Glenn Beck: Waiting for Pinochet

From Two Weeks Notice:

“Progressivism is a cancer in America,” said Beck, “and it’s eating our Constitution — and it was meant to eat our Constitution.”

--Glenn Beck speech in in 2010

AND

"Only by destroying the old order, by rejecting liberal democracy in its Chilean variant, by purging the politicians and 'extirpating the Marxist cancer' could Chile be saved from the brink of disaster and create a new institutionality to guarantee political stability, economic recovery, and growth."

--Augusto Pinochet speech in 1979*

* from Brian Loveman, "Antipolitics in Chile, 1973-94."  In Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies, Jr. (eds.).  The Politics of Antipolitics, 3rd Edition (Lanham, MD: SR Books, 1997): 269.

Human Rights Issues around Latin America

Lillie points us to a series of excellent posts/issues. First, there's this great report involving the relatives of "false positives," or innocent civilians whom police or paramilitaries murder and then dress them up as "guerrillas" to build up their body count. Paramilitary violence continues to be one of the biggest threats to human rights and innocent civilians' lives in Colombia, and the story gives a harrowing level of personal detail of the liveso f those who have suffered.

She also does a great job chronicling the life of Domingo Antonio Bussi, one of the leading forces in installing repression and torture in Argentina immediately prior to and during its seven-year dictatorship. Bussi has never been repentant for his acts, and is currently on trial at last this past week, where he defended the use of repression and torture and denied that anybody had been "disappeared" in his region of Tucuman .

Finally, Lillie points us to these poignant images from Chile's recently-opened Museum of Memory, which chronicles the events and abuses of the Pinochet regime. Like Lillie and many others, the images and layout of the Museum strike me as very impressive and well-done, and must be overpowering in communicating their message in person.

Around Latin America

-Former Uruguayan president Juan Manuel Bordaberry was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role as president during Uruguay's dictatorship.

-Honduras's Congress may finally be ready to get rid of the gag order that Roberto Micheletti placed on the media last year. Meanwhile, the National Autonomous University of Honduras is under fire for hiring two members of Manuel Zelaya's administration.

-Jose Roberto Arruda, a member of Brazil's right-wing Democratic Party and governor of Brasilia, was arrested this week on charges of corruption and accepting kickbacks on public works. Both that article and this one reasonably point out that the arrest could hurt the right-wing Democrats and PSDB in their efforts to paint the Lula administration as corrupt.

-Brazilian left-wing politician and educator Cristovam Buarque makes a compelling case of how economic slavery continues in Brazil.

-Finally, in Chile, a new commission is being launched to listen to the testimony of victims and families of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. The commission will hold hearings in order to determine if those who still have not received reparations for their suffering should be rewarded or not. This new commission will be the third, following the Rettig commission of 1991 and the Valech Commission of 2004; the former certified over 3000 victims murdered during Pinochet's 17 years of rule, while the latter certified over 28,000 cases of torture and political imprisonment.

More Insights Coming on Pinochet Embezzlement?

A plea-deal between British arms dealer BAE and U.S. and U.K. officials may lead to more information regarding Augusto Pinochet embezzling money while president and senator. While Pinochet has been dead for over three years, many of his family members have been tied to the embezzlement, and given their complicity in his regime and his finances, this is good news.

Six Charged in Murder of Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei

In one of the more intriguing human rights cases in the Southern Cone, six men have been charged in the murder of former Chilean president Eduardo Frei. Frei had been president of Chile from 1964 to 1970, and while Frei wasn't a "radical," he did launch some significant reform programs in Chile, including agricultural reforms. While Salvador Allende would push for even broader social and economic reforms, many of Allende's own efforts were extensions of processes Frei had already begun. Frei had originally been opposed to Allende's administration and reforms, but in the wake of the overthrow of Allende in 1973 and the establishment of the Pinochet regime, Frei became a major leader in the effort to organize opposition to the regime. As the report mentions, Frei died mysteriously in 1982, and rumors that he was murdered because he was too powerful a threat against the Pinochet regime have existed for years.

