Tag: Chile

The Other 9/11: Chilean Coup 40 Years Later

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Forty years ago on September 11, a US backed coup d’état took place in Chile, led by the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet overthrew the elected socialist President Salvador Allende, ending civilian rule a week before its 48th anniversary. The coup established a military dictatorship with support from the CIA and DIA, that ruled Chile until 1990 that was marked by numerous human rights violations. According to various reports and investigations 1,200-3,200 people were killed, up to 80,000 were interned, and up to 30,000 were tortured by his government including women and children.

Pinochet’s rule ended in 1990 after a 1988 plebiscite led to democratic elections for the Presidency and Congress. Pinochet stepped down from the presidency continuing to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army until 10 March 1998. On 10 October 1998, Pinochet was arrested in London in connection with numerous human rights allegations, but following a legal battle was released and returned to Chile in March 2000. In 2004, Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia ruled that Pinochet was medically fit to stand trial and placed him under house arrest. By the time of his death on 10 December 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for numerous human rights violations, tax evasion, and embezzlement during his 17-year rule and afterwards.

Pinochet’s arrest in London came as a result of the life long efforts of Spanish attorney Juan Garcés, who was an personal adviser to Allende and was with him on the day of the coup. Garcés left the presidential palace before it was bombed, charged by Allende to tell the world what he had witnessed.

Juan Garcés joined Democracy Now!‘s hosts Amy Goodman and Aaron Maté to discuss his efforts to bring Pinochet to justice.



Transcript can be read here

In Part 2, Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, joins the conversation to discuss how US politicians, banks and corporation aided the coup.



Trascript can be read here

In the last segment, the discussion turns to the U.S. role under President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.

Peter Kornbluh, who spearheaded the effort to declassify more than 20,000 secret documents that revealed the role of the CIA and the White House in the Chilean coup, discusses how Nixon and Kissinger backed the Chilean military’s ouster of Allende and then offered critical support as it committed atrocities to cement its newfound rule. [..]

In 1970, the CIA’s deputy director of plans wrote in a secret memo: “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. … It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [the U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden.” That same year President Nixon ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream” in Chile to “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.”



Transcript can be read [here

It appears that the US is still at it.

On Social Security Investment, Or, What About Chile?

With the election over, it’s time to move on to new things, and the folks at the Campaign for America’s Future have asked me to do some writing about Social Security, which sounds like some big fun, so here we are.

We’re going to start with some reasonably simple stuff today, just to get your feet wet; by the time we get a few stories down the road there will be some complicated economic analysis to work through-but let’s begin today by looking a bit south.

Those who support privatizing Social Security in this country often point to Chile as an example we could follow, and that seems like a good place to get the conversation going…so set your personal WayBack Machine to Santiago, May, 1981, and let’s see what we can learn.

The Week in Editorial Cartoons: Let ’em Choke On It

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::



Chris Britt, Comics.com, see reader comments in the State Journal-Register

Chile: A Call For Your Assistance

Photobucket

Chile’s Earthquake

The New York Times is reporting that yesterday’s Chile’s government, having recognized the far ranging extent of the national catastrophe, was at last calling for international assistance.  The Times reports:

Chile’s Earthquake: How To Help

Photobucket

The New York Times reports:

A strong aftershock struck Chile on Sunday, a day after a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake left hundreds of people dead and a long swath of the country in smoky rubble.

The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile’s second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake’s center. The aftershock was reported around 8:30 local time Sunday morning from the capital of Santiago, where it shook buildings, according to Reuters.

More than 1.5 million people have displaced by the quake, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile’s emergency management office. In Concepción, which appeared to be especially hard hit, the mayor said Sunday morning that 100 people were trapped under the rubble of a building that had collapsed, according to Reuters.

Elsewhere in Concepción, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire.

In other words, what Chilean President Michele Bachelet called a “catastrophe.”

Time, again, to get out the checkbook. Please remember that this is the internet.  Heroics aren’t required, all that’s needed are large amounts of people giving small amounts of money.

The Nation let’s us know how to help:

Save The Children — Save The Children is sending an emergency assessment team to Chile, and is asking for contributions to its Children’s Emergency Fund to aid these efforts.

World Vision — The international development, relief and advocacy organization has already sent its first relief flight, from Bolivia this afternoon, with supplies like tarps, blankets, plastic sheeting, and collapsible water containers for survivors. Support these efforts with earmarked gifts to families that need them.

