3000 gathered in Santiago, Chile's Plaza Italia to celebrate Pinochet's Death

[heliarc]

The crowds are dancing the national dance (Cueca) and drinking champagne.

Hundreds gather at the Hospital to grieve his death.

Human Rights Lawyer Hugo Gutiérrez: "Lamento que se haya muerto este criminal sin haber existido una sentencia"
"We regret that this criminal has died without being given a sentence"

TVN: Bachelet will make a statement at her Sunday meeting in one hour.


http://latercera.cl/lt3/portada/0,4427,3255_5658,00.html

[aquart]

1. PARTY!!!

Makes sense to me.

[maddezmom]

2. Pics

Ex-Chilean dictator Pinochet dies at 91

SANTIAGO, Chile - Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Marxist president in a bloody coup and ruled this Andean nation for 17 years, died Sunday, dashing hopes of victims of his regime's abuses that he would be brought to justice. He was 91.

Pinochet suffered a heart attack a week ago and underwent an angioplasty, and the brief announcement by the Santiago Military hospital said his condition worsened suddenly on Sunday. Dr. Juan Ignacio Vergara, spokesman for the medical team that had been treating him, said his family was with him when he died.

Police ringed the hospital, but a small group of Pinochet supporters remained at the entrance, shouting insults at people in passing cars. The supporters, including some weeping women, repeatedly called out "Long Live Pinochet!" and sang Chile's national anthem.

Chile's government says at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his rule, but after leaving the presidency in 1990 Pinochet escaped hundreds of criminal complaints because of his declining physical and mental health.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061210/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_pinochet


Demonstrators yell slogans against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in downtown Santiago December 10, 2006. Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday, a week after suffering a heart attack, a military doctor said. REUTERS/Patricio Valenzuela (CHILE)

[heliarc]

3. "mistreated during the dictatorship"??????

"President Michelle Bachelet, who was imprisoned and mistreated during the dictatorship, recently said it would be "a violation of my conscience" to attend a state funeral for him."

Bachelet was TORTURED! Yahoo has a lot of nerve categorizing Bachelet's experience as "mistreatment" Wow.

[antiimperialist]

5. CNN gets it right

Bachelet herself was tortured before being sent to exile in Australia.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/12/10/pinochet/

[Judi Lynn]

18. Tortured by a hideous regime Nixon chose and backed to overthrow the people's choice.

He was the UNWANTED killer dictator whom Nixon backed to seize an entire country and keep it in terror, awaiting his master's orders from Washington day by day, boasting of his power as being so great that "not a blade of grass dares to move without (Pinochet's) permission."

It was only last week that I heard of the "Ovens of Lonquen" for the first time, used to BURN dissidents for Pinochet:

OVENS OF LONQUÉN

A Painful Discovery

"Yellowing splinters of skull with some traces of head hair; some loose, black, hairs; torn clothing which can be recognized as being from a pair of jeans, a man’s sweater..."

(A description by the assistant director of the Hoy magazine, Abraham Santibañez, of the human remains found in the limestone ovens in Lonquen, November 30, 1978.)

Those were some of the remains of the 15 men arrested on the 7th of October 1973, in the rural community of Isla de Maipo, and whose whereabouts were unknown until the end of 1978, when the ovens of Lonquen were discovered.

The discovery, which shook public opinion, became a painful landmark in the history of the disappeared in Chile - a story that began in 1973 with the military coup - for it confirmed the suspicion held by many relatives of the disappeared that their loved ones were indeed dead. The regime could no longer continue claiming - as Sergio Diez, the Chilean delegate before the United Nations General Assembly did on November 7, 1975 - that "many of the supposedly disappeared do not legally exist."

It was in the Isla de Maipo police headquarters that the 15 men, aged between 17 and 51, were last seen alive. Sergio Maureira Lillo and his four sons, Rodolfo Antonio, Sergio Miguel, Segundo Armando and Jose Manuel; Oscar Hernandez Flores and his brothers Carlos and Nelson; Enrique Astudillo Alvarez and his two sons Omar and Ramon; and four young men: Miguel Brant, Ivan Ordoñez, Jose Herrera and Manuel Navarro, all disappeared after being arrested by Isla de Maipo Carabineros police under orders of police chief Lautaro Castro Mendoza.

Their relatives, whose intense search for their loved ones led invariably to nothing, learned of the men’s fate only five years later, when their remains were discovered in the abandoned limestone ovens of Lonquen.
(snip/)

http://www.chipsites.com/derechos/history_eng.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DU'er Say_What says the ovens of Lonquen are mentioned in a book written by Salvador Allende's daughter, the writer Isabelle Allende.

Pinochet can also be thanked, like the military junta supported directly by Kissinger in Argentina, for bringing the practice of throwing political prisoners OUT OF GODDAMNED HELICOPTERS AND AIRPLANES, dropping them into the sea, lakes, rivers, and crushing them upon the Andes mountaintops, after drugging them just enough to make them manageable.

THAT'S the kind of trash our Republican pResidents have been shoving into office in other people's countries, after the people voted for someone far different.

[Say_What]

22. Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows"...

is the book that describes the discovery of the ovens of Lonquen, Venda Sexy, and other horrendous torture centers the US-backed junta used to torture, murder, and disappear anyone who was suspected of leaning left. Also, Isabel is the niece of Salvador Allende.

http://www.isabelallende.com/love_shadows_frame.htm

<clips>

...Sexual violence was practiced by all branches of the Armed Forces, Carabinero police, Investigations police, conscripts, intelligence agents, prison guards, and civilians who collaborated in repressive activities. Sexual violence was practiced at over a hundred locations throughout Chile during dictatorship. Women political prisoners were subjected to sexual violence at police stations, military bases, concentration camps, stadiums, Naval ships, torture centers such as Villa Grimaldi, Venda Sexy and Londres 38. The underground parking lot below Plaza de la Constitucion, facing the bombed La Moneda Presidential Palace was another place where sexual violence was practiced.