Indeed, Frei isn't even the only Latin American ex-president who many feel was murdered; many suspect that Brazil's Juscelino Kubitschek (who governed from 1955 to 1960, and who "built" Brasilia) was likewise murdered in Brazil. Although Kubitsheck died in a car crash in 1976, there is reasonable evidence not only that a military vehicle forced him off the road to almost certain death, but that the military used this technique against other high-profile opponents to the dictatorship, including Zuzu Angel, who died in the same year as Kubitschek and who suspected the military was trying to kill her after she fought to find out what happened to her son, whom the military had disappeared.

Which leads us back to the Frei case. While I don't have high hopes, it would be wonderful if this unprecedented case could have long-term results in places like Brazil. While it seems the Chilean prosecutors have a case against these six men, I honestly don't know how strong that case is. That said, if the charges result in conviction and jail time in Chile, maybe the case could set a precedent for similar investigations into the deaths of Kubitschek, Angel, and others in Brazil. I don't think it will result in trials - the 1979 amnesty law granted amnesty to both political prisoners and members of the military involved with torture and murder. But at this point, just learning the truth about these deaths, be they Frei's or Kubitschek's or anybody else's, is more than a worthwhile quest unto themselves.

An Argentine-Chilean War?

This certainly would have been interesting had it happened:

The last Argentine dictatorship headed by General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri had plans to attack Chile following the invasion and recovery of the disputed Falklands/Malvinas Islands in 1982 revealed on Sunday the former chief of the Argentine Air Force at the time, Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo.

I'm not sure how credible or believable this is. So far as I know, it's the first time any mention of a possible Chilean-Argentine war has ever appeared. Certainly, it's not out of the question. Just because both countries were led by right-wing murderous dictatorships in the late-1970s and early-1980s did not mean that they were always on the same page, and diplomatic tensions flared up at the time over some border disputes. However, Dozo's narrative seems a bit strange (and his constant referring to himself in the third-person doesn't make it any more lucid). Argentina more than had its hands full with the Malvinas/Falklands War, and while the dictatorship definitely thought its victory would be quick and assured in 1982 (something recent primary documents from Brazil that I'd been reading support), I can't imagine why the military would want to then turn around and engage in a trans-Andean war with its neighbor. Again, it's not out of the question, and Dozo makes some vague references to hawkish elements. More documentary evidence (rather than just the claims of one former brigadier general among many generals) would really be helpful in understanding this relatively-unexplored aspect of relations between Southern Cone dictatorships. Still, even if Dozo is just making this up, the idea of the effects of a war between Pinochet and Argentina's dictatorship do offer some tantalizing counterfactual and hypothetical scenarios, even if at the end of the day they mean nothing.

Chilean Ex-Soldiers Willing to Reveal What They Saw During the Pinochet Era

Some (non-officer) Chilean soldiers have begun to seek pensions, something that has been denied them in the past because of their roles as the "grunts" of the dictatorship. In return for gaining amnesty and being eligible for pensions, they will reveal some of the secrets of the basic functioning of the dictatorship's repressive apparatuses at the local level.

This gets into a really sticky question of who is or isn't a victim, but I'm inclined to agree that some of these soldiers very well may also be victims of the dictatorship. I realize that sounds silly up front. It's a military dictatorship - isn't saying the military is a "victim" too just an affront to those whose families really did suffer? The short answer would seem to be "yes," but the biggest and easiest trap in studying and writing about military dictatorships is the assumption that "the military" is a unified whole, when that's never the case; even when scholars know better, we often find ourselves having to refer to "the military" as shorthand, which just further creates the impression that there was some unified whole that was imposing repression, authoritarianism, torture, and state-sponsored murder on its nation's citizenry.

