Patricia Isasa's fight for justice

Patricia Isasa has fought for justice and transparency for over 30 years. At the time of her kidnapping, July of 1976, architect Patricia Isasa was 16 years old. She was abducted by a commando group of the provincial police and taken to one of the 375 clandestine detention and torture centers set up during the dictatorship. She was targeted for her organizing efforts as a delegate of the High School Students Union in the province of Santa Fe. She was held prisoner without trial for 2 years and two months. After her release in 1979 she compiled complaints to be presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, which was about to visit Argentina. She was again abducted with another thirty men and women. She was released after three days, but was one of only four to survive.

Since 1997, Isasa has gathered exhaustive documentation to put her perpetrators behind bars. However, full stop and due obedience laws implemented in the early 90's foreclosed any successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for human right crimes by the courts. Last year the Supreme Court struck down amnesty laws that protected former military officers who served during the dictatorship.

Now, after nearly 25 years since her release from clandestine detention centers, Isasa's life is again in danger. Since the conviction of former police chief Miguel Etchecolatz, in a landmark trial human rights activists have faced a wave of threats and attacks. Jorge Julio Lopez, a key witness in the land mark human rights trial to convict Etchecolatz for crimes against humanity, went missing on September 18 2006. Lopez, a retired construction worker and former political prisoner disappeared just hours before he was slated to give his final testimony on the eve of the conviction of Etchecolatz.

Patricia Isasa has entered a witness protection program after receiving threatening phone calls. The judge handling her case also received death threats. However, her will to fight for justice is never ending. She is planning to give a court testimony in Santa Fe in March, a very dangerous place because of local power's interests in protecting former members of the military junta. In a recent interview with Isasa, she talked about her case and hopes for truth and justice.

MT: What is the news on your case?

PI: My case is paralyzed at the moment, just like all the human rights trials in the country after Etchecolatz's conviction and kidnapping of Jorge Julio Lopez. I had a court date for a trial against my perpetrators in November 2006. We're now in February and the courts are telling me that my case won't come up until November 2007. This means two serious things. First, it means another year of waiting, injustice and impunity. Secondly, is that the repressors have a chance of being released from jail. They can be released after two years if they haven't been sentenced in court.

MT: Can you give us some background on your case to put your perpetrators on trial?

PI: When I finished the investigation I couldn't take it to Argentine courts because it was the year 1997-98 and the amnesty laws protecting members of the military junta were still in place. I then took the case to Spain and presented it to the international Judge Baltasar Garzon. Garzon requested the extradition of my perpetrators in Spain in 2003. This request was denied and the Argentine courts were forced to try my perpetrators here in the country.

The nine people who were arrested following my investigation are being tried for genocide, state terrorism and torture which are all crimes against humanity. But the courts still haven't defined the legal charges they are facing. At any moment the judge can change the charges. It's doubtful that they will be charged with illicit association. Illicit association is the alma mater of state terrorism. I am accusing these nine people for kidnapping, torturing and murdering fellow detainees. They had people detained for years without any trace. I personally lived through this. For six months I was held somewhere where I didn't know if it was night or day or how many days had gone by. To organize all these crimes there had to have been illicit association: an association among a group of people to commit crimes that were planned, organized and orchestrated from the state.

These people don't have a defense. Crimes committed during the dictatorship weren't crimes of passion. Former members of the junta government can't say they were crazy. They can't claim insanity, because later on they became public officials with government positions of power. The only thing they can do in their defense is to muddle with the legal process.

Who are the people involved in the case? We have five police officers, three from the army and we have a court employee, because the courts were accomplices in the repression. Juan Orlando Rolon, Domingo Marcellini and Nicolas Correa belonged to the army. Domingo Marcellini was a graduate from the School of the Americas in 1973 and later became chief of intelligence. He was responsible for repression in Santa Fe during the crudest years of the dictatorship. In the city of Santa Fe alone there were more than 300 people who were disappeared. Nicolas Correa was an army lieutenant in charge of operative intelligence. It's an elegant way to say he was the chief of torture. They called torturing and interrogating people part of security intelligence. Correa is a serial killer who was responsible for more than 300 deaths.

