Chile: First rescued miners to leave hospital

[Judi Lynn]

14 October 2010 Last updated at 17:22 ET
Chile: First rescued miners to leave hospital

Three of the 33 men rescued after 69 days trapped in the San Jose mine in Chile are to be discharged from hospital and allowed to go home.

Hospital officials refused to name the miners due to leave the hospital.

But they said that all the miners had responded well to treatment and many more of them would go home on Friday.

The miners were visited by President Sebastian Pinera, who promised that Chileans would never be allowed to work in "such inhuman conditions" again.

More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11547889

[Peace Patriot]

1. I like what I'm hearing from Pinera on labor conditions. In the midst of the rescue,

he was interviewed and said to expect legislation very soon on worker safety not only in the mines but for all workers. He actually called it a "new deal" for workers. He hadn't had much sleep for a couple of days and personally stood on his feet for nearly 24 hours giving out hugs and encouraging words to each miner as he was pulled up from the depths. I was pretty impressed with him, and I got a lo-o-o-o-ong look at him, all that day. Frankly, I did NOT see a phony politician just there to hog the camera.

Two thoughts: 1) Rightwinger though he is, this seemed like a transformative experience for him personally. He's a billionaire, former CEO, born to money, obviously with little experience of the blue collar working class. He got a real up-close experience of them through this ordeal, which of course has been going on for months, and seemed mightily impressed with their courage and very involved with their families and with them. Maybe he'll "sober up" when he starts hearing from his corporate pals and fellow billionaires, and will not follow through on better worker protections. But we'll see. 2) "Rightwing" doesn't mean the same thing in Chile that it does here. I've heard this before about other countries (France and Sarkozy, for instance--and about Brazil), but it occurred to me that I was seeing it in action. He's no Bush. He's no Reagan. He's no Sarah Palin. He's no John McCain. He's no Uribe, Santos or Lobo. He's not an asshole, in other words. And not a fascist. He also specifically mentioned Pinochet--that Chile had been known to the world as "the country of Pinochet"--a very negative image--and it would now be known to the world as "the country of the 33"--the courageous miners and their rescuers. I knew Chile had changed--with socialist Michele Batchelet's very successful tenure as president. But I'm sure a lot of people around the world didn't know that. So, anyway, I learned something, too--that a "rightwinger" is not necessarily a murderer, a warmonger, a thief, an asshole or a fascist. Maybe "rightwinger" is not the proper political label for Pinera. But, as I said, we'll see. Bill Clinton also had alleged "empathy" with all classes, and look what he did to Latin America's poor/working class, not to mention to us, with deregulation of the banksters.