But as anybody who can studies dictatorships in detail can tell you, the idea of a single "military" is never accurate. Firstly, there is the fact that there are always dissensions within the highest levels of the military leadership itself. Pinochet didn't start off as the sole leader of Chile; he was part of a junta, but through power-plays and the removal of those who disagreed with him (including high-ranking air force brigadier generals and naval admirals, as well as other high-ranking generals), he was able to consolidate power. In Brazil, there were five military generals who occupied the post of president in its 21 year dictatorship (1964-1985), and scholars generally agree that they really represented two groups: "moderates," and "hard-liners." While I've always wondered if that categorization hasn't been too simple, it holds up in the documents, and indeed, in the mid-1970s, Ernesto Geisel (one of the "moderates") had to do some tricky maneuvering to prevent the hard-liners from taking control again (after two hardline generals and a brief junta held the presidency from 1967 to 1974). Rarely among dictatorships do you see any kind of unity even among the leadership; even when generals and military leaders publicly seem to be on the same page, there is often conflict behind what Derek Sayer called the "mask of the state."

Beyond high-level internal disagreements, militaries also often see disagreements between the officer corps (who are often highly-educated men from middle- and upper-class families) and the soldiers (who are often comparatively speaking, less-educated working-class men who are drafted or who enlisted for financial or professional reasons). In this kind of structure, multiple dividing factors can and do emerge - hierarchical differences, cultural differences, political differences, and class differences. Many times in Latin America, these men joined the army in peacetime, or turned to it as a last resort for stable income, and suddenly found themselves being ordered by their superiors to arrest, torture, and even kill civilians.

This brings us back to Chile. It's not a big secret that many soldiers were horrified at what they had to do, and often tried to avoid duties like torture. Indeed, a particularly harrowing account in this collection of eyewitness reports from Chile in 1973 (a book that I cannot recommend strongly enough for those interested in the fall of Allende) tells of how one soldier refused to arrest the residents of a poor neighborhood in the wake of Allende's overthrow, and his commanding officer shot him dead on the spot and said the same would happen to anybody else who did not follow orders. And for those who did follow orders and survived, it's clear that many of these conscripts are still suffering severe psychological and personal trauma for what they had to do during the Pinochet regime:

In a lengthy interview with The Associated Press, Mellado said the former draftees also are victims — forced into service as minors and made to do unspeakable things or be killed themselves. He said many have told him of horrifying crimes they want to get off their chests.

One confessed to shooting an entire family. Another — now an alcoholic who sleeps in the street in Santiago — said he was forced to drown a 7-year-old boy in a barrel of hardening plaster. Others describe harrowing torture sessions, and loading bodies onto helicopters to be dumped at sea.

"Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams," said former draftee Jose Paredes, who described his service at the Tejas Verdes torture center in an AP interview. "They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken."

"There are things that I've always said I will take to the grave," Paredes said, his grizzled face running with tears as he named a half-dozen officers who he said gave the orders. "I've never told this to anyone."

When you read passages like that, it's hard not to see how many soldiers in the lower ranks also ended up being victims of authoritarian regimes.

Now, this isn't to say some soldiers, be it in Chile, Brazil, or elsewhere, did not relish in their duties, or at least have little problem with their role in combating "subversion." Just as with the leadership, the non-officer soldier corps is diverse in its attitudes, opinions, beliefs, etc. Nonetheless, many men in multiple dictatorships in Latin America found themselves put in the position of having to risk their income and their lives on one hand, or torturing and killing innocent civilians on the other, and while it's easy to say from a distance that they never should have tortured, the long-term and real-time consequences of their actions at the time no doubt made things much more difficult.