During the period in which the DINA (1974-1977) and the CNI (1978-1989) repressive agencies operated, dogs were used to rape women and mice were introduced in their vaginas. Sexual violence was exercised also against pregnant women. The whereabouts of many those women and their children are unknown to this day. Repressive agents raped girls as young as 14 years old and a grandmother of 68 in the presence of her children.

When former women prisoners describe torture, many exclude acts of sexual violence. They associate "real" torture with the application of electric shocks, hangings, and beatings during interrogation, but fail to recognize sexual violence as another form of torture.
For more information see www.lamorada.cl

http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_issues-women.html

[antiimperialist]

4. Allende can now rest in peace

Burn in hell torturer...

[antiimperialist]

6. The media loves to say there was mixed reaction

If 2 million partied and 15 people cried, the media would still tell you there was "mixed reaction" to Pinochet's death.

Yesterday the Washington Post said that under-20%-approval, pedophilic, warmongering, minimum wage-opposing GOP congress was a "mixed bag" of results.

That says it all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/09/AR2006120900973.html

[Lisa]

36. yes -- I suppose there are some Americans who think Hitler was wonderful

And giving them a moment of airtime or a drop of newspaper ink is the same sort of thing -- an insult to the vast majority of people who feel very differently!

[muntrv]

7. Gee, is Free Republic offering discount air fare to Chile? We know how

the freepers jack off to him.

[antiimperialist]

8. What better christmas gift for Chileans

Hohoho...Merry Christmas!!!

[antiimperialist]

9. Last words by Salvador Allende

Surely, this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros . Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign!

Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.

Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges.

I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals who continued working against the sedition that was supported by professional associations, classist associations that also defended the advantages of capitalist society.

I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act.

They were committed. History will judge them.
Before committing suicide:

Surely, Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.

The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.

Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, great avenues will again be opened, through which will pass the free man, to construct a better society.

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!

These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.

[heliarc]

13. ¡Que Viva Allende!

¡¡¡Mierda!!!!

[struggle4progress]

20. The claim Allende committed suicide may be untrue: it came from a junta

that then killed about 3000 Chileans, and in November of this year, Pinochet was indicted for the execution of Allende's bodyguards and over a dozen of Allende's staff were arrested during the coup and "disappeared" forever. The junta, of course, always claimed Allende killed himself but since Allende's "suicide" occurred during a firefight for control of the palace, perhaps it is not terribly implausible that the fatal wounds were not self-inflicted. A number of websites claim that Allende's physician Enrique Paris witnessed Allende's suicide. But Paris, who had indeed been in the palace, was quickly arrested by the junta and disappeared, his body only being found in 1994.

Tuesday November 28, 2006
Pinochet indicted for deaths of Allende bodyguards, under house arrest
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet has been indicted and ordered to remain under house arrest for the killing of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected Marxist president he toppled in a 1973 coup ... The indictment involves kidnapping and homicide charges in the deaths of the two Allende bodyguards -- Wagner Salinas and Francisco Lara -- who were arrested the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973. Both were executed by firing squad four weeks later, the military regime announced at the time. Salinas was a former South American heavyweight boxing champion. More than 15 bodyguards and aides to Allende were plucked from the government palace during the coup and remain unaccounted for ... http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/28/apworld/20061128120419&sec=apworld


The murder of Allende
And the end of the Chilean way to socialism
Róbinson Rojas
Harper and Row, New York, 1975,1976-Fitzhenry&Whiteside Ltd., Toronto, Canada, 1975

1 The Artful Staging of a "Suicide"

Six or seven minutes past 2 P.M. on September 11, 1973, an infiltration patrol of the San Bemardo Infantry School commanded by Captain Roberto Garrido burst into the second floor of the Chilean Presiden- tial Palace, Santiago's Palacio de La Moneda. Charging up the main staircase and covering themselves with spurts from their FAL ma- chine guns, the patrol advanced to the entrance of the Salon Rojo, the state reception hall. Inside, through dense smoke coming from fires elsewhere in the building and from the explosion of tear gas bombs, grenades, and shells from Sherman tank cannons, the patrol captain saw a band of civilians braced to defend themselves with submachine guns. In a reflex action, Captain Garrido loosed a short burst from his weapon. One of his three bullets struck a civilian in the stomach. A soldier in Garrido's patrol imitated his commander, wounding the same man in the abdomen. As the man writhed on the floor in agony, Garrido suddenly realized who he was: Salvador Allende. "We shit on the President!" he shouted. There was more machine-gun fire from Garrido's patrol. Allende was riddled with bullets. As he slumped back dead, a second group of civilian defenders broke into the Salon Rojo from a side door. Their gunfire drove back Garrido and his patrol, who fled down the main staircase to the safety of the first floor, which the rebel troops had occupied.

Some of the civilians returned to the Salon Rojo to see what could be done. Among them was Dr. Enrique Paris, a psychiatrist and President Allende's personal doctor. He leaned over the body, which showed the points of impact of at least six shots in the abdomen and lower stomach region. After taking Allende's pulse, he signaled that the President was dead. Someone, out of nowhere, appeared with a Chilean flag, and Enrique Paris covered the body with it ... http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/murder10.htm

[ProudDad]

42. Viva Allende

and Gracias a Dios for Hugo Chavez -- his worthy successor...

