Chile Forum

This is exactly my original point. Is what YOU READ happened in Chile sufficient for you to be "outraged" or "disgusted"? Put another way, do you have the right to be outraged? In the context of recent history, I would say you do not. Yes, it was bad, tragic, terrible, criminal, and so on; but, there are many many things in the World that are far more outrageous. What you find in history books will never be sufficient make a judgment about such human tragedies (that word does not properly capture most), and it does not do justice to the victims to simply take what is written. History of this sort deserves more than recreational reading.

My point is you need to walk around Auschwitz, have a beer with a victim of the Guatemalan civil war, listen to the air raid sirens in Nanjing China commemorating the Japanese slaughter, listen to an old Indian lady that was taken from her family by the U.S. government as a Child, or stand at the grave of a American soldier in Europe that died days before the end of WWII and was never brought home to really put these sorts of crimes and "tragedies" in perspective and start doing justice to the memory of the victims.

A history book is at best just the facts, and worse is slanted to the political views of the author; neither of which will capture the human suffering. Even in person, at best your are just getting a better sense of the tragedy; but, you are at least on some very limited basis actively taking part in the history and thus if only symbolically gaining some sort of authority to be outraged about it.

My point is that it is somehow unfair to the victims to even extend outrage from a mere reading of a document to such events. I believed it was Elie Wiesel that described such historical literature as a form of pornography.

In the case of Chile, the right to be outraged is first and foremost that of the Chileans (from both sides). Only second to that, do you need to spend time getting to know what Chile has done with that tragedy. See how the country has grown, run the balance sheet against what the country has become, what it has done to correct it, forgive, punish, or what needs is still left to be done. I am sure after that you will still have some right and authority to be outraged about it. And you should.

The only thing I have heard from people talking about that era where the long lines, food shortages, and out of control inflation.

I've not been in Chile for a long time yet, but I've had the exact same experience so far. For what it's worth I wholly concur with what's been written earlier in the thread re: Pinochet's rule being kindergarten play compared to what happened in about all Communist-ruled countries. Doesn't justify the regime's excesses, but puts things strongly in perspective.

admin wrote:This is exactly my original point. Is what YOU READ happened in Chile sufficient for you to be "outraged" or "disgusted"? Put another way, do you have the right to be outraged? In the context of recent history, I would say you do not.

What outraged me Charles was that people were just taken out and shot to death! Without trial. Without charge.

The context may help me understand what happened but no context can excuse away what was done to some people under the rule of Pinochet. And no context should diminish any outrage felt by anyone over the killing of one's without due process of law.

My point is you need to walk around Auschwitz, have a beer with a victim of the Guatemalan civil war, listen to the air raid sirens in Nanjing China commemorating the Japanese slaughter, listen to an old Indian lady that was taken from her family by the U.S. government as a Child, or stand at the grave of a American soldier in Europe that died days before the end of WWII and was never brought home to really put these sorts of crimes and "tragedies" in perspective and start doing justice to the memory of the victims.

We may have to just agree to disagree on your point Charles . I agree that coming into touch with a tragedy through personal experience, of the kind you mention, would lend a great deal to a more adequate understanding of any tragedy. For sure.

But I do not agree that one must engage in the kinds of personal experiences you mention in order to adequately gain a good and accurate understanding of what may have happened in a tragedy. Nor do I agree that outrage because of injustices suffered is inadequate or unjustified just because one has not walked in the footsteps of the tragedy through experiences like those you describe.

If that were so, then only those who have lived through a tragedy could serve as judges or as jurors over those who did the wrong. An ideal situation to be sure but not often practically possible.

I believe that we can, through adequate study and taking into account all relevant information from eye witnesses, hard evidence, and whatever else there is, form an adequate understanding of what happened in any tragedy. Without taking measures like those you mentioned to walk in the footsteps of the tragedy.

A history book is at best just the facts, and worse is slanted to the political views of the author; neither of which will capture the human suffering. Even in person, at best your are just getting a better sense of the tragedy; but, you are at least on some very limited basis actively taking part in the history and thus if only symbolically gaining some sort of authority to be outraged about it.

Not all history books are slanted Charles. I don't agree that one's outrage over unjust killing is less justified because they have not talked with persons who lived the tragedy. We may just have to agree to disagree .

My point is that it is somehow unfair to the victims to even extend outrage from a mere reading of a document to such events.