In that regard, I think the soldiers in the Chilean case mentioned at the beginning here have a strong case. Some would say, "well, they should just offer up the information anyways." Perhaps. But just as it's easy to say that they shouldn't have tortured in the first place, it's easy to say they should just cough up what they know when you're not in their position. Is it possible that some of these men are just in it for the money? Again, perhaps. Amnesty laws in general are tricky matters. But, as the AP article points out, in spite of the prosecutions of men like Chile, and in spite of what we know about how torture functioned under the Pinochet regime, it's also true that, "in nearly two decades of democracy since then, less than 8 percent of the disappeared have been found." Thus, at the end of the day, if the conscripts' accounts are accurate and shed new light on how exactly the mechanisms of repression and torture functioned (because, after all, it wasn't Pinochet who was in the cells demanding information from victims), then I think it's a worthy endeavor to pursue.

One More Pinochet-Era Legacy, Gone

In some minor-yet-interesting news this week, Chilean president Michele Bachelet is seeking to repeal a copper-mining law. The move is gaining major support from private multinational copper companies, and is a major shift in how Chile has regulated its copper production for over 30 years. But it has nothing to do with privatizing Chile's state-owned copper producer, Codelco; nor does it have anything to do with an opening of the markets; nor is it establishing more liberal controls on production mechanisms.

Bachelet hopes to repeal the law that gives 10% of all of Codelco's profits to the Chilean armed forces.

First established under Pinochet, the law has allowed Chile's army to remain relatively militarized and advanced technologically when compared to some of its South American neighbors. Additionally, there was much fear and criticism that the profits from Codelco in the 1970s and 1980s were either going to fund torture and repression, and/or paying the salaries of torturers and high-ranking officials in the Pinochet regime. After Pinochet's fall in 1990, the law remained on the books, as the military was reluctant to part with its cash cow and as Pinochet remained a "senator-for-life" with enough support to prevent any serious repeal.

Fortunately, Pinochet is dead now, and the military has changed its stance in his absence, and is on board with the repeal. Should the repeal go through (and it appears it will), it will be one more minor-yet-refreshing way in which Chile is shaking off the legacy of the Pinochet years.

[And I submit "copper" as another of the "we didn't already have a tag for that?" Come on, Erik - where's the environmental blogging on copper production been?]

Remembering Ted Kennedy

Many moving tributes to Ted Kennedy have surfaced since his death this past week, honoring his commitment to soldiers' families, his fight for social justice, and his abilities as a political navigator in the Senate. Missing in all of these tributes, though, is teh acknowledgement of Kennedy's role as one of the leading voices against the human rights abuses of the Pinochet regime.

Many are familiar with the United States' efforts to overthrow Salvador Allende between 1970 and the successful coup of 1973, ranging from economic sabotage to covert operations to trying to recruit other South American right-wing dictatorships to help overthrow Allende.

After the coup, Kennedy was one of the first American politicians to condemn the Pinochet regime. He immediately began lobbying for those who had been captured, tortured, or exiled in 1973. He also managed to pass the "Kennedy amendment," which banned the U.S. from selling weapons to the Pinochet regime; the weapons-sales ban remained in place until 1990, when Chile finally removed Pinochet through popular elections.

The importance and bravery of Kennedy's early stance against Pinochet cannot be overstated. At a time when many politicians were still deeply embedded in a Cold War mentality that saw Allende's democratically-elected left-wing coalition government as threat to "democracy" in the "free world," a right-wing dictatorship that was friendly with the U.S. was not only preferable, it was perversely being on the "right side" in the battle for "freedom" against Communism. Many politicians openly supported Pinochet and/or condemned Allende's government, and many more remained silent. Yet Kennedy was able to look beyond the simplistic and ridiculous Cold War "us v. them" syndrome to see the Pinochet regime for what it was: an authoritarian overthrow of a democratically elected government, a regime that was employing torture and murder to further its own ideological and economic agendas. And he acted accordingly, doing what he could to make sure the U.S. was not complicit in the violence that the regime established.