[heliarc]

11. As a Chilean American in Exile

It would have been a better gift if he had been found guilty of the crimes for which he is clearly guilty, and sentenced for those crimes in a court of law. But this gift is pretty nice too.

[Say_What]

12. What a great birthday present for Pinochet's wife..

he croaked on her birthday! LOL :bounce:

[Judi Lynn]

21. How will she ever go on? Poor, sweet woman.

Interesting timing.

[Say_What]

26. Our NM friend sent me that news...

talked to relatives in Santiago who said the celebrations started about an hour after the old POS expired. He sends greetings to you. :hi:

Watch closely for how Bachelet handles this one.

Meanwhile, wifey and four out of five kids have been indicted for fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, and other charges. Seems the old man croaked and left them holding the bag. LOL

The daughter, also Lucia, came to the US last year requesting asylum after fleeing Chile on charges on tax evasion. Meanwhile, back in Chile the mother was freed on bail. After the daughter is refused entry, Marco, the brother claims his family is being persecuted. Gives new meaning to the phrase: the family that preys together

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4649114.stm


Lucia Pinochet was refused entry to the US because of charges in Chile


Gen Pinochet's wife was granted bail on Tuesday

[Say_What]

10. Celebrations in Spain and Chile...

Demonstrators hold a poster of former Chilean president Salvador Allende as they celebrate the death of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in downtown Madrid December 10, 2006. Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday, a week after suffering a heart attack, a military doctor said. REUTERS/Susana Vera (SPAIN)


People celebrate the death of former Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet in central Madrid, Sunday, Dec.10, 2006. Pinochet, the fierce anti-communist dictator who ruled Chile with an iron fist from 1973 to 1990, died Sunday from heart complications, the Santiago Military hospital reported. He was 91. Banner reads 'He Died' (AP Photo/Paul White)


Opponents of former Gen. Augusto Pinochet celebrate after hearing the news of Pinochet's death in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006. Pinochet, who ruled Chile after a military coup from 1973 to 1990, died Sunday from heart complications. He was 91. (AP Photo/Gonzalo Salinas)

[Say_What]

14. Orlando Letelier, assassinated by Operation Condor on US soil..

Bush_I knew about the plot and did nothing to prevent it.


Quote from Orlando Letelier's speech at Madison Square Garden 11 days before his assassination.

I was born a Chilean,
I am a Chilean,
I will die a Chilean.
They, the fascists, were born traitors,
live as traitors
and will be remembered forever as fascist traitors.

ORLANDO LETELIER (1932-1976)
Madison Square Garden
10 September 1976


Letelier taken prisoner, Santiago, Chile, 11 September 1973

[Judi Lynn]

23. It's really bitter knowing not only was Orlando Letelier tortured by Pinochet

in Chile, but also was his target for assassination after he was freed, and was working in Washington D.C.

Some right-wingers just can't be satisfied with one shot at their enemies. Not enough gratification to suit them when it's over so fast.

[Say_What]

33. and that HW Bush knew about the plot and did nothing to stop it..

all detailed in the book Assassination on Embassy Row--review at this link:

http://www.tni.org/reviews/rowrev1.htm

[gratuitous]

15. His place in Hell, right next to Franco

The two of them can share stories of torture and repression for all eternity.

[Say_What]

16. Little sadness over Pinochet death

Warning: Puke alert from WH spokesman and Brit government--major hypocisy.

By Enrique Fernandez in Santiago
December 11, 2006

FORMER Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year rule marked by the torture and deaths of thousands became a symbol of Latin American military repression, died today aged 91.

The ex-strongman, who evaded years of efforts to bring him to justice in hundreds of cases arising from his 1973-1990 rule, died in Santiago's Military Hospital surrounded by his family one week after suffering a heart attack, his doctor, Juan Ignacio Vergara said.

Thousands of jubilant Chileans danced in the streets of Santiago and the city's central Plaza Italia at the news, waving flags and honking car horns to celebrate what they called Chile's "liberation" from the last vestiges of the former dictator's control.

While there was no immediate statement by the government of Chile's President Michelle Bachelet - who, together with her parents, suffered torture during the Pinochet regime - reactions from abroad were restrained.

The Government of the United States, which supported the bloody 1973 coup against socialist Salvador Allende that brought Pinochet to power, said its thoughts were with the victims of Gen Pinochet's regime.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20906656-1702,00.html


Anti-Pinochet Chileans celebrate after having the confirmation of Augusto Pinochet's death, in Santiago. Pinochet, whose 17-year rule, marked by the torture and deaths of thousands, became a symbol of Latin American military repression, died at 91, his doctor said.(AFP/Hugo Infante)


Demonstrators celebrate the death of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in downtown Madrid December 10, 2006. Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday, a week after suffering a heart attack, a military doctor said. (Susana Vera - SPAIN/Reuters)

[Greeby]

17. Actually, the current government is keeping schtum

It's Maggie who is flapping her gums

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, however, was "greatly saddened" by Gen Pinochet's death, her spokesman said today.

The spokesman said Mrs Thatcher would send her "deepest condolences" to his widow and family.

:puke:

[Judi Lynn]

24. She's telling the world more about herself than she realizes.

What a shame she's so twisted. She and her friends are are deeply ugly.

[Peace Patriot]

30. Never, never, never again! Oh, Latin America, never, never, never let these

terrible people rule over you again from afar...Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George Bush, Henry Kissinger, John Negroponte, John Bolton, and their global corporate predator puppet-masters, and their puppets, Pinochet and others of his sick and evil kind!

