A Woman Disappeared

[BainsBane]

Forty years ago today, the United States succeeded in its conspiracy with International Telephone and Telegraph to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Allende was a socialist committed to democracy. Henry Kissinger, the principal architect of the coup, considered Allende a far greater threat to US interests-- and corporate capitalism in particular--than Fidel Castro, precisely because Allende was democratic and could have set an example for socialist movements throughout Europe and Latin America.

Allende's overthrow and assassination was followed by two decades of brutal dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet, whose government rounded up, tortured, and disappeared tens of thousands of Chileans. The US was aware of the torture and killings in Chile. Kissinger, in fact, observed that a minor concern like human rights should not get in the way of a good relationship with a friendly government like Pinochet's. Among the disappeared were some prominent Chileans, like the poet and folk singer Victor Jarra, and some ordinary, like the woman commemorated in this song performed by the weavers, which I find myself singing all day.

For documentary evidence on the US involvement in the coup, see the National Security Archives.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB212/index.htm

[Jefferson23]

1. Chile's coup 40 years on: a Q&A with author of The Pinochet Files

Thought you might be interested in this OP:

Sept. 11 special edition: Peter Kornbluh, the director of the National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project, on what we still don’t know about Chile’s 1973 coup.

Peter Kornbluh has worked for more than 30 years piecing together the history of relations between the United States and Chile surrounding the 1973 coup that deposed Chile’s Marxist President Salvador Allende and ushered in a 17-year dictatorship led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and various declassification campaigns, Kornbluh compiled thousands of documents that provide a window into the nuanced world of U.S. foreign policy. This extensive work is the basis for his book “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability,” named one of the best books of 2003 by The Los Angeles Times when it was first published.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the coup, Kornbluh re-released the book and spoke with The Santiago Times about his work, what new information he has found since the book’s first publication and what is still left to learn about that pivotal moment in Chilean history.

What new documents or evidence have become available since the first release of the book, 10 years ago?

There is a fascinating story that turned into a saga of Henry Kissinger reacting in a very hostile manner to the release of the book. One of the major new additions is an afterword on Kissinger’s response.

remainder: http://www.santiagotimes.cl/opinion/question-answer/26706-chiles-coup-40-years-on-a-qaa-with-author-of-the-pinochet-files

[BainsBane]

3. Thank you. I was surprised to not find anything featured

on the homepage of the National Security Archives.

I did not know that the Brazilian military was involved in the coup. That is interesting. I wonder if they were also involved in Argentina?

[Jefferson23]

5. You're very welcome. You mean in the Dirty War? Yes. n/t

[BainsBane]

7. Do you know of any evidence for that?

[Jefferson23]

8. Operation Condor. When you searched earlier, are you saying nothing came up involving Brazil?

[BainsBane]

10. I wasn't searching for that

But I since found this http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB312/index.htm

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/condor01.pdf

but I was asking about the coup that brought the Argentine military to power.

[Jefferson23]

15. Oh,ok..sorry I was confused to your question. I am only aware of Brazil's

involvement with regards to Operation Condor.

[malaise]

4. Thanks Jefferson23

[Jefferson23]

6. You're welcome!

[BainsBane]

2. Victor Jarra sings Pablo Neruda's poema 15

Pablo Neruda is Chile's best known poet, who died just two weeks after the coup from what now appears to be poisoning. "In June 2013 a court order was issued to find the man that prosecutors allege poisoned Neruda. Police are investigating former CIA agent Michael Townley, who is facing trial for the killings of General Carlos Prats (Buenos Aires, 1974), and ex Chancellor Orlando Letelier," who was killed by a car bomb in Washington, DC in 1976.

[BainsBane]

12. Poem and translation

Poema XV

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma,
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
Déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.




Poema XV

I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now,
and you heard me from a distance, and my voice couldn't reach you.
It's as if your eyes had flown away from you, and as if
your mouth were closed because I leaned to kiss you.

Just as all living things are filled with my soul.
you emerge from all living things filled with the soul of me.
It's as if, a butterfly in dreams, you were my soul,
and as if you were the soul's word, melancholy.

I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you'd gone away now,
And you'd become the keening, the butterfly's insistence,
And you heard me from a distance and my voice didn't reach you.
It's then that what I want is to be quiet with your silence.

It's then that what I want is to speak to you your silence
in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring.
You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're star-lit.
Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing.

I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now.
As if you were dead now, and sorrowful, and distant.
A word then is sufficient, or a smile, to make me happy,
Happy that it seems so certain that you're present.


—Translated and © Robert Hass 2004, from City Lights' The Essential Neruda

http://www.redpoppy.net/poem3.php

[snagglepuss]

9. to read later

[GeorgeGist]

11. without comment

[Jefferson23]

16. One scary photo...warn us next time. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Hitchens: love him or hate him or some of both, he did some solid scathing work

On Kissinger, around Chile etc.