Mario Jose Fasino was the head of torture and extermination camps in Santa Fe. Half the people who entered these camps were murdered or they died during torture sessions. Eduardo Ramos was a torturer, rapist and administered electric shocks. The other two police are Hector Romeo Colombini and Juan Perizzotti.

The civil servant from the courts was Victor Hermes Brusa, who interrogated detainees in the clandestine camps. What would interrogators do? When the torture session was over, they would pick you up naked, bleeding and sometimes after being sexually violated. They would throw you into an adjoining room and have you sign a previously prepared document. Victor Brusa would say 'sign or you'll go back to the torture room.'

M.T.: What happened to these individuals after the military dictatorship ended in 1983?

P.I.: What is most paradoxical of all this is what these individuals turned into after the return to democracy. The misfortune of failing to put these people on trial wasn't the only result of impunity, they were also rewarded for their crimes. Up until now none of them have faced trial. Correa became Security Secretary for the province of Santa Fe. Fasino became a local mayor in Santa Fe 20 years after running a clandestine torture center. Ramos was the Culture Secretariat in Santa Fe for many years. Hector Colombini was in charge of the illicit drugs division in the police force. Finally, when I investigated my perpetrators 10 years ago I discovered that Victor Brusa, an interrogator in the concentration camps had become a federal judge.

M.T.: How did you take the news about the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, another key witness in La Plata?

P.I.: For me his kidnapping was a slap in the face. I naively thought for the past 20 years in democracy that this wouldn't happen again. I thought that no one supported the methods used during the dictatorship - killing torturing, throwing people alive into the sea and burying people alive. Even the fascists who support the dictatorship, I thought they did it only behind closed doors. I never thought that we'd go back with the banner and demand "Aparación con vida ya! - For the safe return, Now!"

In this sense Lopez was kidnapped to avenge Etchecolatz. Etchecolatz's group with ties to the provincial police kidnapped Lopez to create fear and to prove that they have the infrastructure to kidnap more people. I think they kidnapped and killed him and then hid his body. A national death threat campaign later ensued.

The government is absolutely responsible for actions following Lopez's disappearance. Why don't they look into the groups connected with Echecolatz? Why are all the repressors currently under arrested facing trials being held in the same place? They should be spread out in jails throughout the country. These individuals killed thousands; don't they deserve to be put in regular jails? They should be in maximum security prisons, not under house arrest or in a jail along with fellow military buddies.

M.T.: Patricia, what do you need to feel at peace and to feel as if justice has been served?

P.I.: The trials against former members of the military dictatorship are clearly stopped. As a result of the kidnapping of Lopez, hundreds of threats against judges and activists, many witnesses have dropped out of the trials. I no longer have a date for my trial. They are telling me that in another year the trial will begin. This means another year of impunity. Another year of being a witness whose life is in danger. When can I have a sense of peace? When these repressors have a firm sentence and are put in jail. When they are deactivated as much as possible. Please, don't put them together in the same jail so they can lobby for a shorter sentence or negotiate with another kidnapped witness.

The trials against former military from the junta are just the tip of the iceberg. What I would like is for the trials charging ex-military officers to be guided by the search for truth, to look beneath the surface and explain what happened and why. Why did the state decide to kidnap, torture, kill and hide the bodies of 30,000 citizens? We need to understand what happened. They killed off the opposition and created an atmosphere of terror to impose a new economic and social model. What the Argentine people need now is justice.

Death Flight Confession

Written by Marie Trigona Wednesday, 07 February 2007

A former military officer admitted on February 1 in court to having thrown dissidents off of planes during Argentina's military dictatorship in an ongoing junta trial. Former vice-admiral Luis María Mendía, now 82-years-old, on trial for human rights abuses during the time of the junta-run government testified in court that he participated in a plan to wipe out dissidents. He admitted that he gave orders to drug prisoners and drop them from planes and helicopters into the Atlantic Ocean in the so-called "vuelos de la muerte" - or "death flights".

During his court appearance, Mendía defended torture and other illegal methods used by his subordinates, saying that they were only following former president Isabel Peron's orders. A federal court is investigating Mendía in a mega trial into human rights violations at the ESMA Navy Mechanics School, the largest of the 375 clandestine detention centers used during the 1976-1983 dictatorship to disappear nearly 30,000 people.