We will do what we can to prevent them. But we have a long way to go. And I see you are not waiting, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua. You know. You know! And I am so glad! Stick together, I beg you! Pull together! Hold together! Do not let it happen to one, thinking you will be safe. Act together! Be strong together! You are our inspiration that democracy can live again, and never dies, no matter the horrors that the wicked think up to kill it. That democracy is so alive in Latin America, after all this terrible pain, and has arisen now stronger than before, gives us hope in the US, where we have been too blind to your suffering, and to our own peril. You give us hope that our own democracy can be reborn. Pray for us, as we pray for you. Viva la revolución!

[Judi Lynn]

66. The lengths these scums go to to keep the illusion they are so much superior to others.

After a career of unchecked brutality and corruption, Pinochet, in death, has a son who comes forward to add his two cents to the mix:

But in the campaign ahead of her election last January, Ms Bachelet made clear she would find it difficult to preside over such rites.

"It would feel tremendously embarrassed doing something like that ... it would embarrass Chile's conscience to honour somebody who was involved not only in human rights issues but even in misappropriation of public funds," she said.

Ms Bachelet's father Alberto Bachelet, an air force general and Allende ally, was tortured and died in prison in 1974. Ms Bachelet and her mother, Angela Jeria, were also held and tortured by regime officials at the notorious Villa Grimaldi detention centre in 1975.

Gen Pinochet's family has said it preferred a private ceremony to a state funeral.

"We're not interested, even less so if it's held under a leftist government like this one," Gen Pinochet's youngest son, Marco Antonio, said in August referring to the Bachelet administration.
(snip)

Haughty!



Here's his real son, Marco Antonio
who disdains having his father's body
given a state funeral among the commoners
(whom he tortured, slaughtered and bilked!).

[Say_What]

19. CHILE'S PINOCHET DEAD AT 91, SANTIAGO CLASHES, PARTIES ERUPT

From the Santiago Times:

<clips>

...Shortly after the news that Pinochet had died, the streets of Santiago were taken over by both pro- and anti-Pinochet factions. Large crowds of anti-Pinochet demonstrators took over the city's famous downtown Plaza Italia, celebrating the general's death. While the celebration started with only a few revelers, large crowds had congregated around 4pm and police were forced to close the surrounding roads.

...The Chilean government had not yet issued a statement on Pinochet's death at press time, but a controversy was expected to develop on whether or not Pinochet would receive a state funeral. President Michelle Bachelet, who was tortured by the Pinochet regime before being exiled to Australia, has previously stated that honoring Pinochet with a state funeral would "violate her."

As of 5:00pm, Chilean police had refused to lower flags in Chile, and pro-Pinochet forces outside the hospital clashed with police, demanding the flags be lowered. Pinochet supporters also angrily demanded a response from President Michelle Bachelet, who as of press time had not issued a statement. Government officials indicated that Bachelet had been informed of the death.

By 6pm, thousands of people were marching towards the La Moneda Presidential Palace, many drinking champagne in the streets.

Many opposed to Pinochet were upset that the general died before being prosecuted for the more than 3,000 deaths and disappearances that occurred under Pinochet's rule. Human rights lawyers and various victims of his government have been furiously trying to bring Pinochet to justice, but with Pinochet's death, the possibility exists that his crimes may never face their day in court.

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=12451&topic_id=1


Thousands of Chileans celebrated Pinochet's dealth in the streets of Santiago.

[Judi Lynn]

25. It's wonderful learning about this spontaneous celebration.

Bless the people who have waited so long to see the official end of his reign of terror.

May it be THE LAST Chile will have to endure.

[Crunchy Frog]

27. It's times like this that make me hope

that there really is a Hell. I hope that he and Jeanne Kirkpatrick are having a nice get together.:)

[mitchum]

28. Let It Rot

[Tom Joad]

29. He died on Human Rights Day.

[Say_What]

32. and on his wife's birthday....

he's worm food and his wife and four of his five kids are facing charges of fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, and other assorted fun for the future.


:bounce:

[Peace Patriot]

31. To DUers: These same horrors that happened in Chile at the hands of

fascists are now happening to the people of Oaxaca--murders, kidnappings, disappearances, rape, torture, secret detentions, of hundreds of people. The leftist movement in Oaxaca is being severely and brutally suppressed by the illegitimately elected President Calderon. The peaceful, democratic people of Oaxaca, who were only asking for justice and fairness, have been brutally assaulted by another illegitimately elected man, Gov. Ruiz. The two of them are now working together to hunt down movement leaders who have done nothing--nothing!--union leaders and workers and small farmers and community elders and children. This is happening TODAY. Chile was yesterday. Be aware of what is happening now--the same thing. And our own government, and the global corporate predators who control it, are behind this, too, as they were in Chile. Our corporate news monopolies are not reporting what is happening in Oaxaca, or only report fragments of it with such distortion that all truth is lost. For real news of Oaxaca, go to http://narconews.com/

[IntiRaymi]

34. Events which are receiving scant attention in the US press.

Thank goodness for Narconews.

[John Q. Citizen]

35. Yes, Chile endured 16 years of brutal dictatorship, Mexico more than 70 years

Now the PAN, who supposedly ended the 70 year reign of one party rule of the PRI in 2000, are doing the exact same thing as the PRI.

