Everything Southern Humboldt and more
Assuming they have the right people. Eight former soldiers have been charged with the murder of Victor Jara.
There have been a number of legends about his end, some of them in song.
And for something of the artist himself:
I’ll post more stuff on topic later.
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14 comments
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December 29, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Joe Blow
Where’s your title?
December 29, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Eric Kirk
I don’t know what happened to the title, but I just put it back.
December 30, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Matt
Of course these were the guys that were backed by our own government
January 1, 2013 at 1:09 pm
Joe Blow
40 years of impunity at an end? Maybe in some parts of the world, but not in this country – no looking back! Remember?
January 1, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Joe Blow
“…guys that were backed by our own government.” More like surrogates.
January 1, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Eric Kirk
When I was in college Isabelle Allende came to speak. She had almost been denied entry to the country by the Reagan Administration as “prejudicial” to US policy, but her lawyers did well by her. At the time, Pinochet still had a firm grip on Chile. Asked by a student what we could do about it, she said “Nothing. This is a Chilean problem.” And she went on to talk about the ethnocentrism of North Americans, even the radicals.
I think she would take offense at even well-intentioned radicals trying to frame this subject into a North American context. Maybe that radical impulse to blame the US for everything is just one more symptom of cultural imperialism – once again placing us at the center of the world, and minimalizing what is important to those at what we term “the periphery” or “the third world.”
This story is about justice in Chile. Eight Chilean ex-soldiers being charged for the murder of a Chilean poet and singer. It’s not about your political agenda, or mine. Nor our grand analysis. These soldiers, assuming they have the right people, committed murder with impunity. Perhaps they were ordered to do so, and perhaps they are to some degree patsies. And maybe they’ll get some deal if they cough up names of higher-ups. Maybe not. The point is, this is a Chilean call. Not ours. Not even on the with the best of intentions.
January 2, 2013 at 2:39 am
Matt
The article that you linked to says:
“A day after the American-supported Sept. 11 coup that ousted the socialist president, Salvador Allende, Mr. Jara was arrested by the military at the Santiago Technical University, where he was a professor and researcher, along with hundreds of students, teachers and staff members.”
January 2, 2013 at 10:12 am
Eric Kirk
There was plenty of American support. Kissinger was very open about it when he said, “I don’t see why we should let a country turn communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
But it’s still not about us and our political agendas.
January 2, 2013 at 12:45 pm
Mitch
God I love that quote.
January 2, 2013 at 4:18 pm
Erasmus
Anj article by Richard Fagen in the January, 1975, issue of ‘Foreign Affairs’ states that this oft-cited quotation is apocryphal. But don’t let that stop the fun. We can all pretend that Chile would have turned into a model social democracy had Allende been allowed to serve out his term in office. (In my view, that would not have occurred —- but bashing Kissinger is just too enjoyable, isn’t it?)
January 2, 2013 at 10:59 pm
Mitch
Erasmus,
Mmmyup.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/nyregion/17nyc.html?_r=0
January 3, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Eric Kirk
I don’t know if it would have turned into a model social democracy if he had been allowed to serve out his term. But it would have remained a democracy, and thousands of people would not have been killed.
His seizures of property were perfectly legal under legislation that had been passed in the 1920s – Chile’s version of eminent domain. And considering that the factories had been closed as a deliberate attempt to undermine the economy, I’m not sure the seizures would be illegal here.
January 3, 2013 at 5:31 pm
Erasmus
If I could dictate the course of history, the coup that ousted Allende would not have taken place. That said, let’s not forget that he was elected with only 36.2 of the vote and that the wholesale nationalization he embarked on, the Peasant Councils which seized farms and the Workers’ Assemblies which occupied factories, the inflation rate of 190 per cent in the summer of 1973 …. were among the signs that pointed to a less than rosy future for Chile — before the coup happened (and then, of course, a whole new set of ominous events were set in motion). Chile would have remained a democracy? I doubt it — unless that word is defined in Castroite terms.
January 3, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, yeah, he was implementing his platform, but the seizures didn’t start until the owners shut the factories down and funded a trucker’s strike which paralyzed the country. And it was a three party system. The only election in which a candidate took more than 50 percent was in the mid sixties when the Christian Democrats ran jointly with the right wing party, can’t remember its name, just to ensure Allende’s defeat in that election. They couldn’t keep it together for a second term.
I’m not saying that Allende’s policies were great or even advisable, but there was a massive effort to sink the economy even before the first coup attempt. That Chris Rock quote about voting for the Republicans being like voting for the cancer because Obama won’t cure the cancer is really applicable. The seizures didn’t lead to the inflation, nor to the lack of goods being imported and distributed. That was a deliberate campaign on the part of a very well organized economic elite, and they don’t even deny it in retrospect.