Alfredo Astiz, one of the nation’s military captain is also under trial in the ESMA investigation. In his first court testimony on January 23, ex-navy captain Afredo Astiz, denied involvement in the kidnapping of two French Nuns who were later killed. Astiz, known as the "blond angel of death," suggested that French secret agents were responsible for the nun's kidnapping. Astiz is facing trial for the 1977 disappearances of nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duque and a dozen other people, including Azucena Villaflor, the founder of the human rights group Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.

His defense team appealed in court that Astiz could not reveal military secrets under constitutional law. Following Astiz’s testimony, President Kirchner signed a decree in late January that will allow military personnel to reveal secret information to prevent any roadblocks in the upcoming trials of security officers accused of human rights abuses during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Argentine Prisoner for Poor Public Transportation

Upsidedownworld.org
Tuesday, 30 January 2007

Human rights groups and social movements rallied in front of Argentina’s Human Rights Ministry in Buenos Aires on Friday for the release of Roberto Canteros, political prisoner since 2005. Canteros was arrested during a train commuter riot, when passengers fed up with poor service destroyed a local train station in Haedo, a suburb of Buenos Aires in November 2005. Canteros has been held without trial since his 2005 arrest and is facing charges of stealing a police woman’s gun, charges which human rights groups allege to be false. Currently 20 people, including a minor have been charged with inciting riots, but they have been released on bail. In late November 2005, angry commuters attacked a train station and set a train cabin on fire after service was cancelled. Witnesses and journalists say that flames in train cabin initially erupted on their own. When service was cancelled, angry passengers began to set small fires under the train. The violence then spread to the entire Haedo train station and later poured into the street. Attackers broke automated ticket machines and then targeted local businesses and banks. Roberto Canteros wrote from his jail cell eight months since his arrest pleading commuters who endure humiliating conditions on the commuter trains daily to speak out against TBA’s (Trenes de Buenos Aires - the privatized train company) actions. “I ask those people who commute everyday on the Sarmiento line (a train line that runs from Buenos Aires to the Western suburbs) who know what it’s like to travel in the company’s poor conditions to not let them to condemn me. TBA (continues to make people travel like cattle. But I’m here jailed for being poor and not having the resources to defend myself against so much injustice.” On the day of his arrest, Canteros was headed to work at a furniture tapestry shop. Like everyday the train arrived packed and delayed. The train stalled before arriving to the Haedo train station. Canteros joined other passengers who went to the train station to see what was going on with the train. “People were really angry and people started throwing rocks at the train. I went to see what was happening and the conductors told me that my train was about to leave. I stayed in the train station along with other passengers waiting. Twenty minutes went by and people appeared from everywhere; that’s where the ruckus started,” tells Canteros. “They cancelled my train and I stayed watching as a curious spectator, to see what was going on.” After hours of confrontations, 200 border guards and federal police began a witch hunt, arresting over 100 people. Most of those picked up had a similar profile: 20-30 years-old, dark hair and skin and working class. Canteros began to walk to a bus stop and was stopped by police, who asked him to sign as a witness, a process which can take hours. He refused explaining to the police he was late for work. Later, as he crossed the train tracks, five plain clothes police showed up yelling, “There’s one more.” They put him in a truck with several other men and took him to the police precinct. Canteros recounts that he hadn’t seen any police woman. “Slow justice is no justice.” For 14 months, Canteros’s wife María has had to take charge of their 5 children. She has participated in every action held for Canteros. During the rally at the Human Rights Minsitry, she plead with representatives to visit her husband. Solidarity from human rights groups has been key in keeping Canteros in the spotlight to push for his release “Seeing so many people asking for his freedom makes us feel better, before we were alone in this fight,” says María. “We didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even have a lawyer because we didn’t have the resources.” Argentina’s judicial system has been criticized for corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. Cases like Canteros are not uncommon; often detainees must wait often years to be tried. In the case of political prisoners it is even more common; they are generally jailed for over a year and then released for lack of evidence. The effects of spending a year in jail takes its toll, with prisoners losing jobs, opportunities and unrecoverable time with loved ones. Mirta Alguernes’s son was also arrested during the Haedo train riot. He spent nearly a year in jail and is currently facing trial. She says that TBA wants to use Canteros as an example to warn off future protests against passengers. “There is no evidence to keep Roberto in prison, but he has been in jail for over 15 months. TBA continues to function with bad service and receives government subsidies. And Roberto continues to be an example to warn off passengers from complaining or protesting against the way they must travel. We want the government for once and for all to call for the release of Roberto.” TBA’s trains run as normal, sporadic and overcrowded. Train services were privatized in the 90’s and receive heavy subsidies. Instead of investing in improving services, the money goes for profits and CEO’s. Over 10 million passengers ride on the Sarmiento line per month. Often passengers hang from the rooftops or doors on the trains, to escape the cars where commuters travel like cattle. Weekly, there are major accidents resulting from overcrowding. According to Ayelen, from HIJOS-Oeste (Children of the Disappeared from the suburbs around Haedo) any one of the thousands who protested against poor commuter service could be in the same situation as Canteros. “We’re fighting for Roberto’s freedom because we think that Roberto is another victim of a system that makes passengers ride in TBA-Sarmiento’s poor conditions. We think that they detained Roberto to put blame on a particular person and the truth is that Roberto Canteros is just another passenger and any of us could be in his situation, in jail away from our families.” For more information about Canteros’s case, click here.