[heliarc]

37. With all due respect.

The overthrow of Allende has affected generations of people who have grown up in exile. I am among those people who have family history of torture, exile and loss, and I take some offense at your willingness to favor some news of injustice over others. I do not diminish your concern for Oaxaca by claiming greater importance. Why should you do the same to the news we've heard today?

Many of us who learned the history of our Chile in exile learned the great lessons of that history and used that to create solidarity with the struggle's all over the world. We continue to do so. Don't claim that we don't.

[Say_What]

38. Switzerland reflects on the death of Pinochet

<clips>

The Swiss foreign ministry says the military dictatorship of former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet will always be associated with grave human rights abuses.

The ex:general who ruled Chile with an iron fist for 17 years was pursued by the Swiss justice authorities on several occasions.

Foreign ministry spokesman Johann Aeschlimann said Chile had fortunately managed to free itself of Pinochet's influence.

"Chile today is a country of modern law, democratic and economically dynamic, with which Switzerland has good relations," he told the Swiss news agency.

The Chilean ambassador to Switzerland, Carolina Rossetti, said Pinochet had a long time for her been a person of the past.

"But this past allowed us to find the truth about all the victims of his power, the disappeared and those detained.

http://www.nzz.ch/2006/12/11/eng/article7337768.html

[Judi Lynn]

39. A Duke University instructor unexpectedly met the man who had tortured him in Chile............

From the issue dated August 17, 2001

Justice, Memory, and a Professor's Accusation
One scholar charges another with participating in his torture in Chile, and many academics feel the reverberations

By MICHAEL EASTERBROOK

Santiago, Chile

Felipe Aguero could not believe what he was seeing that day in 1988. Mr. Aguero, at the time an instructor at Duke University, was once more in Chile, a country he had left six years earlier with an overwhelming sense of relief.

Even though about 15 other people were in the room, he couldn't stop thinking about a man on his right. They were sitting around a table at a Santiago hotel, participating in a conference organized by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. Mr. Aguero tried to act normal but felt nervous and self-conscious.

"I was staring in disbelief," he recalls. "I couldn't put together the fact that here, in an academic workshop, was a man who I clearly remember as having been in my own personal torture chamber."

When the conference ended, he collected his things and hurried out.

Mr. Aguero, now an associate professor of international and comparative studies at the University of Miami's School of International Studies, would run into the man more than once over the next few years, and eventually would resolve to talk to him about the first time they had met.

During another visit to Santiago, he went to the man's university office but found no one there. As he waited, the fear and anxiety returned, and he crept out of the building before the man came back. After that, he avoided conferences and other academic settings where he thought the man might be. "I thought, if anyone should be feeling bad it should be him, not me."

In March, 13 years after that unnerving meeting, Mr. Aguero finally tried to ease his pain by confronting its source. In a letter to Catholic University of Chile, he wrote that one of its most prominent professors, Emilio Meneses, was part of a military squad that tortured him in 1973 after the coup in Chile. Mr. Aguero didn't ask for the professor's removal -- he just wanted Mr. Meneses' colleagues to know of his role in the 1973 events. "Of his participation I have no doubt," Mr. Aguero wrote.
(snip/...)

http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i49/49a03601.htm



Miami's Felipe Agüero says he wanted Emilio Meneses'
colleagues to know that he had a role in torture.
(Photograph by Cindy Karp, Black Star)

[Say_What]

43. What a horrific account of what happened to Agüero at the National Stadium...

I ran on this site with nearly 200 pictures of Santiago before and after the coup. Many pics inside the stadium--wonder how this guy got these--including one of the last photos of Victor Jara in the last UP march before the bloody coup, which won't copy over in a larger version--must be some image protection thingy. Jara's picture is on page 3 of the thumbnails, last column, third down. The pic below is taken at the General Cemetery in Santiago. Allende and Letelier are both buried here and this monument is to all the disappeared and executed during the dictatorship. Executed are on the right, disappeared on the left. White mausoleum is Allende's and the other Letelier.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelo_montecino/sets/99847/detail/

[Judi Lynn]

40. Christopher Hitchens:Farewell to the perpetrator of one of the most shocking crimes of the 20th cent

Augusto Pinochet, 1915-2006
Farewell to the perpetrator of one of the most shocking crimes of the 20th century.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, at 9:04 AM ET



Augusto Pinochet
Just a short walk from my apartment in Washington, D.C., is the memorial at Sheridan Circle to the murdered Orlando Letelier, a Chilean exile and former foreign minister who was blown up by a car bomb in rush-hour traffic on Sept. 21, 1976. It did not take very long to establish that this then-unprecedented atrocity on American soil, which also took the life of a U.S. citizen named Ronni Moffitt, was carried out on the orders of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Indeed, we have the testimony of his own secret police chief, Gen. Manuel Contreras, that such was the case. The U. S. Department of Justice has had an indictment for Pinochet, first drawn up by its Criminal Division during the tenure of Janet Reno, completed for some time. But the indictment has never been unsealed. The death of Pinochet is an occasion, among other things, for a moment to remember the many victims of his state terrorism and international terrorism and the deplorable way in which he managed to outlive their claims.

Pinochet ended up like Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco, with a series of deathbed farewells that were obscenely protracted and attended by numerous priests and offerings of extreme unction. By the end, Chileans had become wearily used to the way in which he fell dramatically ill whenever the workings of justice took a step nearer to his archives or his bank accounts. Like Franco, too, he long outlived his own regime and survived to see his country outgrow the tutelage to which he had subjected it. And, also like Franco, he earned a place in history as a treasonous and ambitious officer who was false to his oath to defend and uphold the constitution. His overthrow of civilian democracy, in the South American country in which it was most historically implanted, will always be remembered as one of the more shocking crimes of the 20th century.

