Chile's Bachelet visits site of her own torture

[Judi Lynn]

Chile's Bachelet visits site of her own torture
Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:50 AM BST
By Manuel Farias

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet returned on Saturday to the place where she was imprisoned and tortured more than 30 years ago under military rule, paying homage to those who didn't survive.

This was the first presidential visit to Villa Grimaldi, one of the most infamous of the secret detention centers used by Augusto Pinochet's secret police in a brutal crackdown on leftist dissent during the 1973-90 military dictatorship.

Bachelet toured the memorial park built amid the ruins of the detention centre, peering at a mock-up of the centre before its demolition and stopping at a wall bearing the names of the 229 prisoners who were kidnapped and killed.

She also went inside a replica of the small tower where detainees were often sent before being murdered.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-10-15T014955Z_01_N14386234_RTRUKOC_0_UK-RIGHTS-CHILE.xml&WTmodLoc=World-C1-Headline-8

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Chilean President Visits Place She Was Imprisoned, Tortured
October 14, 2006
VOA Top Stories, VOA, VOA Americas, VOA Human Rights and Law
By voanews


Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, has made an emotional visit to the former detention center were she was once tortured as a political prisoner under the regime of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s. Villa Grimaldi is now a memorial to those who were imprisoned there by the Chilean secret police.

The president looked visibly emotional as she made her way onto the grounds of Villa Grimaldi on the outskirts of Santiago.

Both she and her mother were held there in 1975, during Augusto Pincohet’s dictatorship.

At the time, Bachelet was a 22-year-old medical student. Now the country’s President, she and her mother went to the villa Saturday to open a new theater. She told the audience how it feels to have been through such an experience.

She said that people like me who survived this experience are the lucky ones. Thousands of Chileans, including my father didn’t survive the pressure and the torture. It is them who we remember today.
(snip/...)

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/10/14/chilean-president-visits-place-she-was-imprisoned-tortured-2/

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Chile's leader visits tortured past
Oct. 15 - Chile's president visits the former prison where she was tortured during the rule of former strongman Augusto Pinochet.

Michelle Bachelet and her mother were taken to the former torture centre more than 30 years ago under military rule.

This was the first presidential visit to Villa Grimaldi, one of the most infamous of the secret detention centres used by Augusto Pinochet's secret police in a brutal crackdown on leftist dissent during the 1973-90 military dictatorship.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoStory.aspx?isSummitStory=false&storyId=a01754a393977a5202d721dd3cfed044a4f9ad07&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-R1-Video-5



Pinochet, the right-wing dictator whose administration
tortured Bachelet's family (her father dying during his
imprisonment) and his U.S. strong supporter,Richard M.
Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

[KingFlorez]

1. Pinochet was an awful man

And what is also bad, is that right-wingers praise him as a hero for overthrowing the Marxist president, who was democratically elected.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. He isn't a man, but an excuse for a man, a devil incarnate.

[bluestateguy]

2. I am planning a major party for when Pinochet dies

Cake, cookies, loud music and barbecue.

[Benhurst]

4. And when that old devil Henry Kissinger kicks the bucket?

[Amonester]

5. "The illegal we can do right now; the unconstitutional will take a ...

little longer." :grr:
&
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
(Note: And wingnuts want us to believe ** will "bring Democracy" to Iraq & the ME??) :crazy:
&
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people."
- Henry Kissinger commenting on Chile, prior to Augusto Pinochet's U.S.-supported / CIA-facilitated military coup against Chile's democratically-elected President Salvador Allende
~~~
"Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty..."
- U.S. Ambassador to Chile, three years before the US-supported coup against Chile's elected President Allende
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/HKissinger.html

WANTED

~~~
Aliases: Henry Alfred Kissinger, Heinz Alfred Kissinger, Butcher of Cambodia
http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html



Thirty years after the death of Charles Horman inspired a bestseller and an Oscar-winning movie, his widow still pursues those she believes are really to blame -- including the former U.S. secretary of state.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm

:mad:

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thanks for posting the Kissinger material, and the good background

on Charles Horman.

From that article:

Ms. Horman and her lawyers tried again to get the U.S. Government to release classified documents relating to her husband's disappearance.

Finally, in 2000, it gave them the full results of two internal reviews of the killing. Neither found any direct U.S. link, but one did uncover "circumstantial evidence" that the Central Intelligence Agency "may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death."

It went on to say that "the government of Chile might have believed this American could be killed without negative fallout from the U.S. Government"

The second review said it was hard to believe that the Chilean military would have killed Mr. Horman unless it had some kind of signal from Washington.
(snip)

I hope Joyce Horman DOES find out what happened to her husband, and make public every last detail, and that far more will be known about what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did to set this carnival of death and destruction in motion.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Photos of Villa Grimaldi.....

http://home.comcast.net/~magisterludimac2/villa/Page1.html
http://home.comcast.net/~magisterludimac2/villa/villa.html

I believe I have been told there were nine torture centers, and I have read there were also three torture ships which took prisoners off shore. One British priest was tortured to death on "Esmeralda."



details:
http://www.chile-esmeralda.com/

[Judi Lynn]

7. I just remembered: HBO has started re-running story of American killed

by Pinochet's regime (along with a couple of his friends), in the movie "Missing" with Jack Lemmon playing Charles Horman's father, and Cissy Spacek playing his wife Joyce. They re-ran it Saturday night, and I'm sure you'll see it being offered again for a while.