AmeriCares — Vice President of Emergency Response, Christoph Gorder, says AmeriCares is sending medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Chile. Make a direct contribution to AmeriCares’ Chilean earthquake fund.

Habitat for Humanity — Habitat for Humanity has a continual presence in Chile, where the group has constructed more than 1,300 homes. Habitat will be essential in reconstruction efforts, especially in hard-hit rural areas.

International Medical Corps — IMC has a presence in dozens of countries around the globe, providing immediate medical care to those affected by natural disasters. Contribute to its emergency response fund.

ShelterBox — International disaster relief agency ShelterBox has mobilized a team to bring aid to Concepcion, Chile’s second largest city, which saw the worse damage.

There are other groups I like to support I have not listed here.  I will update this later to add them.  Also, I have some antipathy to some of the groups here, particularly World Vision, because of their proselytizing activities to indigenous people in the high Andes, but right now I think the primary idea is to get aid on the ground. There doesn’t seem to me to be time to apply litmus tests to the groups that can help right now.

Update: 2/28/10, 1:15 pm ET:  Please add to groups that can help the following:

Oxfam America and

Doctors Without Borders

Update: 2/28/10, 1:30 pm ET: You can also donate via text message as follows:

   * Text CHILE to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross

   * Text CHILE to 23583 to donate $10 to Habitat for Humanity

   * Text CHILE to 20222 to donate $10 to World Vision

   * Text CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Friends of World Food Program

   * Text CHILE to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army

   * Text REBUILD to 50555 to donate $10 to Operation USA

   * Text 4CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to Convoy of Hope

Update: 2/28/10, 1:35 pm ET: google is supporting donations to UNICEF and Direct Relief International.


————-

simulposted at dailyKos and The Dream Antilles.  Feel free to copy and post elsewhere.

Chile’s Earthquake: Open Thread

Photobucket

Church In Santiago, Chile

This will be quick and linky.

CNN reports:

A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake rocked Chile early Saturday, killing at least 122 people and triggering tsunami warnings for the entire Pacific basin.

Numerous tsunami waves have been reported in the Pacific, with one reaching as high as 7.7 feet in the central Chile coastal town of Talcahuano, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Sirens sounded at 6 a.m. Friday across Hawaii, warning people of a possible tsunami and telling people in coastal areas to evacuate.

“They’re going to sound the sirens to air on the side of caution and make sure there’s enough time to get people out of the evacuation zones, which are the coastal areas that may be affected,” Brian Shiro of the Pacific Tsuanmi Warning Center said.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said she expected the death toll in her country to rise.

You can get streaming Chile TV here.  News and pictures, updates.  Death toll now more than 120 people.

Live coverage from Hawaii via MSNBC is here.  Threat of tsunami has caused evacuation of beach fronts.

The planet is doing what it is capable of doing.  My thoughts and prayers go out to all in Chile and the Pacific.

——————

Updates (2/27/10, 12:45 pm ET): New photos from WaPo.

Large FP diary by Darksyde at GOS.  Also, first person recc’d diary.

Massive earthquake strikes Chile

A massive earthquake with an initial magnitude of 8.8 has struck central Chile.

The BBC  Saturday, 27 February 2010

The quake struck at 0634 GMT about 91km (56 miles) north-east of the city of Concepcion and 317km south-west of the capital, Santiago.

Buildings in Santiago were reported to have shaken for between 10 and 30 seconds, with the loss of electricity and communications.

The US issued an initial tsunami warning for Chile, Peru and Ecuador.

That was later extended to Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica.

Japan’s meteorological agency has warned of a potential tsunami across large areas of the Pacific.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said: “An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicentre within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours.”

35 Years After Original 9/11

I’m going to steal a part of Peter Kornbluh’s title, above, from his Huffington Post Report about this, also a cut from him:

It Can’t Happen Here

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

It Can’t Happen Here is the title of a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis.  It raises the question whether a rightwing, fascist political party can come to power in the US.  It used to be that the very idea was preposterous, unthinkable, impossible.  I’m no longer so sure of that, and acknowledging the frightening possibility has changed my reading of stories about events in other countries in frightening, perplexing, alarming ways.