Sure, he couldn't end torture by himself, and the United States government continued to give aid and support to Pinochet. But Kennedy did what he could, and he did it throughout the 17 years that Chile was under a military dictatorship. Indeed, in 1986, he traveled to Chile, where he met with democracy leaders and the families and victims of torture and state-supported murders. Pinochet refused to meet with Kennedy, a clear sign that Kennedy had done something right. Sure, he was pelted with eggs by Pinochet supporters, and he was greeted with pictures of Mary Jo Koepechne in many places he went. But this did not deter him. As he himself observed, ''I am told that there are some people who regard me as an enemy of Chile. I am not an enemy of Chileans, I am an enemy of kidnapping, murder, and arbitrary arrests.'' In 1990, Kennedy returned to Chile as the country transitioned to a democracy.

Compare this to Jesse Helms, who, like Pinochet, arrived to his office in 1973. Helms was an unapologetic supporter of Pinochet, despite Helms' insistence that he was "neither pro-Pinochet nor anti-Pinochet". Helms also went to Chile in 1986, where he met with Pinochet and his supporters. While he was there, the Chilean military beat and set on fire two anti-Pinochet protestors, including 19-year-old Chile-born Maryland resident Rodrigo Rojas de Negri, who died from his injuries. In just one of the many examples of Helms' class, he called Rojas and another woman who survived being immolated by the military "communist terrorists," and when the U.S. Ambassador Harry Barnes (who had tried to get Rojas to a hospital before he died, but was held up) attended Rojas's funeral, Helms vented that Barnes and the (Reagan administration's) State Department were "trying to appease a bunch of leftists and Communists."

Certainly, Helms was one of the most rabid defenders of Pinochet from start to finish, and that does help throw into relief what Kennedy did, but it in no way overstates what Ted Kennedy did for Chile. Indeed, last year, Michele Bachelet came to the United States and awarded Kennedy Chile's Order of the Merit, one of the highest honors Chile bestows, and with his death, Bachelet honored him by saying that Chile was "eternally grateful" for his struggle against Pinochet and his defense of human rights in Chile.

As I said, there are many, many, many great things to remember Ted Kennedy by. And though he fought to help so many people, I will probably always respect the man for what he did in Chile, taking a stance that was unpopular abroad and in the U.S. against a regime that committed some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America in the 20th century. Chileans aren't the only ones who are grateful, Ted, and we will all miss you and your efforts.

How to Overthrow a Government (II): Chile in 1973

When compared to its more unstable neighbors, Chile prided itself on its rich democratic tradition. Since declaring independence in 1818, Chile had seen some political turbulence, but not with the frequency of dictatorships, monarchies, and overthrows witnessed in places like Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. Indeed, since 1932, Chile had not seen its democratic processes interrupted. This rich tradition and national pride has made the overthrow of democratically and constitutionally-elected Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, and the establishment of Augusto Pinochet's seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, that much harder to swallow. By the time Chileans realized that there would be no quick return to democracy like many of them had imagined when Allende was overthrown, Pinochet's repressive apparatus would be in place, greatly quashing any resistance to his rule.

Since 1932, Chile had operated on a system in which the population voted for one of any number of candidates, and the Chilean Congress would then ratify the winner of the plurality. This latter step was generally little more than a formality, no matter how low the plurality. Thus, when Jorge Alessandri, a center-right candidate, defeated Salvador Allende in his first presidential run in 1958, Alessandri only garnered 31% of the vote (versus Allende's 28.9%), and was ratified by Congress.

After his 6-year term was up, the center-left Christian Democrat coalition, led by Eduardo Frei, won the presidency, defeating Allende and Julio Durán, the center-right coalition's candidate. While a member of the center in Chile's political spectrum, Frei's six-year term witnessed an increasing progressiveness. During his administration, Frei initiating limited land reform, promoted neighborhood associations, and pushed for social justice, even going so far as to grant the Rapa Nui of Easter Island full citizenship for the first time since Chile had acquired the island in 1888.