Death of a dictator, Pinoccho dies

The news of the death of dictator Pinochet spread fast among circles throughout Latin America. I was in Sao Paulo at a film festival. As we heard the news, fellow political film makers embraced eachother with joy. As the meeting ended we brought opened bottles of beer and made a special toast: to the death of a dictator and for freedom. Traces of the dictatorship are alive and well in Chilean society. Currently Michelle Batchelet has ordered police forces to repress any street protests
that may interfere with the neoliberal order. Many activists have been put in jail in recent days, anarchists and mapuches fighting for self-determination. This short entry is dedicated to the some 4,000 Chileans who lost their lives fighting for a better world.

30 Years Since Chile's Military Coup, Allende Lives

Marie Trigona October 3, 2003

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain.
I am certain that at least it will be a moral example
that will punish the felony, cowardice, and treason."
-- Salvador Allende, Sept. 11, 1973

For Latin Americans, Sept. 11 marked a cataclysmic event well before that same date in 2001 was etched in the conscience of the U.S. populace by terror attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Organization headquarters. On that date in 1973, Chile awoke to a U.S.-supported military coup against its democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. By 12:15 p.m., Allende lay dead in La Moneda, Chile's presidential palace.

To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the attack, activists from across the continent gathered in what was more a celebration of the man and his government than a requiem. The International Seminar "At 30 years, Allende lives!" took a close look at the surge of grassroots organizing that grounded Chile's agrarian reforms, as well as struggles for housing and dignified employment during Allende's three years as president. Participants stressed the need for similar popular participation to increase democracy in today's Chile.

U.S. Involvement, End of People's Government

"The armed forces have acted with patriotic inspiration to take a nation out of chaos, a grave chaos that Allende's Marxist government caused," declared a triumphant Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte the night of Sept. 11. Chile's military junta (1973-1990) replaced Allende's democratic socialism with a tyranny of terror that continues to haunt the nation.

Allende's government was targeted as a threat to U.S. strategic policy in Latin America early on. White House tapes reveal that on Sept. 14, 1970, then-President Richard Nixon ordered measures to force the Chilean economy into bankruptcy. "The U.S. will not accept a Marxist government just because of the irresponsibility of the Chilean people," declared Henry Kissinger, Nixon´s secretary of State. "The CIA had a large role in the strike against Salvador Allende and the Chilean people," states U.S. author James Cockroft. "Big corporations like [the] ITT American telecommunications giant also played a large role in preparing the conditions for the coup in Chile. Economic blockades, destabilization of the economy, direct military participation were all part of the imperialist intervention of the CIA and U.S. military," continues Cockroft.