A short synopsis of It Can’t Happen Here may help:

It features newspaperman Doremus Jessup struggling against the fascist regime of President Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, who resembles (to some extent) the flamboyantly dictatorial Huey Long of Louisiana and Gerald B. Winrod, the Kansas evangelist whose far-right views earned him the nickname “The Jayhawk Nazi”. It serves as a warning that political movements akin to Nazism can come to power in countries such as the United States when people blindly support their leaders.

Hmmm. This isn’t the only novel with this theme.  The most recent may be Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America:

The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels.

The President Lindbergh of the book is, well, a fascist, a Nazi sympathizer decorated earlier by Nazis.  And his presidency fosters nationalism, isolationism, anti-semitism and racism as if those were aspects of US patriotism.

The New York Times review described the book as “a terrific political novel” as well as “sinister, vivid, dreamlike, preposterous and, at the same time, creepily plausible.”

Preposterous.  Because it couldn’t happen here, right?  Or could it?  I used to believe it couldn’t happen here.  I don’t know what we call the trend of the last 7 years, but we cling desperately to the idea that that couldn’t really happen here, not really, why, our country is constructed in a way that prevents that from happening, right?  I mean, we have the Constitution and a democracy and checks and balances, don’t we?  Hah.

But what if you believe it could happen?  Just assume for the sake of this discussion, that it could.  Let’s assume that what is happening now and has been happening for the past seven years (the Patriot Act, the torture, the repression, the throttling of free speech, the lawlessness, the signing statements, the extraditions, the raids on immigrants, the endless, long list of abuse of power) became even more pronounced and even more widespread and even more blatant. Then all of those stories we read about the excesses of nearby, foreign governments but dismissed as not being able to happen in the US, all of those stories might actually be read as cautionary tales, stories about what might happen in the US unless things changed, unless Constitutional government were restored.

Three stories, all from South America in the 1970’s illustrate this nicely.  They make it clear that horrible injustices that have occurred in other countries aren’t so impossible in the US. And we need to think of them differently.

Item 1. Jacobo Timmerman:

In the decade of the 1960s, Timerman established himself as a popular journalist, and, before the decade had come to a close, he was able to found two different weekly news magazines. Later, from 1971 to 1977, Timerman edited and published the left-leaning daily La Opinión. Under his leadership, this paper publicized news and criticisms of the human rights violations of the Argentine government during the early years of the “Dirty War”. On 15 April 1977, Timerman was arrested by the military. Thereafter, he was subjected to electric shock torture, beatings, and solitary confinement. These experiences were chronicled in his 1981 book , CellPrisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, and a 1983 movie by the same name. /snip

After his release from prison in September 1979, Timerman was forced into exile and sent to Tel Aviv, Israel.

Item 2. Juan Carlos Onetti:

He went on to become one of Latin America’s most distinguished writers, earning Uruguay’s National Prize in literature in 1962. In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra’s short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. “The bodyguard”) as the winner of Marcha’s annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day’s edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn’t and wouldn’t do so, knowing this would be the perfect excuse for the military to intervene Marcha, considering the subject of the story (the interior monologue of a top-rank military officer who recounts his murders and atrocious behavior, much as it was happening with the functioning regime).

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers-including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti-signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay, which was unaware of the talented (and completely harmless) writer it had imprisoned and humiliated.

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violin player Dorotea Mühr.

Item 3. Charles Horman:

In 1972, he settled temporarily in Chile to work as a freelance writer. On September 17, 1973, six days after the US-backed military takeover, Horman was seized by Chilean soldiers and taken to the National Stadium in Santiago, which had been turned by the military into an ad hoc concentration camp, where prisoners were interrogated, tortured and executed. The whereabouts of Horman’s body were presumably undetermined, at least according to the Americans, for about a month following his death, although it was later determined that, after his execution, Horman’s body was buried inside a wall in the national stadium. It later turned up in a morgue in the Chilean capital.

If you read these three items with the idea that Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile aren’t the US and these things just couldn’t happen here, they are far away, exotic but commonplace examples of banana republic injustice.  They feel like scary fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

But if you assume instead that ’70’s South America isn’t really all that very much different from the present US, or, if you insist, from where the US is headed, the stories become chilling, frightening, and worrisome in a new way.  They smell like oppression, abuse, repression, and loss of human rights.  Are we protected from these things or not?  Are we safe?  Are we free?  

This is just another reason why we simply cannot afford to continue the current trend in this country.  And it’s a reason why we have to take the present threats from Bushco and its allies seriously.  And it’s a reason why we need jealously and vigorously to protect our civil rights.