By the time the 1970 elections rolled around, the atmosphere was increasingly polarized. While Frei had endeared himself to many on the left, they also felt that his reforms were not enough, while many on the right who were initially open to his administration were incresingly fearful of Chile's leftward shift, fearing a turn to "communism" or becoming "another Cuba." Nor were Chileans alone in this. President Richard Nixon, together with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, authorized spending millions of dollars for the other candidates in an effort to prevent Allende's victory. Unfortunately for Nixon, when the votes were tallied, Allende won the plurality with 36.3% of the vote over previous president Jorge Alessandri (35.7%) and Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic (27.8%). Many thought the congressional approval would once again be a mere formality. However, Allende's opponents quickly mobilized in an effort to prevent his approval, thereby throwing his presidency in doubt, and even the CIA launched a major propaganda campaign in an effort to sway the outcome. Only after Allende signed a statute guaranteeing he would defend Chile's constitution did Congress approve Allende's election 153-35.

Nixon and Kissinger were appalled at the approval of Allende's election, fearing Chile was about to become another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere. In an effort to destabilize the situation, Nixon cut nearly all U.S. funding to Chile in an effort to undermine stability. They also took far more covert measures to try to remove Allende. Kissinger and the CIA were constantly trying to find military leaders who would perform a coup against Allende upon Allende's victory. Unfortunately for them, the chief of the Army, Gen. Rene Schneider, supported the Constitution, and would not support a coup against the constitutionally and democratically elected Allende. However, an anti-communist general, Roberto Viaux, who had also attempted a coup against Frei in 1969, tried to kidnap Schneider in October 1970 in an effort to prevent Allende's inauguration. Viaux botched the attempt, though, and Schneider ended up dead, resulting in the Chilean military and people supporting Allende heading into the inauguration. While no documentary evidence has demonstrated that the U.S. was involved in this attempt, it had previously had contacts with Viaux. Due to the botched kidnapping, though, the U.S. lay low, being forced to wait.

Being finally approved, Allende was inaugurated on 3 November, 1970. Aware that he had only 6 years to implement his reforms, Allende began setting about trying to show the world how to establish a "peaceful path to socialism." Allende nationalized the copper industry in Chile (something also begun under Frei, when Chile became a 51% holder of the El Teniente copper mine, one of the largetst in the country), as well as nationalizing health care. He also established several wage increases that benefitted Chile's workers in his first two years, as well as launching more comprehensive land reform and educational reform. In his first year, his economic plan actually led to a reduction of Chile's inflation, and it witnessed remarkable growth.

These efforts left many on both the left and right dissatisfied. Conservative sectors of society, fearful of things such as "nationalization" and reform, and disheartened by the economic growth under Allende in that first year, began actively mobilizing against him. They also tried to disrupt the economy, often reducing production of basic goods and foodstuffs or hoarding these items in warehouses in order to drive demand and prices up and create market instability. The U.S. also withdrew much of its funding to Chile upon Allende's election. Independently of internal factors, as well, the economy began to take a beating in 1971, as copper prices dropped globally, greatly impacting the Chilean economy. The right used these instances to try to further stoke discontentment, and even many moderates in Chile became disturbed by the leftward path Allende was taking. However, many on the left were equally dissatisfied, feeling that Allende was not moving fast enough. Many of his more radical and poorer supporters tried to force his hand by performing land and factory occupations and expropriations in large numbers. Many intellectuals argued that the only way true reform could happen would be if the entire system was overthrown and Chile started over. Entire sections of his coalition, such as the Socialist Party, were leery that Allende could really implement the revolution they desired.

Matters in Chile really began to deteriorate in 1973. That year, the mid-term elections were held, and the Popular Unity actually increased its presence, winning 43% of the seats. To the right and many in the center, this was too much, and they began taking to the streets to protest the encroaching "Communism." Sectors of the military also were beginning to take notice of the growing instability and political division of Chile, and feared that the entire country would be torn into civil war if things continued down that path. Meanwhile, the Popular Unity's supporters, encouraged by the election results, continued to rally for Allende in the streets and push for more land and factory takeovers. Allende, a cosummate politician in terms of playing the game smartly, was increasingly finding himself pushed towards a path he was hesitant to fully embrace for practial political reasons.