Four U.S. battle ships approached Chile's coast Sept.11, supposedly to participate in regional military practices. They maintained permanent contact with the coup leaders. Leading up to the coup, in July and August right-wing terrorists trained by U.S intelligence agencies carried out over 250 sabotage actions, exploding electric lines, targeting industry belts, and assassinating key civilians. In October 1972 the Chilean Transport Confederation called a general strike, financed by the CIA, which paralyzed the nation. Months before the military coup, the Chilean army began immobilizing worker-controlled factories by organizing operatives and testing the possible reactions of the working class to a coup. "Three years of economic war permitted the White House and internal opposition to win an important sector of the middle class. It's here the official rebels found the base of support to develop their plans," expresses Patricio Guzmán in his moving film The Battle of Chile.

"Economic methods to destabilize progressive governments were perfected in 1973," comments Cockroft. Even while confronting attempts at destabilization, Allende's approval among public opinion rose. On Sept. 4, 1970 Allende, as candidate of the Popular Unity Front, was elected with 36.4% of votes. In March of 1973, Allende's party won legislative elections with 43. 4%. In response to employer lock-outs in industry, factories were nationalized and workers organized themselves to control production. Activists from MIR, the Leftist Revolutionary Movement, tell of expropriating buses with pistols in hand and working armed inside factories to guarantee that production and transportation continued.

Workers, peasants, students, and state workers rallied behind Allende in huge street demonstrations, by organizing community deposit centers where food was sold at cost, and by opening supermarkets closed during the business shut-down. On Sept. 4, 1973, in response to the perceived immanence of the coup attempt and a plebiscite planned for Sept. 11, the largest political act in Chile's history was held in Santiago's center, mobilizing tens of thousands of people.

Cockcroft notes that as a result of the coup, the Chilean oligarchy and the U.S. imperialists were able to install a repressive dictatorship and a neoliberal economic regime that left the majority of the people poorer than during Allende's government, when over half the population improved its economic condition. Pinochet immediately applied U.S.-prescribed measures of privatization and elimination of restrictions on the circulation of capital. Conditions favorable to foreign investors, including tax exemptions, and the lowering of environmental and labor standards sought to lure foreign investors.

But the neoliberal model imposed after Allende's fall was only possible through the brutal control of all political dissent, achieved by militarizing society and implementing a state of terror. "After Sept. 11 all military resources were used to repress the Popular Unity Front, with North American compliance and presence," Guzmán narrates. In the ensuing days, sport stadiums were transformed into concentration camps where thousands passed through the hands of the dictatorship's terror and torture; executions and disappearances became commonplace.

Over the next 17 years, Pinochet's dictatorship insured a submissive and dependent economy and a stranglehold on dissent. It is estimated that about 550 enterprises under public-sector control, including most of Chile's largest corporations, were privatized between 1974 and 1990. During the same period, some 3,000 people were officially declared dead or disappeared.

The Past that Lingers

"After 30 years, our history is still an open, bleeding wound," states Cesar Quirós, Chilean human rights activist from the Manuel Rodríguez Movement. He notes that Chile's transition to democracy has been full of contradictions. Until the late 80s Pinochet's regime maintained strong control. On Sept.11, 1980 Pinochet adopted a new Constitution to stay in power and announced a plebiscite for 1988. With civil society pressuring for elections, Pinochet's regime was rejected in the plebiscite. He remained in power until his executive term ended in 1990.

Pinochet and his supporters formed a political party, the Alliance for Chile. The first candidate of the right-wing alliance was Pinochet's former Minister of Finance Hernán Büchi Buc, who ran as an independent supported by the pro-government Independent Democratic Union (UDI, by its Spanish initials). Center-left forces formed a coalition made up of 17 parties to defeat the new right and it succeeded with the election of Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, with 55.2% of votes in December 1989. Today, the coalition includes the Christian Democrats and center-left politicians, among them many who supported the coup and participated in the Pinochet dictatorship.

Thirteen years have passed since the end of the dictatorship and the much-heralded "return to democracy," but many of the old systems of repression remain. Even now, people continue to denounce new cases of disappearances. Chile has not been able to solve past crimes and current contradictions that have permanent effects on today's society: Some 1,200 disappeared remain unaccounted for; impunity for war criminals continues to be the legal norm; the same military and police forces control the streets; and ex-military leaders of the dictatorship are serving as senators for life. Nelson Mery, chief of Chile's Investigative Police since 1990, resigned his post on Sept. 26 of this year, more than a month after being formally accused of torturing prisoners during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Pinochet.