Here's a photo of the real couple...



Wikipedia:

Early years
Horman was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from Harvard University in 1964 and worked for a number of years in the US media. In 1972, he settled temporarily in Chile to work as a freelance writer.


Imprisonment and death
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. One month later, Horman's body turned up in a morgue in the Chilean capital. A second US journalist, Frank Teruggi, met with the same fate.

At the time of the military uprising, Horman was in the resort town of Viña del Mar, near the port of Valparaíso, which was a key base for both the Chilean coup plotters and US military and intelligence personnel who were supporting them. While there, he spoke with several US operatives and took notes documenting the role of the United States in overthrowing the Allende government. This discovery led to his secret arrest, disappearance, and execution. Efforts by his family to determine his fate were met with resistance and duplicity by US embassy officials in Santiago, who knew he was dead and why he had been killed (c.f. Hauser).

{edit}
Book, film, and television depictions of the case
The Horman case was made famous by the Hollywood film Missing (1982), directed by Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras, starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. The film was based on a book first published under the title "The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice" (1978) by Thomas Hauser (it was later republished under the title Missing in 1982). When the film was released by Universal Studios, Nathaniel Davis, US ambassador to Chile from 1971 to 1973, filed a USD $150 million libel suit against the studio, even though he was not named directly in the movie (he was however named in the book).
(snip)

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

The view for prisoners at the National Stadium in Santiago:





Chile's famous folk/popular singer Victor Jara was also tortured and murdered at the National Stadium. They crushed his hands with the butts of their guns.

[Judi Lynn]

9. More on murdered torture victem, Victor Jara:

Saturday, September 5, 1998 Published at 23:40 GMT 00:40 UK
'They couldn't kill his songs'

The widow and friends of the Chilean folk singer Victor Jara mark the 25th anniversary of his murder with a series of events including a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall and the release of the first CD with his songs.

Victor Jara was 38 when he died.

In the 1960s he wrote songs of protest against the ruling elite of his country.

He was one of the founding fathers of Chile's 'New Song' movement which in 1970 helped elect the democratic popular unity government of Salvador Allente. As a result Chile's right wing hated him.

Four days of torture


Victor Jara: "Silence and screams are the end of my song"
On 11 September 1973 Victor Jara had been due to sing in the Santiago University.

Instead, with the coup of General Augusto Pinochet, underway, he was arrested and led to Santiago's boxing stadium.

Over four days he was tortured, beaten, electrocuted, his hands and wrists broken, before finally being machine-gunned to death, at the age of 38.
(snip)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/165363.stm

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Wikipedia:

Artistic life
Jara was deeply influenced by the folklore of Chile and other Latin American countries; he was particularly influenced by artists like Violeta Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. Jara began his foray into folklore in the mid-1950s when he began singing with the group Cuncumen. He moved more decisively into music in the 1960s getting the opportunity to sing at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through them Jara became greatly involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music. He published his first recording in 1966 and, by 1970, had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were drawn from a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his most renowned songs are Plegaria a un Labrador ("A Farmer's Prayer") and Te Recuerdo Amanda ("I Remember You Amanda"). He supported the Unidad Popular ("Popular Unity") coalition candidate Salvador Allende for the presidency of Chile, taking part in campaigning, volunteer political work, and playing free concerts.


Political activism
Allende's campaign was successful and, in 1970, he was elected president of Chile. However, the US-supported military, who opposed Allende's politics, staged a coup on September 11, 1973, in the course of which Allende died. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on the way to the Technical University (today Universidad de Santiago), where he was a teacher. That night he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.


Tomb of Victor Jara
His death
On the morning of September 12, Jara was taken, along with thousands, as a prisoner to the Chile Stadium (renamed the Estadio Víctor Jara in September 2003). Many of them were tortured and killed there by the military forces. Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured, resulting in the breaking of bones in his hands and upper torso. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground. Defiantly, he sang part of a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition. He was murdered on September 15 after further beatings were followed by being machine-gunned and left dead on a road on the outskirts of Santiago. Soon after, his body was taken to a city morgue. Before his death, he wrote a poem about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium, the poem was written on a paper that was hidden inside a shoe of a friend. The poem was never named, but is commonly known as Estadio Chile.

Jara's wife, Joan, was allowed to come and retrieve his body from the site (and was able to confirm the physical abuse he had endured). After holding a funeral for her husband, Joan Jara fled the country in secret.
(snip)

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

[Peace Patriot]

10. Some day at Guantanamo Bay...

and Abu Ghraib...

memorials, beautiful parks to sit in, theaters...

ah, me.