In the meantime, the Chilean economy in 1973 continued to worsen, as income from exports continued to decline. The economy was also finding itself wracked by the emergence of the first petroleum crisis. Inflation was rampant and only picking up steam, and bread-lines at supermarkets were getting longer and longer, leading to dissatisfaction among middle-class and workign-class housewives who were responsible for groceries and cooking. Strikes had also been breaking out since 1972, when truckers went on strike to protest against Allende, crippling the supply system in Chile. Soon, small business owners, copper workers, and other went on strike in protest of Allende, while the left launched counter-strikes for support. Additionally, the far-right paramilitary group Patria y Libertad ("Fatherland and Liberty"), with support from the CIA, had begun attempting to sabotage Chile's infrastructure in order to further weaken Allende, and the CIA continued exploring options for launching a successful coup. In August, Chile's chamber of deputies passed a resolution that openly asked the military to intervene and restore "order" to the country. In another major blow, Allende lost one of his major supporters, the constitutionalist head of the Army, Carlos Prats, who resigned when officers' wives protested in front of his home, calling him a "coward" for failing to help Chile emerge from the morass. His replacement as Commander in Chief of the Army was his second-in-command, Augusto Pinochet, a general many believed was, like Prats, loyal to Allende.

As September dawned, the prospects for Allende were increasingly diminishing. He was simply losing control of the country. Into this growing vacuum, a military junta composed of the heads of the Navy, Air Force, and Army decided to act. Navy chief Jose Toribio Merino planned the coup, and on the morning of September 11, 1973, the Navy captured the coastal port-town of Valparaiso, only 74 miles from Santiago. The national police went to the presidential palace, La Moneda, to defend Allende, who held out hope that Pinochet was still loyal to him. By mid-morning, though, it was clear that he had no military support, and that all of Chile outside of Santiago had fallen. General Gustavo Leigh, the head of the Air Force, ordered La Moneda to be bombed by aircraft. Allende refused to resign, though, and issued an address to the nation via radio. The military arrived at La Moneda and stormed the palace, with Allende dead inside in what was probably a suicide. By the end of September 11th, the military junta, led by Pinochet, was in control, with open support from a Nixon administration that was proud of the role it had played in the overthrow of a democratically and constitutionally elected president, support the new Chilean government would continue to enjoy by such dignitaries as Kissinger, Milton Friedman, and Jesse Helms.

And so, on September 11th, 1973, many Chileans went to bed satisfied with the end of Allende and pleased with the military intervention. While those Chileans slept, that new military government that had already begun rounding up, torturing, and murdering leftists and other "subversives" that it felt had put Chile in such grave danger. Augusto Pinochet shored up control of the junta, becoming the sole leader of Chile. Thus was established Chile's first military dictatorship, which would last another 17 years and would oversee the deaths of over 3000 of its own citizens in Chile, aid in the deaths of many others throughout South America, torture tens of thousands more of its own civilians, launch its own terrorist action in Washington D.C. in 1976 that left two dead, and leave millions affected by its actions.

Most. Disgusting. Museum. EVER.

Next time in Chile, make sure to stop by the Pinochet Foundation Museum!

Family and friends of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet quietly inaugurated a museum in his memory on Friday, replete with uniforms and medals he wore, to the horror of victims of his rule.
Among items displayed at the new Pinochet Foundation museum in an upscale quarter of the capital, Santiago, are the last uniform he used as commander in chief of the Chilean Army along with dozens of his medals.
"I am happy because this is a way of doing some justice to what he represented and what he did," said Lucia Hiriart, his widow, flanked by family and some former ministers and retired military. The event was low-key. [I wonder why - Mr. Trend.]