Why? Why is that unfair I mean? If one reads of unjust killing is it unfair to be outraged over that killing just because one has merely read about it? Are we to never get outraged and rightly so over anything we ever read unless we have first acquired some sort of personal experience of what it is we are reading about?

I can get outraged about what the Nazis did to the Jews without ever having personally spoken to a Jewish person who lost any relatives in the Holocaust. Is such outrage unjustified or somehow deficient because I have never done so? If you are saying it is Charles...well...I disagree.

Likewise I can and do feel outrage at the unjust killing that occurred under Pinochet's regime. No amount of understanding the context will diminish any outrage I may feel over unjust killing. It is the unjust and cold-hearted killing, whether it happened under Pinochet or Allende, that I feel outrage about.

It seems to me that if we cease to feel outrage over unjust and brutal killing that we cease to see such killing as outrageous.

In the case of Chile, the right to be outraged is first and foremost that of the Chileans (from both sides). Only second to that, do you need to spend time getting to know what Chile has done with that tragedy. See how the country has grown, run the balance sheet against what the country has become, what it has done to correct it, forgive, punish, or what needs is still left to be done. I am sure after that you will still have some right and authority to be outraged about it. And you should.

No matter what Chile has done Charles or what progress it has made...my outrage over the unjust killing that happened stems from the inhumanity of it. Not from a lack of understanding the context.

No context can excuse what happened. Nor does any progress made by Chile under Pinochet diminish the outrageousness of the unjust killing that happened.

Again...as I said...we may just have to agree to disagree .

Carlos

Went to the link Charles posted to El Puelche's posts on Allende/Pinochet. WOW. For those who haven't read them and have an interest in the topic, I strongly recommend that you set aside an hour or so and read them. They convey a level of detail and texture that you would not normally find in writing. Carolina and I spent a few hours discussing, it really brought back some memories for her, she was a teenager in the eighties and lived in Santiago & went to school near where many of the protests took place. Her memories exactly match those of El P....I say that because in a world of easily fabricated data on the internet, it is sensible to doubt what one reads. Based on everything I've ever heard my wife & in-laws discuss, P hit the nail on the head and was really there. By "there", I do not mean just present, but also aware & recording. If only more of this sort of perspective made it into writing, especially in English. BTW, P, Carolina laughed herself to near tears over the two gringos pointing up at the top of the building and the results, she felt it described Chileans perfectly.

Carlos, we agree on much. One place where we might differ is how we process data & react to human foibles. I do not feel a sense of outrage. Trials & Due Process would have created a much worse result, rather the way that an excess of DP has made the criminal problem worse in the US, or "more negotiation" (after 12 years of it) was a codeword for "never ever use force" with Iraq in 2003. Based on the circumstances, Pinochet et al did what had to be done - "Due Process" in 1970's would have resulted in much worse bloodshed in 1980's when MIR acted out, because more of the ba$tards would have been alive - and what happened during 80's with existing MIR was bad enough. Putting down an insurgency is tough, brutal, lengthy business. Our own system reflects that - Due Process in time of war is different than under normal circumstances & US Supreme Court rulings on "enemy combatants", including US citizens, allowed Roosevelt to execute US citizens for sabotage in WWII based on miltary trial only...yes, there was a trial, but if things got extreme enough, you'd see even that fade away (e.g., shooting looters on sight, drumhead hearings, etc.). I think that lack of DP was tragic....but I also think deaths in car accidents are tragic....and accept them as inevitable as long as we use cars, particularly if driven by people. I think deaths in Chile w/o trial were tragic, but I am not outraged because I see no better solution in a human world - only in the fantasy world inside the heads of law professors and the like.

John Hyre

PS: Charles, law professor jibe is not a snipe at your spouse, I have no idea what Chilean law professors are like. In the US they are almost invariably utopian Leftists...and generally rather unaquainted with the real practice of law in the real world.

JHyre wrote:...I think deaths in Chile w/o trial were tragic, but I am not outraged because I see no better solution in a human world - only in the fantasy world inside the heads of law professors and the like.

Hi John. Always enjoy hearing what you got to say!

I think I need to clarify something...Charles was the first one who mentioned my "outrage". I then embraced that and called it my own in the next post. But on thinking about it some more what I said in my original post was that I was disgusted. There is a difference.

I am not so much outraged in the sense of being indignant as I am rather disgusted that Chileans did the kinds of things they did to one another.

