fear:

A dictator's decadent, blood-drenched history

By Harvey Klingsett ©Liberty Times, 1976 -- Long before His Royal Highness Generalissimo Phillippe Francisco Tara adopted his ridiculously haughty title and plethora of surnames, he was known as Aenaes Harlaftis, the only son of an olive farmer in Greece, where he was born in 1934.

Since Tara's notoriety has increased, several scholars have authored unofficial biographies of the dictator, but most contain scant information about his early years, other than that he was extremely bright and very disturbed. Much of the boy's angst seems to have stemmed from his parent's stormy relationship. His mother, of Asiatic descent, was a village prostitute, which never failed to shame young Aenaes, as well as his authoritarian father, who could be quite brutal to the boy when he misbehaved, which was often. As expected, Aenaes was extremely strong willed, and those who knew him considered him to have a vicious cruel streak. At age 7, he once set fire to a sleeping boy's hair. The boy is said to have publicly taunted him about his mother. There was little peace in the future tyrant's home. His father was given to "night rages" and would often beat him repeatedly with whips and straps. From an early age, young Aenaes was said to be fascinated by war and conflict, and by age 12 had memorized most of Homer's Iliad.

By his pre-teens, Aenaes was convinced that he had charisma enough to lead an army, but others often found his arrogance and lack of humor hard to tolerate. According to a teacher, he was expert at 

Throne of blood: Tara's posh throne room -- his chair alone is estimated to have cost $300,000 to construct. It is made of solid gold and upholstered in red velvet. (AP)

"gathering the disenfranchised, those who were outcasts, and swaying them to his way of thinking. He really analyzed a person's psyche and was very fast at sizing them up." Most often though, Aenaes used these intuitive gifts to play people against each other and to persuade them to do his "dirty work." When he was 14, Aenaes, along with his gang of partially-deranged misfits, trapped a local prostitute in a cave. It was there that he discovered the thrill of control as he randomly tormented the young woman by burning her breasts with a cigarette and loosing a live tarantula on her naked body. After the woman eventually broke free of the make-shift prison, she went to the police. Aenaes escaped, fleeing to South America

Open sesame: A diplomatic attaché snapped this interesting picture of two laborers assembling what looks to be an spinning cage, a few miles from Tarakimo prison. A torture victim is usually locked in the "spinner" and it is hoisted off the ground, often to a dangerous height. Upon receiving an unsatisfactory answer to a question, the torturer activates the cage, causing it to spin around at up to 35 MPH, inducing vertigo, vomiting, and loss of consciousness. (UPI)

Outside Palace Tarakimo: The dictator's palace is the largest structure in Tarakimo, including commercial transportation facilities, such as the Tarakimo airport, and industrial factories. Estimated cost of construction in 1972: $23 million

All work and no play makes Tara a dull dictator: Sy Carey hastily sketched this rendition of the "playroom" where he spent approximately two hours in the early morning of June 14, 1973. From left to right: an iron maiden, whipping posts (against left wall), a torture rack, the "torture chair" where he endured almost 800 spikes baring against his body, a brazier with smoldering irons, and pillories against the far right wall. Not shown, but also present, Carey says, was a Judas Cradle to the right of the pillories. © Sy Carey, 1973

shortly thereafter, to Uruguay, where he adopted the name Phillippe Tara. The passivity and leniency of the Uruguay government intrigued Tara. The idea of stirring up dissent excited him, and he planned his mission for years before organizing a paramilitary band of thugs, who called themselves "la orden," or "the order." In reality, they were little more than toy soldiers of a right-wing faction of the police. However, they honed their strengths into a tight cadre whose specialty was working with the authorities to resolve conflicts that couldn't otherwise be legally closed. It was during the years of 1948-1969 that Tara discovered he could make anyone do virtually anything he wanted by threatening them with physical pain. As he voraciously consumed the works of De Sade, he became fascinated with the link between other's pain and his pleasure. He designed and ordered the construction of a bevy of torture instruments, which he kept in a remote location on the outskirts of the country. Although he designed some truly repulsive new equipment, such as a machine that injected hot pepper juice up a victim's anus when the person moved their mouth, which was inevitable, due to drops of hot sauce basting their lips from an automated pump, he preferred older, more traditional instruments, particularly from the Spanish Inquisition. When this torture "factory" was discovered, his group was expelled from the country after their illicit sessions were publicly derided by the press in 1969.

At age 37, Tara decided that it was time to fulfill his "true destiny." Using his men, and associations with arms dealers, Tara rallied the citizens of the island of Agios Kirikos, off of his native Greece, into an uprising against the Greek [To page 9]

A "King's Ransom" indeed: Custom built for relaxing as well as "work," the dictator's private yacht, christened the "King's Ransom," features multiple bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, a billiard room, a smoking lounge, a multimedia room, and a fully equipped dungeon, for entertaining "special" guests on the high seas. Estimated cost: $3.4 million. (AP)

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