Quirós maintains that due to pressures from the right-wing and U.S. political interests, Chile's return to democracy has brought little fundamental change. "Chile's democracy is still a dictatorship, nearly intact. Constitutional powers are the same, it's the same Constitution of 1980. When you talk about Chile's armed forces, they are the same as under Pinochet. The armed forces continue to claim that they will not allow another popular government like Popular Unity. They've made sure that popular sectors are not able to embark on a new attempt to change this unjust society that excludes the majority and is anti-democratic."

The Chilean Constitution that Pinochet adopted provides the military with autonomy from civil government, allowing armed forces to act unchecked. Referring to the Constitution, current President Ricardo Lagos has stated: "The authoritarian seeds are there intact. Our transition has not been concluded, we don't have a Magna Carta that has democratic norms." Nonetheless, many feel that Lagos' efforts at political reform have been symbolic, while at the same time guaranteeing impunity and amnesty for those responsible for crimes during the dictatorship and dutifully applying neoliberal policies.

"For 30 years, Chile has been a model of imperialism. Now we have both forms, economic and military control. Economic measures today are the same neoliberalism that Pinochet implemented in the 1970s, but it's more ferocious, sophisticated and complete," Cockcroft asserts. He adds that today these policies are being imposed by free trade accords, exemplified by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the north and the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement in the south.

Although from the same party as Allende, Lagos has been a staunch promoter of the free trade agreement with the United States. In July, the U.S. Congress ratified the free trade Agreement with Chile and the Chilean Congress expects to pass and sign the agreement no later than Oct. 31. The first ratified free trade agreement of this type in South America will then take effect Jan. 1, 2004. The United States is already Chile's primary client for exports, with total sales to the United States at over $2.87 billion. The agreement with Washington will immediately lift 85% of Chile's import taxes and will totally abolish tariffs by 2014. Lagos had already signed a free trade agreement with the European Union in 2002.

Conflicts Unresolved

Chile has adopted a model for development that only benefits a small sector of society, led by transnational businesses, and leaving out most workers and peasants. Nearly 22% of the population is living below the poverty line and the unemployment rate stands at 9.2%. The economy has been globalized through privatizations and is dependent on imported capital and foreign investment. Conditions for macroeconomic policies are set by foreign bodies, especially the U.S. government and the multilateral financial institutions. Like its neighbors Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, Chile continues to borrow from financial institutions to stabilize capital flows, while private debt accumulated under the dictatorship has been absorbed by public sectors. In 1980, Chile's debt was $11.2 billion; by 2002 it had swelled to $40.4 billion.

Agrarian reform carried out under the Allende administration has become a thing of the past. On the contrary, tendencies toward concentration of land have grown stronger in recent years, a cause for concern in a nation where nearly 14% of the labor force works in agriculture. Francisca Ramírez, indigenous activist from Vía Campesina, sees the impact of the transnationalization of agriculture on the small farmers she works with every day. "We are demanding that what we produce and eat not be determined by corporations and capital forces. This government's vision is that agriculture has its basis in the free market, that it's necessary to produce for those with money." She reaffirms the need for Chile to be able to sustain its basic needs through developing agricultural diversity and blocking agri-corporations from further extending systems of monoculture.

The past two decades have also seen increasing conflict between Chile's indigenous peoples--particularly the country's largest indigenous group, the Mapuche--and a series of Chilean governments over questions of land rights and development. These conflicts have resulted in a number of deaths. Most recently a 17-year-old Mapuche activist, Edmundo Alex Lemun, died on Nov. 12, 2002, five days after being shot in the head during a clash with carabineros (police) who were trying to forcibly remove a group of Mapuches occupying ancestral indigenous lands claimed by the Mininco lumber company in Angol Province. There are dozens of Mapuche activists today being held as political prisoners in Chile's jails as part of struggles for land rights.

