Obama's visit to Chile -- an advancer

[rabs]

that you may not get from the press traveling with him.

Obama will be in Santiago today (Monday), arriving about noon. But things will not go as originally planned. A far-away earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear disaster threw a monkey wrench into the works.

A high-profile ceremony featuring Obama and Pinera signing a nuclear cooperation pact will not take place. Instead, on Friday, the U.S. ambassador in Santiago and the Chilean foreign minister signed the agreement behind closed doors.

All sorts of voices have been raised in objection, all saying it is not wise (in fact impossible) to build nuclear reactor plants in Chile, because earthquake-wise the country sits on a house of cards, just as Japan.

Over the weekend, the Pinera government tried to cover its butt by saying the accord was not about building a reactor for energy, but about training nuclear engineers. (They did not explain why Chile would need nuclear engineers if it as no reactor.)

When word got out that the agreement had been signed in secret, opposition groups, students, ecology activists and others staged small, anti-Obama rallies on Saturday, and much larger ones on Sunday in front of the La Moneda Palace where Obama will be greeted and dined.

The demonstrators are expected to show up today (Monday) but three concentric security rings have been established for 30 blocks around La Moneda, so the protesters may not get close.

A similar nuclear cooperation with France was signed last month by the Pinera government, which seems hell-bent on having nuclear reactors. With the protests growing (among the public and in the Congress) both the U.S. and the French accords could wind up in the trash bin after seeing what happened in Japan.

Chile has two small nuclear facilities and has had them for about three or four decades. They are small plants that only produce isotopes for use in nuclear medicine and for research and pose no threat such as the reactors in Japan.

As for the rest, there will be the usual platitudes and toasts and a fancy dinner. Lofty words will be spoken about how Chile is a model economy, how the U.S. wants to increase two-way trade, how Chile reverted back to a model democracy (without mentioning the U.S. role in the 1973 coup), the dramatic rescue of the 33, and all the usual bla bla bla. Michelle Obama will visit a school in a poor area, and that will be about it.

There is a large statue of Salvador Allende outside La Moneda. I do not expect that Obama will by laying a flower wreath at the base.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Last sentence

:rofl:

I cracks me up in other forums when some say yer but, yer but, yer but.........Obama wasn't responsible for such events. When he's abroad he's not there as a private individual - he is the USA with all its gory past.

:hi:

[dipsydoodle]

2. Chileans March against War, Obama''s Visit

Santiago de Chile, Mar 20 (Prensa Latina) Leftist parties, professors, students, human rights activists, and the Chilean people in general are marching Sunday against U.S. President Barack Obama''s visit and warmongering in the Middle East.

Since very early today, Chileans joined a demonstration that marched from Italia Square to Armas de Santiago Square, where a cultural-political rally will take place with the motto For Peace and Against War.

The announcement on Thursday of the protest referred to the U.S. interventionist policies, and condemned the warmongering against the Middle East, and the attack on Libya by the United States and its allies is expected to be strongly condemned by the protesters.

When calling to join the demonstration Sunday, less than 24 hours after Obama arrived in Chile, organizers urged the United States to respect the emancipation and liberation processes in Latin America, and to stop attacking Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.

http://www.plenglish.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=273367&Itemid=73

[Bacchus39]

3. Chile president says no plans to build nuclear plans, capacity program for knowledge acquisition

listening to the statement live.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/22309266

[Judi Lynn]

4. He probably also won't lay a wreath at Villa Grimaldo, one of the many Pinochet torture centers.

http://www.deliberatos.cl.nyud.net:8090/imagenes/penalolen/arrieta01.JPG http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3030/3007100759_6cec685f53.jpg

http://www.deliberatos.cl.nyud.net:8090/imagenes/penalolen/grimaldi03.JPG http://www.deliberatos.cl.nyud.net:8090/imagenes/penalolen/grimaldi02.jpg
It would be easy to visit this memorial they built to make sure Chile NEVER forgets what happened then, but that's one place we can be SURE no U.S. American politician will EVER be seen.

The U.S. government wants not only to forget, but to prevent anyone's learning about the U.S. involvement in it, in the first place. That's why so few U.S. Americans knew any thing about it until people started learning more much later through the F.O.I.A., and important reports written by moral U.S. writers.
.

[dipsydoodle]

5. Anyone watch Al Jazeera's earlier coverage with the press ?

A reporter asked on behalf of the people of Chile when the US would be likely to accept responsibility for the events which led to 9/11/73 and furthermore when the US would be paying damages to those affected.

