Shielded for decades, Pinochet thugs now face justice

[Starry Messenger]

http://peoplesworld.org/shielded-for-decades-pinochet-thugs-now-face-justice/

On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet, then army commander-in-chief, took control of Chile. He led a U.S.-sponsored coup that murdered popularly elected President Salvador Allende and overthrew the governing coalition headed by the Socialist Party. Pinochet ruled Chile until 1990, when he went back to being the commander-in-chief of the army.

To run the economy Pinochet installed "the Chicago boys," trained by right-wing economist Milton Friedman. Among other things, they restricted labor unions and privatized Social Security. A few corporations made billions, but the standard of living of most Chileans plummeted.

<snip>

In 1986, Quintana, then 18, and Rodrigo Rojas, 19, were captured by Chilean soldiers while observing a workers' strike in Santiago against the Pinochet dictatorship. Rojas, a budding photographer, had been born in Chile but grew up in Washington, DC. He had returned to see the land of his birth.

The soldiers severely beat Rojas and Quintana, doused them with gasoline and left them for dead. They were found by local workers and taken to a hospital.

Quintana was severely disfigured. Rojas died within four days.

The case of "los quemados," the "burned ones," brought outrage from human rights groups around the world, but no one was held accountable until two weeks ago.

De-classified papers recently posted by the National Security Archives show that Pinochet, the U.S. State Department, the CIA and President Ronald Reagan knew almost immediately what had happened to Rojas and Quintana.

<snip>

[Cleita]

1. Fantastic. I was born in Chile too but mostly raised here. Half USA American and half Chilean.

But for the grace of God that could have been me. I was an Allende supporter.

[Starry Messenger]

2. Yes, I'm glad to see this too.

It's easy to get cynical about people every getting punished for heinous crimes in the name of capitalist expansion. I'm amazed justice has gotten this far. I could even hope for some sentences.

[Cleita]

3. There probably will be. All the ghouls that brought this about are either dead or like

Henry Kissinger enjoying his ill-gotten stature as an elder statesman. I don't think he will dirty his hands with helping them and that's the only way they would get away with it, interference from our State Department.

[TBF]

4. Especially in the early part of Reagan's

administration the US really supported Pinochet by looking the other way. These were big topics when I was in college in the mid-80s (Reagan also funded the contras in Nicaragua etc).

[Starry Messenger]

5. I had no idea what was going on until later.

I started college a little later, and we didn't cover foreign policy until I was a few years in. I vaguely knew about Oliver North and the Contras, and was left with a distaste for the grey old men of the MIC.

[TBF]

6. Wisconsin was pretty hard core -

and there was a lot of hatred towards Reagan. The 80s were definitely tamer than the 60s and 70s, but there were still a lot of protests and students were very politically active as a whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing