A SUSPECTED hit man for a retired Latin American dictator is loose on the streets of New York.
Pedro Bustos, a k a “The Tit,” stands accused of ordering the torture of hundreds of people in his native country during the 1980s when he worked for Chilean strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
He also has been linked to several murders, according to his accusers, the Chilean newspaper El Mostrador, which ran an exposé on him on Nov. 24, and Carlos Moreno, a Manhattan lawyer who represents Chilean torture survivors.
Local Chileans are outraged that Bustos is now the country’s military attaché to the United Nations. They want him booted out of the institution that is supposed to battle against human-rights violations.
“We want him declared persona non grata,” said Chilean Victor Toro, 60, a Pinochet torture victim who runs a community center in The Bronx.
Moreno last week fired off a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, asking that Bustos be expelled.
“Col. Bustos has made the violation of human rights his life’s work,” Moreno wrote in the Nov. 28 letter to Annan.
Bustos’ past came to light when the newspaper reported he had been an agent for the country’s infamous secret police, which was responsible for the “disappearance” of an estimated 3,000 dissidents and the torture of thousands during a 20-year period that started in the 1970s.
He was appointed military attaché in January. According to a press release posted on the Chilean military’s Web site criticizing the exposé, Bustos was serving as a public-information officer during the 1980s and could not have been responsible for the crimes he’s accused of committing.
Messages left at the Chilean Mission and with Bustos were not returned.
Denise Cook, a U.N. spokeswoman, said she could not respond to the allegations because the organization has not received Moreno’s letter. And besides, she said, the responsibility for appointments lies with the Chilean government, not the United Nations.
Chileans in New York plan a U.N. protest tomorrow.
“He was a high-ranking military leader during a time when orders were given to assassinate, arrest or make people disappear,” said Toro.
“It’s an indignity to all Chilean political prisoners that a torturer is assigned as a diplomat at the United Nations.”