» SubscribeMain section
-
Top story
Chile's ghosts are not being rescued
John Pilger
DATELINE: 19/10/10
The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a facade.
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile, but the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile's privatised mines. The San José mine, where the men work, became so unsafe in 2007 that it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labour department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies", but no action was taken. Six days later, the men were entombed.
For all the media circus at the rescue site, contemporary Chile is a country of the unspoken. At Villa Grimaldi, in the suburbs of the capital, Santiago, a sign says: "The forgotten past is full of memory." This was the torture centre where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that Pinochet and his business allies brought to Chile. Its ghostly presence is overseen by the beautiful Andes, and the man who unlocks the gate used to live nearby and remembers the screams.
Heirs of the dictator
I was taken there one wintry morning in 2006 by Sara de Witt, who was imprisoned as a student activist and now lives in London. She was electrocuted and beaten, yet survived. Later, we drove to the home of Salvador Allende, the great democrat and reformer who perished when Pinochet seized power on 11 September 1973 - Latin America's own 9/11. His house is a silent white building without a sign or a plaque.
Everywhere, it seems, Allende's name has been eliminated. Only on the lone memorial in the cemetery are the words engraved, "Presidente de la República", as part of a remembrance of the "ejecutados políticos": those "executed for political reasons". Allende died by his own hand as Pinochet bombed the presidential palace with British planes and the US ambassador watched.
Chile is now a democracy, though many would dispute that. In 1990, Pinochet bequeathed a constitutionally compromised system as a condition of his retirement and the military's withdrawal to the political shadows. This ensures that the alliance of broadly reformist parties, known as the Concertación, is permanently divided or drawn into legitimising the economic designs of the dictator's heirs. At the last election, the right-wing Coalition for Change, the creation of Pinochet's ideologue Jaime Guzmán, took power under President Sebastián Piñera. The bloody extinction of true democracy that began with Allende's death was, by stealth, made complete.
Piñera is a billionaire who controls a slice of the mining, energy and retail industries. He made his fortune in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup and during the free-market "experiments" of the zealots from the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys. His brother and former business partner, José Piñera, a labour minister under Pinochet, privatised mining and state pensions and all but destroyed the trade unions. This was applauded in Washington as an "economic miracle", a model of the new cult of neoliberalism that would sweep the continent and ensure control from the north.
Today, Chile is critical to President Barack Obama's rollback of the independent democracies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Piñera's closest ally is Washington's main man, Juan Manuel Santos, the new president of Colombia, home to seven US bases and an infamous human rights record familiar to Chileans who suffered under Pinochet's terror.
Living in the shadowsPost-Pinochet Chile has kept its own enduring abuses in the shadows. Families still attempting to recover from the torture or disappearance of a loved one bear the prejudice of the state and employers. Those not silent are the Mapuche people, the only indigenous nation the Spanish conquistadors could not defeat. In the late 19th century, the European settlers of independent Chile waged a racist war of extermination against the Mapuche, who were left as impoverished outsiders. During Allende's thousand days in power, some Mapuche lands were returned and a debt of justice was recognised.
Since then, a vicious and largely unreported war has been waged against the Mapuche. Forestry corporations have been allowed to take their land, and their resistance has been met with murders, disappearances and arbitrary prosecutions under "anti-terrorism" laws enacted by the dictatorship.
In their campaigns of civil disobedience, none of the Mapuche has harmed anyone. The mere accusation of a landowner or businessman that the Mapuche "might" trespass on their own ancestral lands is often enough for the police to charge them with offences that lead to Kafkaesque trials, with faceless witnesses and prison sentences of up to 20 years. They are, in effect, political prisoners.
As the world rejoices at the spectacle of the miners' rescue, 38 Mapuche hunger strikers have not been news. They are demanding an end to the Pinochet laws used against them, such as "terrorist arson", and the justice of a real democracy. On 9 October, all but one of the hunger strikers ended their protest after 90 days without food. A young man, Luis Marileo, says he will go on. On 18 October, President Piñera is due to give a lecture on "current events" at the London School of Economics. He should be reminded of their ordeal and why.
This article first appeared in the New Statesman 14 October 2010.
Last modified: Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Your comments:
» Click here to add your comment.
Comments will be subject to approval and should not be defamatory, obscene, racist, in breach of copyright, or contrary to law. The CPBF is not reponsible for any views expressed here.
Previous international stories
EFJ urges Turkey : Free jailed journalists now
Gyorgy Gongadze - answers still wanted
Protesters condemn biased BBC documentary
Panorama's impartiality questioned
Vanunu released - international petition launched
Pentagon increases pressure on WikiLeaks to return military files
Vanunu case: Solitary confinement is cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
WikiLeaks founder breaks cover in Brussels
Strong media freedom laws erupt in Iceland
IFJ condemns Gaza attack
Journalist casualties in Thai clashes
Israel nuclear whistleblower to be jailed again
IFJ condemns NYT hypocrisy
EFJ pledge fight back
EFJ condemns Italian ban on TV political talk
EFJ conference calls on EU to act on media and journalism crisis
Exposed - China's secret bans on media reporting
As Haiti disaster unfolds , IFJ plans aid for victims in media and journalism
Copenhagen police accused of violating human rights
Project Censored - the top twenty five stories
European Parliament fails to defend free journalism
Report dares to call for public funding to save American journalism
Bill would give US president emergency control of Internet
IFJ call to lift news blackout over Kabul
IFJ condemns intimidation as Ahmadinejad targets journalists in Iran
Finland: EFJ protests against "Threatening" Bill on protection of sources
Jonathan Dimbleby on the BBC Trust's treatment of Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen
Kazakhstan journalists fear they could end up behind an information "iron curtain"
IFJ Backs Russian and Asian unions in campaign to rebuild trust in media
Nato strategist Jamie Shea gives chilling insight
-
Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
-
Previous stories
International
EFJ urges Turkey : Free jailed journalists now
Gyorgy Gongadze - answers still wanted
Protesters condemn biased BBC documentary
Panorama's impartiality questioned
Vanunu released - international petition launched
Pentagon increases pressure on WikiLeaks to return military files
Vanunu case: Solitary confinement is cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
WikiLeaks founder breaks cover in Brussels
Strong media freedom laws erupt in Iceland
IFJ condemns Gaza attack
Journalist casualties in Thai clashes
Israel nuclear whistleblower to be jailed again
IFJ condemns NYT hypocrisy
EFJ pledge fight back
EFJ condemns Italian ban on TV political talk
EFJ conference calls on EU to act on media and journalism crisis
Exposed - China's secret bans on media reporting
As Haiti disaster unfolds , IFJ plans aid for victims in media and journalism
Copenhagen police accused of violating human rights
Project Censored - the top twenty five stories
European Parliament fails to defend free journalism
Report dares to call for public funding to save American journalism
Bill would give US president emergency control of Internet
IFJ call to lift news blackout over Kabul
IFJ condemns intimidation as Ahmadinejad targets journalists in Iran
Finland: EFJ protests against "Threatening" Bill on protection of sources
Jonathan Dimbleby on the BBC Trust's treatment of Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen
Kazakhstan journalists fear they could end up behind an information "iron curtain"
IFJ Backs Russian and Asian unions in campaign to rebuild trust in media
Nato strategist Jamie Shea gives chilling insight