His coup—mounted on Sept. 11, 1973, for those who like to study numinous dates—was a crime in itself but involved countless other crimes as well. Over the past decade, and especially since his arrest in England in 1998, these crimes began to catch up with him. Pinochet had arranged a lifetime immunity for himself via a lifelong Senate seat, as part of his phased withdrawal from power. But this deal was not binding on Spain, where a magistrate successfully sought a warrant for his arrest in connection with the "disappearance" of some Spanish citizens. That warrant from Judge Baltasar Garzón, served in London, was the beginning of the unraveling. By the time he returned to Chile, the general was faced with a newly aroused citizenry. I once went to testify in front of Judge Juan Gúzman, the magistrate who finally ordered him indicted and fingerprinted. He told me that he himself had been a supporter of the original coup and that he came from a conservative military family that had thought of Pinochet as a savior. It was only when he read through the massive and irrefutable judicial files, on murder and torture and kidnapping, that he realized that there was only one course open to him.
(snip/...)

http://www.slate.com/id/2155242/?nav/tap3/

[Say_What]

45. Francisco Letelier, Joyce Horman, Janis Teruggi,

and Michael Townley in the witness protection program. Your tax dollars at work.

<Clips>

..."Pinochet's death does not close the book on Frank's death. Nothing does, on a very personal level," Teruggi told McClatchy Newspapers. "Pinochet's death means little to me, as I hold the U.S. government responsible for the coup in Chile and the deaths of Charles Horman and my brother."

Weiss said she, too, found little comfort in Pinochet's death. "I wish I could say it brought closure," she said. "You learn to live with the pain, but this did not bring closure to me or my family."

Weiss and Letelier's son Francisco want more U.S. government documents declassified to show what the CIA and State Department knew about the Sept. 21, 1976, car bombing along Washington's Embassy Row. It's still the worst act of state-sponsored terrorism on U.S. soil.

Two top Chilean intelligence officials, Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza, were convicted in 1995 in Chile of being leaders of the conspiracy to kill Letelier. Years later, they said they acted with Pinochet's knowledge. The pair, sentenced to seven years in a Chilean prison, remain under indictment in Washington.

The Clinton administration almost indicted Pinochet, but left the call to the Bush administration, which didn't act. On Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Washington said the criminal case will go forward, but not against Pinochet.

"As a result of Pinochet's death, our investigation as it relates to him can be considered over," said Channing Phillips. "The overall (Letelier) prosecution is still pending."

That disappoints Sam Buffone, an attorney for Ropes & Gray in Washington, who won a U.S. civil court case against the Chilean government for the murder of Letelier and Moffitt. He believes a Pinochet indictment would have sent an important message and that prosecuting all involved remains a historical necessity.

"This was the result of an action of state-sponsored terrorism. It results in the loss of American life on U.S. soil, and if we're going to be serious about anti-terror policy, then no matter how long it takes, these people should be brought to justice," Buffone said.

But Pinochet's death may move Horman's and other cases forward, Buffone said. With Pinochet no longer a target of a possible indictment, the Justice Department no longer has reason to keep secret documents that might be useful in charging others.

"Now that he has died, there's no reason why these files should not see the light of day," Buffone said.

Under pressure from Washington, Chile handed over Michael Townley, a U.S.-born agent of Chile's feared intelligence agency, known as DINA, in 1978. As part of a plea deal, Townley acknowledged arranging and carrying out the Letelier bombing with a hit team comprised of anti-Castro Cuban exiles. He pointed the finger at Contreras and Espinoza before entering a U.S. witness protection program.

Thirty years later, declassified documents suggest that the CIA, which was headed at the time by George H.W. Bush, had extensive knowledge of DINA's hand in the Letelier bombing.

"I think there's a lot more information that's actually available in documents that haven't been declassified. ... I think that more will be revealed," Francisco Letelier said in a phone interview from Venice, Calif. "A lot is known; more will be revealed that will be the kind of revelations that will stand in a court of law."

Many Americans associate Pinochet with the hit 1982 film "Missing," which earned actor Jack Lemmon an Oscar nomination. The film was inspired by the frantic search for Charles Horman, a 31-year-old journalist and cartoonist who disappeared six days after Pinochet's coup. Lemmon played the missing man's father, Edmund, while Sissy Spacek portrayed his widow.

In an interview, Joyce Horman, a native of Kiester, Minn., who now lives in New York, said Pinochet's death won't deter her efforts to find the regime members who murdered her husband 33 years ago and the government officials in both countries who covered it up.

"The U.S. never demanded an investigation of Charles' murder, and I'm still sad about that," she said. But she added that she's grateful that Pinochet lived long enough to see Chilean prosecutors charge him with human rights crimes, including one that accused him of being responsible for her husband's death.

"Until the truth is fully out, I don't see it being a closed book," she said.

U.S. government documents declassified by Clinton in 1999 show that U.S. officials might have had a hand in the Americans' deaths.

"U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the (government of Chile)," said one document.

FBI documents released in 2001 showed that Frank Teruggi was under surveillance as a Vietnam war protester in Chicago before he moved to Chile in 1971. These documents added to suspicion that U.S. officials may have shared information about Americans in Chile that led to their being rounded up, tortured and murdered.

Teruggi disappeared on Sept. 20, 1973, and was last seen alive at the national soccer stadium in Santiago. His body was found at a morgue days later with signs of torture, bullet holes and a slashed throat.