There's no doubt Obama understood the question - he'd have had a simultaneous translator. Chilean President interjected and Al Jazeera cut their transmission.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Good grief! Sorry I missed that. Amazing. Thanks, dipsydoodle.

That guy has guts. Good for him.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Well on the up side

if the Pinochet crew had still been around he'd have been out over the Pacific by now in a helicopter waiting for the long drop.

Must confess I nearly choked when he asked the question.

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

13. No kidding! That first step from the helicopter is a humdinger.

On a filmed interview with a Miami newscaster, Pinochet's security chief, Manuel Contrara's head torturer, Oswaldo Romo strongly suggested they also had been known to drop them down into Chile's volcanoes. Gulp.

This might be the same, incredibly creepy video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsUmU2aAVbY

[dipsydoodle]

15. That is appalling

Was he a School of the Americas graduate ?

[Judi Lynn]

17. I haven't found that part, yet. I did find an article I've never seen on this interview with Romo.

TV INTERVIEW WITH EX-AGENT OF TORTURE HAUNTS CHILEANS
Published: Sunday, June 4, 1995 12:00 a.m. MDT Los Angeles Times

With the candor of a carpenter talking about his trade, round-faced and wide-eyed Osvaldo Romo spoke of torturing and killing prisoners as a secret police agent under Chile's former military government.

Romo's matter-of-fact description of past atrocities came in a jailhouse interview with a correspondent for Univision, a Spanish-language television network in the United States. When parts of the interview were broadcast on Chilean TV last month, they stirred up a hornet's nest.Chileans were well aware of human rights violations by Romo and the agency he worked for in 1974 and 1975, the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA). But never before had a torturer openly talked about his work on television. It was a repulsive reminder of past horrors that continue to trouble this South American nation.

Romo symbolizes the anguishing conflict between Chile's desire to see justice done for sordid crimes of the past and its need to leave that past behind - a conflict with no easy solution in sight.

Romo's interview hit Chilean airwaves at an especially sensitive moment. The Chilean Supreme Court was preparing to issue a ruling on the 1976 assassination in Washington, D.C., of Orlando Letelier, a prominent Chilean Socialist. Some Chilean army officers were said to suspect that the broadcast of Romo's interview was part of an anti-military campaign timed to coincide with the final chapter of the Letelier case.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/462565/TV-INTERVIEW-WITH-EX-AGENT-OF-TORTURE-HAUNTS-CHILEANS.html?pg=1


It's good to know it embarassed the Pinochet scum who were flapping around Chile, free as maggots at the time of the broadcast. Pinochet found a way to keep himself beyond the reach of the law by running for the Senate, and then claiming the immunity being a Senator carries in Chile.

These guys are filthy.

They know they're evil, they are unforgiveable, yet they can't pull back from their vicious lives. They try everything in the book to keep from being confronted because of their evil deeds. Younger right-wingers think they somehow can beat the system, and usher in that golden age other monsters have envisioned, when the whole world is controlled by right-wingers, the world in which there's no one left to condemn their evil ways, after they've murdered everyone who detests their dishonest, treacherous greed.

Look how far it got Nixon!

A-holes.

[Bacchus39]

8. Obama's answer

Luego de una reunión bilateral con el Presidente Piñera, el mandatario de Estados Unidos aseguró que "no puedo hablar por las políticas del pasado, pero sí por las del presente", ante el rol de su país en el golpe miltar de 1973.

After the bilateral meeting with Pinera, the president of the US assured that, "I can not speak to the politics of the past, but I can for the present," regarding the role of the US in the 1973 military coup.

translated from Spanish to English, have to wait for the video to hear Obama's exact words.



http://www.latercera.com/

[dipsydoodle]

9. He doesn't have to speak for them

but his position does bear responsibility for them.

[Bacchus39]

10. you should take it up with Obama n/t

s

[dipsydoodle]

11. If he wants to make himself look a mug

who am I to argue.

[Bacchus39]

12. yeah, declining to assume responsibility may provoke a demonstration of a couple of hundred

people

[Judi Lynn]

14. It appears the same predatory attitude toward the Americas still proceeds,

regardless of the fact the people thought they were electing a Democrat as a President.