I can't even begin to describe what could be done to bring some justice on Pinochet and his family - it's too inappropriate, even for this blog. Justice can and never will be done to what he did, and the fact that his family is trying to create a museum to show he was a "hero" is stomach-churning. I certainly didn't expect Pinochet's survivors to have any shame, but this is truly diving to new lows. What a truly despicable, contemptible family.

Today's Winner of Misplaced Priorities: Cardinal Jorge Medina

Shorter Medina: "Madonna BAD. Pinochet GOOD."
As our friends at the Latin Americanist put it, "it’s far better to have thousands attending concerts instead of thousands awaiting their untimely torture and demise."

Latin American Dictators, Counterrevolutionary Groups, and John McCain in the 1980s

It's no secret by now that John McCain has kept and still keeps company with unsavory characters, to put it mildly. Additionally, by now, it's highly unlikely that anybody who hasn't made up their mind about the election yet will be persuaded by any of this. Still, this month has seen a few stories come up with a couple of damning stories involving McCain and Latin America in the 1980s.

First, there was a report on McCain's role with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. The USCWF was a direct offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League, the latter of which "had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads" and that was charged with, among other things, anti-Semitism. As the article states, although the USCWF claimed to purge these elements from their own organization, it still "claimed to support "pro-Democratic resistance movements fighting communist totalitarianism." And during the 1980s it became a vehicle for the Reagan administration to prop up some of the more totalitarian, anti-communist efforts in Central America," most notably in financially aiding the Contras to the tune of more than $5 million. The USCWF became one of the main means for the Reagan administration to illegally fund the Contras, circumventing Congress. That McCain was involved with this board is thus problematic not only because he, as a member of Congress at the time, was involved with a group that was directly helping Reagan to violate the Constitution; it's also troubling because, as Stein says, "it firmly associates him with a foreign policy that was, at the time and still, controversial." And this is all involving a man who's claiming to be better prepared and on the moral high ground over his opponent in terms of foreign policy.

Additionally, the story about McCain's 1985 "friendly meeting" with Pinochet, revealed in declassified embassy records has been making the rounds this week. As Boz points out, that McCain met with Pinochet in and of itself isn't necessarily an issue today; many politicians met with Pinochet. But there are problems that Boz raises:

First and foremost, McCain disagrees with the view I set in the above paragraph. He's made his disagreement with Obama's willingness to meet with "dictators without preconditions" a major part of his foreign policy. Has his policy changed since the time he met Pinochet, did he believe Pinochet to be a US ally in 1985 (by '85, even most Republican leaders had turned against Pinochet), or was there some sort of precondition to this meeting that we remain unaware of?

Second, additional documents indicate McCain and his wife stayed on the farm of a Pinochet ally for three days prior to the meeting, vacationing and fishing. That's not exactly an ideal circumstance to then meet with a dictator and demand better human rights or the release of political prisoners.

Finally, no attempt to publicly call for democracy? No public repudiation of Pinochet's human rights record? No meetings with pro-democracy opposition leaders (like Ted Kennedy did around the same time McCain met with Pinochet)? Why did McCain stay so quiet back then? [Answer: because Pinochet fought the "communists." - Mr. Trend.]

Certainly, neither of these stories will change much in the election, nor should they necessarily - there are manifold reasons why not to vote for McCain besides these. Still, they do reveal a really troubling side to his past activities that do give an important insight into how he might potentially deal with Latin America and in his foreign policy relations more generally.

Historical Image of the Day

Meeting between Henry Kissinger and Augusto Pinochet, 1974. I believe they are also talking about bunnies and flowers.

Henry is telling Pinochet about how much Nixon loves to send poisoned chocolate to America's kids around Easter. Pinochet looks on with interest, thinking how he can place time bombs inside of stuffed rabbits as a way to eliminate the children of lefties.