The Horman and Teruggi families accuse Henry Kissinger of covering up the murders of Americans in Chile to protect a Cold War ally. Declassified documents show that despite the murders, Kissinger told Pinochet that "we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16216912.htm

[Judi Lynn]

47. So people, like Viet Nam war veteran/protester Frank Terrugi just might

learn too late that if they leave American soil, and end up in a country run by an American puppet dictator like Pinochet, they, too, might just discover they will be tortured, shot, and get their throats slashed, too.

But Kissinger had his compassionate side:

Kissinger told Pinochet that "we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."
(snip)

This is the first time I ever heard what the grudge was ANYONE had against Frank Terrugi. Apparently someone forgot to tell Americans that their freedom of speech is a privilege, not a right!

Oh, god. I just looked up his name:

An affidavit obtained by CNN & TIME earlier this year detailed testimony from a Belgian prisoner at the National Stadium, Andre Van Lanker. He described the death of Teruggi, his cell mate, saying that Teruggi was so severely tortured with blows and electric current that Chilean officials decided to "finish him off with bullets."

Chile's Deputy Minister Geraldo Muno, himself once imprisoned and tortured under the junta, said it is possible that the same thing happened to Horman.
(snip)

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/06/30/chile.documents/



Frank Terrugi

[Say_What]

51. Pretty scary to know that the US embassy shared that info with Pinochet's

muderers and torturers.

The same with Horman. He had been investigating the assassination of Rene Schnieder--he knew too much. So the US looked the other way and then covered the murders up. Our government at work. :puke:

[Judi Lynn]

53. It sounds kinda like another example of Operation Condor, with people from one country

destroying political "enemies" the other country doesn't want. Operation Condor was so near and dear to Pinochet's filthy heart, and isn't it great so many sociopathic Cuban right-wingers were able to find employment with them murdering people all over the world.

How would it have gone over if the American people had learned that it was Cuban "exiles" from Miami who slaughtered Chilean diplomat and his American assistant, Ronnie Moffit driving down the street in Washington D.C.?

The news didn't get released until so much later indifference had set in.

I'll bet the moment they knew Horman was aware of their military entanglements, and that he knew another "leftist" American, their fate was sealed.

[Say_What]

67. NPR Inteview with Joyce Horman, Isabel Letelier, and article based

on information by Ariel Dorfman, who worked for Allende.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6608670

<clips>

...Ariel Dorfman, who fled to the United States, thinks Pinochet concluded that once he launched his brutal crackdown, he had no option but to go all the way.

"When you begin with that level of violence, I think the fear that is generated inside people like Pinochet forces them to continue a reign of terror that will not stop because it's the only way in which you can silence the voices," Dorfman says. "Remember that Allende had received 45 percent of the vote in the previous election. That's an enormous amount of people to repress."

Pinochet's reach extended beyond Chile. Evidence has tied his secret police to an assassination in Argentina, an attempted assassination in Rome, and to a car bombing in downtown Washington, D.C., in 1976. A former Chilean diplomat and his American assistant were killed in that attack; U.S. officials judged it an act of state-sponsored terrorism.

And yet in Chile, as much as one-third of the population stood with Pinochet to the end. Fernando Alessandri, whose family has a long political lineage in Chile, says that the Pinochet he remembers from his youth was not the evil figure portrayed by Pinochet opponents.

[Say_What]

71. Holy Shit!! There's another Pinochet milico...

Here's the little bastard, Army Capt. Augusto Pinochet Molina, nephew of the old torturer giving a speech today at the torturers funeral. Friend :hi: wrote that the commander of the army has announced that Capt. Pinochet will be sanctioned for his highly political speech in which he said his uncle was hounded by a judicial system that was just looking for fame.

[Judi Lynn]

72. That's very interesting news. I hope the sanction will work against him and hold him back.

That country doesn't need yet another high-ranking Pinochet with a sense of high entitlement. Right-wingers are so pathetic. They're just not worth the trouble.

Good to hear Friend's in touch. Very interesting person, by ALL means.

[Say_What]

74. Seems the Golpista wannabe is gonna leave the army after Bachelet

and her Defense Minister, who was present at the funeral, both criticized him and demanded that the army reprimand him. I posted this article to LBN as well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6175455.stm

[Judi Lynn]

41. Explanation for why Pinochet wore shades in his notorious photo:

Pinochet used dark glasses `to hide his lying eyes'
Independent, The (London), Nov 25, 1999 by Jan McGirk Latin America Correspondent



THERE WAS a dark motive behind General Augusto Pinochet's penchant for sunglasses, according to a new biography. They hid his lying eyes.

The former dictator, who turns 84 today, confided in an interview with the former Santiago mayor and journalist Maria Eugenia Oyarzun that he obscured his eyes on purpose in a famous photograph taken just after his 1973 coup against president Salvador Allende. Pressed to explain the menacing image, with its folded arms and chin jutting out under black lenses, General Pinochet said: "It was a way of telling things. Lies are discovered through the eyes, and I lied often."

The publication of Augusto Pinochet, Dialogues with his History a collection of interviews recorded between July 1995 and March 1998 - is doing little to improve the image of the ailing grandfather who is accused of atrocities and the disappearance or deaths of over 3,000 people during his rule. In excerpts published in the Santiago newspaper, La Tercera, General Pinochet is quoted as having planned his military takeover a year in advance, disputing accounts of his fellow officers who claim the coup was decided at "the ultimate hour".
(snip)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19991125/ai_n14269593

[Blue_Tires]

44. ttt!