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2004/12/hitchens200412

[BainsBane]

14. I saw him speak once

Cheering on the Iraq war and insulting it's opponents. I took it as long as I could before walking out. I will always associate him and Tom Friedman with cheerleading for that war. I know Hitchens wasn't wrong on everything, but he was wrong on that very important thing. And his trip against Mother Theresa was very strange.

His discussion of Videla's baby stealing in the linked article brings to mind one of the greatest films ever made: The Official Story (La historia oficial). You can actually watch the whole thing on YouTube, which I'm sure is a copyright violation. Netflix will also have it.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=la+historia+oficial&oq=la+historia+oficial&gs_l=youtube.3..0l10.13584.17244.0.17570.19.9.0.10.10.1.151.705.6j3.9.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.phYf_b02A2U

[Warren DeMontague]

20. It's possible the copyright holders don't mind, given the subject matter.

Here's I believe a more workable link to the same for you:

I will watch it when I have a little more time, absolutely. Thanks.

[BainsBane]

23. I linked to the search because of copyright

so as not to involve DU. It's a great film. It won the Oscar for best foreign film sometime in the mid 80s.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Hmmm. I could be wrong, but I think that would be youtube's problem, not DU's.

Still, I can s/d the message if need be.

[BainsBane]

29. Not really my issue

Whatever works for you.

[BainsBane]

18. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for you posting the article

I do appreciate that, despite my resentment toward Hitchens. I probably wouldn't feel quite so strongly if I hadn't had him insult my motives, to my face, for opposing the Iraq War.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. My first exposure to Hitch was during that time, too, and I wrote him off as another sweaty, bloated

Bush apologist.

Not long after I came across the Trials of Henry Kissinger, and again I couldn't believe it was the same dude.

Hitch obviously elicits strong feelings, but he did do some very good work documenting what went down with Chile, along with Vietnam and bs around the Paris Accords in '68.


Edited to add: I agree with him on Mother Teresa.

[BainsBane]

24. The woman spends her life in service to the poor

and somehow poverty is her fault? Better to be a war profiteer?

Here is one critique of his book:

Replying to a positive review of Hitchens' book in the New York Review of Books by Murray Kempton, Jesuit author James Martin offered a defense of Mother Teresa against the criticisms brought against her. Noting the difficulties involved with offering aid to the destitute in the developing world, he concluded by writing, "[R]egarding the 'poorest of the poor,' those who today die neglected, there would seem to be two choices. First, to cluck one’s tongue that such a group of people should even exist. Second, to act: to provide comfort and solace to these individuals as they face death. Mr. Kempton chooses the former. Mother Teresa, for all of her faults, chooses the latter."[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position

I also do the former, and I can't say I feel good about myself for it. Mother Theresa did more to help the needy in a week than I have done in my entire life.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. We will have to agree to disagree on that individual.

I think she benefited from some very good and in many cases undeserved PR.

I think there are lots of people who not only aren't war profiteers but who also have managed to help the poor without spreading dangerous and reactionary messages around things like birth control.

Still, not the topic of the thread, so, like I said.

[Comrade Grumpy]

22. Hitchens curdled after 9/11.

Before that, he was a leftie; after that, he became like an Islamic menace kind of guy.

[BainsBane]

35. Yeah, he became almost crazed.

I don't think he ever repented for Iraq either, at least not publicly.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, BainsBane.

[BainsBane]

25. You're welcome

[PoliticAverse]

21. And this very day SOS Kerry met with Kissinger for 'advice'..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/kerry-syria_n_3903888.html

[BainsBane]

26. It bothers me how the foreign policy community all pay court

to Kissinger, like he isn't a war criminal. That as much as anything illustrates why the US needs to sign on to the International Criminal Court.

[Jenoch]

30. I read your OP and your links.

Usually, when someone posts such links and starts a thread they have an opinion on the matter.

Where is your opinion?

[BainsBane]

31. You can't discern an opinion from my narrative?

because I didn't say "fuck Kissinger"? That's unfortunate.

[Jenoch]

32. I was hoping for an opinion

that was explained through a narrative. If you don't have one, that's ok too.

[BainsBane]

33. I wrote the post

I included the information I thought was relevant and the sources I thought helpful. The post is my opinion. Do you actually think someone who approves of the US backed coup and subsequent torture and murder would highlight them? They pretend they don't exist or explain how there were justified because of the threat of communism. They certainly don't lament the disappeared. My opinion is clear through the way I structured the narrative.

[Jenoch]

34. Your OP reads to me as factual

with not a single opinion in sight.