Only Jimmy Carter seemed to choose a truly different position toward the Americas once he got his bearings. He was loathed by the right-wing for his policy, in return. At least he attempted to discourage the inexcusable vicious behavior toward the poor of Latin America.

There IS a precedent for humane, dignified policy in office now. Obama could go that direction, if he chose.

[rabs]

16. Caught that part

The reporter was a Chilean. He asked about "healing the wounds" of the past, a clear reference to the Allende coup.

Pinera responded with a wide digression, saying the Chilean government was seeking (or receiving) forensic help in resolving the murder of former President Eduardo Frei Monsalva by the Pinochet regime.

In another long-winded discourse to a question, Pinera rambled on and on about World War II, the Bretton Woods accords, and other nonsense unrelated to anything.

I am looking forward to what Chileans think of their mediocre president's performance today.

Also, there will probably be pix of the anti-Obama rallies later today at the Plaza Italia and the Plaza de Armas.

Shortly before Obama made his main speech, he had a private meeting with former presidents Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei and Ricardo Lagos.

Not present, Michelle Bachelet ... like Lula da Silva in Brazil. They are just the two most popular presidents in Latin America in recent history. Dinner with Obama, no thanks.

[EFerrari]

19. This is satisfying to me in this regard.

I do not wish our president ill. But I am happy that the stronger, more influential Latin American partners are insisting upon their sovereignty, with all that encompasses.

Our policy in the hemisphere must change, for the wellbeing of us all. The old colonial system was destructive and toxic and it's time for it to find a high shelf in the Smithsonian.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Article was just published on that: Obama says US ready to help Chile in rights cases

Obama says US ready to help Chile in rights cases
By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press
– 1 hr 50 mins ago

SANTIAGO, Chile – President Barack Obama said he's ready to help Chile solve human rights crimes committed during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, but avoided agreeing Monday to a U.S. apology for meddling in the country's affairs.

It was the first question at Obama's joint news conference with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. A Chilean reporter asked if Obama would share classified U.S. documents with Chilean judges investigating the deaths of former presidents Salvador Allende and Eduardo Frei Montalva as well as hundreds of other opponents of the dictatorship.

The reporter also asked Obama if he would apologize for U.S. campaign, led by the Central Intelligence Agency under orders from President Richard Nixon, that destabilized Chile and encouraged the 1973 military coup that ousted Allende.

The entire center-left coalition in Chile's lower house of Congress joined an open letter to Obama on Monday asking for the apology as well as cooperation in sharing uncensored versions of some 25,000 declassified U.S. documents on the 1973-90 dictatorship. Chilean judges are still pursuing criminal investigations into nearly a third of the 3,065 deaths of leftists and other Pinochet opponents, including the two former presidents, whose deaths remain shrouded in mystery.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110321/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_chile_cia_files

[rabs]

20. Chilean humor

14:02 Piñera, Obama y sus esposas se saludaron. El mandatario chileno y su señora se ven chiquititos al lado de los gringos, que superan los 1.80 metros. ¡Parecen personajes de Avatar!

(2:02 p.m. Pinera, Obama and their wives greet each other. The Chilean president and his wife appear tiny alongside the gringos, who are over 1:80 meters tall (6.2 feet). They look like personalities from Avatar!)

(Actually Obama is about 6.1, Michelle at 5.11.)

[Judi Lynn]

21. That's cute! The President and his wife are a striking couple of human beings, aren't they?

Thanks for the photo.

Michelle is an elegant, gracious First Lady.

[rabs]

22. At the gala dinner tonight at La Moneda

A well-known folkloric group named Los Jaiva performed one of their hit songs. The title is "Todos Juntos" ("All Together") Song basically is about how people should live together on the only world we have.)

Los Jaiva during the Pinochet 70s were forced to live in exile abroad because of their leftist leanings. They are now more than middle-age but still belt out their songs.

Here is a studio version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWKqatBLX58

[dipsydoodle]

23. They using ocarinas ?

I actually prefer :

One, two ,three four can I have a little more..........:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zA4UgkUiA&feature=related

[Judi Lynn]

25. Why not use the best, a Kazookeylele?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAg5KjnAhuU

[Judi Lynn]

24. It's not commonly known in the US that singers actually were in danger in Chile, and Argentina,

and had to leave the country, like authors, and others, in order to escape being chased down, arrested, and tortured, possibly murdered by the fascist governments.

Hope the President was able to know about their lives and their significance in Chilean history.

Thanks for the video.