Washington's policy proclaims that the proposed free trade agreements will help usher in "a hemisphere of liberty." Linking free markets to democracy, U.S. President George W. Bush has declared that "people who operate in open economies eventually demand more open societies." The U.S. continues to support governments that adopt favorable conditions to foreign capital and investments, but today it chooses its tactics more carefully. Making back-door trade agreements, setting financial conditions, and controlling the poor through structural adjustment policies of international lending institutions have replaced financing and supporting military dictatorships.

All-Too-Living Legacy

On Sept. 11, while Lagos attended ceremonies in front of La Moneda to commemorate those who lost their lives 30 years ago, Pinochet attended a different ceremony. Twisting history to celebrate himself as a legitimate statesman, Pinochet commemorated 30 years since the military coup and donated his presidential sash to the Pinochet Foundation. This foundation's objective is to honor the dictatorship. Some 4,000 people attended this ceremony. In a symbolic act, current head of the Chilean military Gen. Juan Emilio Cheyre, made a surprise visit to Pinochet's home to chat with the ex-dictator--who was Cheyre's commander-in-chief in 1973. Neither made any public declaration of what they talked about in the meeting. Cheyre also attended ceremonies at the Military School to commemorate the deaths of anti-Allende forces during and after the military coup. In national newspaper headlines he was quoted as saying, "I feel secure about our power to manifest that the Chilean Army has carried out its tradition of military honor."

Jorge Martínez Busch, former military commander-in-chief and current senator, also publicly defended the military coup. In one of the ceremonies he stated that the military should "wake up and take action," referring to the military's power to guarantee immunity for crimes against humanity.

On Sept. 9, family members of the disappeared and ex-detainees peacefully occupied the Mexican, Portuguese, and Swiss embassies to demand an end to impunity for military criminals. "We have organized this action, because at 30 years since the military coup that ended Salvador Allende's constitutional government, the state has not sought justice for crimes against humanity, or executions perpetrated by the Armed Forces and agencies created to repress a defenseless population," stated a woman participating in the action. "In 13 years the government of conciliation has not reached truth and justice with respect to the atrocities committed by the dictatorship. There are more than 200 ex-military personnel exempt from judicial process, including Pinochet. Also exempt from justice are many civilians who investigated, collaborated, covered-up, or participated directly in repressive acts."

Days after the military coup, songwriter Victor Jara was detained, tortured, mutilated, and executed inside Chile's National Stadium. His body--badly beaten, with 44 bullet wounds and wrists broken by rifle butts--was found days later in an abandoned field. Thirteen years after Chile's transition to democracy, Lagos agreed to officially rename the stadium after Jara on Sept. 12. This symbolic gesture marks years of struggle by organizations and activists, but it also marks the contradictions between today's democracy and a system of terror still intact. The night of Sept. 11, hundreds participated in a march to the stadium to realize an act of homage to Victor Jara. As in like cases of so-called "unauthorized" marches, Chile's police force was ordered to repress. Demonstrators were tear-gassed, water-cannoned, and beaten. Four hundred arrived at the stadium, where thousands of candles were lit to give homage to those revolutionaries who died. Outside, hundreds more gathered after marching down the Alameda where they confronted the police.

During what the newspapers called "the night of terror," some 200,000 people in the working class neighborhoods outside of Santiago suffered a blackout when electricity lines were cut. Neighborhoods themselves cut the electricity to make it harder for the police to repress demonstrators. The worst battles between police and demonstrators were fought in these working class neighborhoods. After it was all over, police chief Alberto Cienfuegos sent a radio message congratulating the police for their work "with so much passion and energy." Twelve police officers were wounded in the actions, one shot in the face. There were some 300 demonstrators detained.

History, memory, and personal experiences have not let the events of Chile's past 30 years be erased. Activities and actions commemorating Allende demonstrate that thousands of Chile's workers, peasants, and students have not abandoned what is known as the "Battle of Chile." Chilean organizations and social movements continue to demand justice for the disappeared, an end to impunity, and a real democracy.

"I was here during Allende's government. I learned a lot from the Chilean people. It's important for the world to understand who this hero was. The other lesson to learn is that this president didn't prepare the people for such an attack, an attack so voracious. Many in the government knew that the coup was very probable. It's hard to say this publicly, but we recognize that we need to prepare ourselves to defend ourselves. Prepare ourselves against a military intervention," James Cockroft warned at the 30-year anniversary.