[robcon]

46. I reserve my partying for when Castro dies.

The WaPo shows the contrast between the two dictators (other than the fact that Castro killed and imprisoned far more people than Pinochet)...

A Dictator's Double Standard

"...It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101166.html

[Judi Lynn]

49. Too bad your right-wing editorial didn't name the right-wing idiot who wrote it.

Don't blame them. Who could want to take credit for that.

[Say_What]

55. LOL Good one! I thought the same thing myself.

:yourock:

[robcon]

56. A democrat wrote that. (small d)

Judi Lynn: "Too bad your right-wing editorial didn't name the right-wing idiot who wrote it."

Why do you need to know who wrote it? Maybe remarking on its content would be more useful?!?!

It seems more important to recognize the truth - Castro is the hemisphere's worst dictator of the last 100 years - in deaths, tortures and restrictions on human rights.

[Judi Lynn]

58. The content revealed a right-winger who's interested in deception

wrote it.

Go ahead, and post that information you've got squirreled away on Castro's record of killing and torturing political dissidents. That should be a real education.

Claiming Chile's economy underwent a heavenly transformation is far, far less than honest.

Your author also forgot to include the information that Richard M. Nixon had been hard at work on destroying the Chilean economy under Allende to make conditions with the population far more likely to work toward support of a coup. How do we know?

Revelations that President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him," prompted a major scandal in the mid-1970s, and a major investigation by the U.S. Senate.
(snip/...)

Chile and the United States:
Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm

You might sift through the LBN Pinochet threads to read just how ####ed up the Chilean economy under Pinochet became. It's not as if it's a secret. He damned near killed it, and had to implement socialist-styled reforms to revive it.

[Say_What]

59. "Castro is the hemisphere's worst dictator of the last 100 years "

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OMFG, it's the MiamiGUSANO spin machine droning on again. You'll have to find other suckers. Nobody believes that bullshit any more. :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:

[Judi Lynn]

61. No one outside South Florida, that is!

A few of those lovely people cling to their yarns. It gives them something to fill their time with.

[robcon]

68. Your post, Judi Lynn, is fallcious reasoning.

Like your earlier post, you use the same logical fallacy of trying to argue against me with guilt by association.

I argue that Castro was/is far far worse than Pinochet. Your response isn't facts/evidence/interpretations, or even just naysaying - you just attack me by association with, first, right wingers, then South Floridans.

If you had an argument, you'd use it. Since you don't, you attack with guilt by association.

By the way, I understand that Hitler used bathrooms, so they're evil.

[Say_What]

69. LOL Got any facts or evidence to back up that tripe you're trying to spin??

Anybody can argue anything. Proving it with credible sources to back up what you *argue* is a different ballgame.

[Judi Lynn]

70. What you're attempting to say isn't actually clear.

I suggested you provide your proof for your assertion. Why not take the time, dive into that vast storehouse of information you use, and extricate a few FACTS to back up your claim Fidel Castro is "worse" than the mass murderer Pinochet.

Still waiting.

Taking the time out to attempt to misdirect won't work.

By the way, I've never seen any material on Hitler's bathroom rituals. Who has the time these days to look for information like that?

[Judi Lynn]

63. Yep, the only people who believe them now are Freepers.

No one else's that stupid.



Miami Mafia, Freepers. Separated at birth?

[roody]

73. Have you ever visited Cuba?

[Say_What]

48. Who's the DickHEAD wrapped in the US flag at Pinochet's wake??

[Judi Lynn]

50. That's typically tasteful for right-wingers. I think it has a little red purse.

The world must seem so bleak without a fellow monster running the country.

[Say_What]

52. Probably a MiamiGUSANO--one of the many Pinochet Hero Worshipers... n/t

[Judi Lynn]

54. No doubt! He's definitely their kind of scum.

I'm thinking there may be a Cuban samwich in that purse.

[Say_What]

57. And check out those felony shoes... where's this DickHead running to/from?

[Judi Lynn]

60. Yeah! They don't make like that any more!

They'd probably come in handy if he needs to make good his escape after a quickie bombing he may have planned while he's still in South America.

On edit:

It must pain them in Hialeah that Chile has drifted to the left. Maybe Commandos F-4 have decided to give them a push back toward the right by investing in a few selected bombings.

[Say_What]

62. I just sprayed tea all over my monitor...

that's exactly it. Those GUSANOS are famous for their bombs:

Cubano Airliner (all on board killed)
Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit (killed in car bomb)
Bombing of hotel in Cuba (Italian citizen dead)
Too many to count bombings in Miami of people who dared to go against the GUSANO party line

How is it that when there's bombs involved we can always find a GUSANO in the midst of the plot?

and the GUSANO pol who calls for Castro's assassintion...

http://www.638waystokillcastro.com/

[Judi Lynn]

64. After that odd, but normal (for her) expression of disdain for the law

if the law doesn't suit you, it's very strange that a few days later she tried to "WORM" her way out of responsibility by claiming someone actually gave enough of a damn to spend his/her precious time making a BOGUS video to make her look bad.

Who could make her look worse than SHE does? Sheesh.

Got into office by running on a "Free Orlando Bosch" slogan. How obnoxious can a politician be than to celebrate a monster who has just killed 73 people, including children, as they sat, helpless, in the world's FIRST bombing of an airliner in flight?


Los tres oligarchs.

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/Pictures/Persons/003206/003206-188682.jpg

[KansDem]

65. Wow, the first "Happy Deathday" party I've ever heard of!!

Happy Deathday to you,
Happy Deathday to you,
Happy Deathday you bastard!
Happy Deathday toooo yoooooooou