Chile's Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued

[Panaconda]

Chile's Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued
Wednesday 13 October 2010
by: John Pilger


Chile's indigenous Mapuche population peacefully protest in Santiago, Chile. (Photo: Patricio / Flickr)

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 and is the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of Gen. 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 privatized mines. The San Jose mine, where the trapped men work, became so unsafe in 2007 it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labor department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies," but the minister took no action. 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 the Villa Grimaldi, in the suburbs of the capital Santiago, a sign says: "The forgotten past is full of memory." This was the torture center where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that General Pinochet and his business allies brought to Chile. Its ghostly presence is overseen by the beauty of the Andes, and the man who unlocks the gate used to live nearby and remembers the screams.

...

Since then, a vicious, 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 offenses that lead to Kafkaesque trials with faceless witnesses and prison sentences of up to 20 years. They are, in effect, political prisoners.

...

http://www.truth-out.org/chiles-ghosts-are-not-being-rescued64160

[sinkingfeeling]

1. This is an excellent article. Good recap of Chile's history for those who don't remember it.

[jaxx]

2. Blowing off the lives of the 33 miners for a rant.

The author should have thought better of doing that.

[Panaconda]

4. Pilger blew nothing off

Your comment elides over the more sobering reality.

Here's a good comment from the article's readers at Truthout that addresses your faulty assessment:

@ Andrew: "There will ample time in the coming weeks for a more sober assessment of Chilean politics and life."
Uh huh.
There has been "ample time" the past 4 decades since the coup. Who used it to change ANYTHING?
The world is watching and listening NOW. With the World Series and later the Super Bowl, Oprah leaving Chicago, and our own selections coming in November, will YOU and 300 million other Americans be paying attention to Chile by Thanksgiving?
Sorry it pees in "Anonymous'" cheerios; but my guess is things have not been so "cheerio" for the natives -- or the miners -- for hundreds of years.
ANYTIME is a good time to call for justice.

[Gold Metal Flake]

6. The corporations approve of your message.

[Octafish]

3. K&R and it stayed at ''0.''

Unreccers have no clue about what this story is about.
Oh well, it's come to the United States of America and they'll know soon enough.

[Gold Metal Flake]

7. I pushed it to +1.

But then a corporocrat pushed it back to zero.

[Brickbat]

5. I just posted this in another thread: The most heartbreaking thing about this rescue is that if

people had put this much effort into listening to, honoring, helping and keeping these miners safe BEFORE the accident, there might not have even been an accident -- and profits still would have been just fine.

[Gold Metal Flake]

8. Kick for history