Taking Advantage of Chile's Moment in the Sun to Commemorate Letelier and Moffitt
By Russ Wellen, October 17, 2010
This week, with its flawless mine rescue operation, the occasion on which Chile has captured the attention of the world has been an uplifting one. (Overlooking for the moment the poor safety record of the company that owned the mine and bribe-susceptible mine inspectors.) It's a far cry from what once thrust Chile on the world stage -- the junta which staged a coup over socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973.
Its leader, Gen. August Pinochet, ruled until 1990, all the while generating human rights abuses by the bushel. It also turned out to be yet another instance in which the United States positioned itself on the wrong side of not just the law, but human decency, by directing money to anti-Allende elements before the coup and then supporting the government that emerged.
Serendipitously, with Chile in the news, October 13 was the day that the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) issued its annual Letelier-Moffitt human rights awards. For those new to reading Focal Points or Foreign Policy in Focus, it might be a good time to revisit IPS's encounter with Chilean politics and pay tribute to the namesakes of those awards.
Orlando Letelier served as President Allende's ambassador to the United States, minister of foreign relations and the minister of defense. When Pinochet seized power, he was arrested and tortured. Upon his release in 1974, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he became an IPS senior fellow and a leading voice of the Chilean resistance. Ronni Moffitt was his 25-year-old assistant at IPS.
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