You say that there is no better solution in this world...than to have some tragic deaths occur. Presumably in the case of Chile, to have saved the country so to speak. At least that is the strong implication of what you seem to be saying. I disagree John.

Your statement makes it sound like the end justifies the means. Even if that means involves killing some in ways that are unjust, brutal, and without sympathy or compassion. I don't think that's what you are saying John for it would go contrary to the general bent of your opinions in general, but it sure sounds like you are saying that the end justifies the means. A slippery slope downward if there ever was one.

For me personally...there is indeed a better solution in this life John. And that solution is one that is based on my Christian faith in God. That nothing in this life is so valuable to hang on to that the murdering of another human being is justified. In other words if to save Chile from the communists or otherwise, just one life had to be murdered (never mind the thousands that actually were), then saving Chile was not and is not worth it. No country is worth that. And no such murder can be justified in the eyes of God whatever the temporal benefits of that murder may seem to be.

In the eyes of God John, I believe it would have been preferable for Chileans to loose all economically, politically, socially, and whatever other ..lly there is than for one person to have been murdered in cold blood.

Why? Because all that is temporal will not last. It is better to loose whatever we have in this life and do what is right in the eyes of God before whom we will stand in final judgment, than to hang on to it all and commit state sanctioned murder to keep it.

Carlos

Carlos, the context is all and that is why I must agree with Puelche that some of your opinions sound arrogant and a little uninformed for those who know the whole story. You cannot judge "crimes" in a war state as easy as you do, that is why I refrain to cristize actions in Israel, palestinian territories or balkans, when people is anger and fear for his own life the first thing you forget is the Versailles convention and christian principles.

Is very easy to critize many years after, confortably seated in a couch and reading the story hypocritally rewrited (the history often is wrote to justify errors) and many miles away from where the real thing happened, remember that, after all those years there are many people supporting the former military rule and many of us who supported the Allende regime now consider military rule as a necesary evil, just an instrument of a much wider historic process as it was the leftist revolution in the 60s.

What I try to say is that 1973 was a process much wider than the usual maniquea story of good guys versus the bad ones (you choose who is who), we, the leftists in those years was convinced that we can change the country for better using violence, this created a dinamic of more and more violence up military was oblied to act, many of crimes happened later was tolerated and endorsed by most people because the hate who divided the country and, if leftists has been the oportunity, they had commited the same or worse.. Military was just an instrument and violence a consequence of the social polarization, dont trust what you read, because is very easy to turn into fariseo.

After all those years most of chileans know well how was the real story, that is why many of things legated by military rule has been untouched, despite all the hypocrital speeches

Tom,

I understand what you are saying Tom. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I think I need to point out something here just in case I may have come across otherwise in my previous posts...I am not contra Pinochet and for Allende or vice versa. I am against state sanctioned murder, whoever is in power.

The rock bottom issue for me is what was right to do by God. That is it for me. If state sanctioned murder was and is not right by Him then that is all I need to know to make what I consider to be a valid judgment. That the murder of many persons while the country was ruled by Pinochet was wrong. Plain and simple.

No positive spin on the murders that occurred...no positive outcome for Chile from those murders...no amount of human rationalizing that some murders were unavoidable...can justify a wrong before God.

Short of me coming to the point of seeing the Bible (which I look to to help me understand what God's perspective is) say that what was done was justified or an unavoidable "evil" I simply cannot condone what happened or excuse it away. No matter what good may have seemed to come from the murders.

It is my understanding that God himself would not have approved of those murders and would condemn them in no uncertain terms.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one Tom since it seems, if I am not mistaken, that you and I have very different views on faith in God.

Please do not mistake my views as arrogance Tom. If I state opinions on this issue emphatically and in a way that makes it seem that I know what I am talking about when I have hardly even been to Chile, it is not arrogance of heart that causes me to speak that way. It is a reliance on the unchanging nature of what the Bible calls right and what the Bible calls wrong. Something that by God's grace, I do know something about.

Totally aside from what I am saying above about the basis for my opinion...is it that difficult to admit that state sanctioned murder under Pinochet's rule was wrong? Completely wrong. And that it should not have happened at all.

I am not talking about killing terrorists or murderers or the like where death may in some cases be justified...even before God. Rather I am talking about the killings of reporters, sympathizers, persons who on ideological grounds opposed military intervention in Chile's politics, and were otherwise "soft targets" (persons whose principal crime seems to have been disagreement with the existing rule of Pinochet).

Is there any rationale that can justify or make less wrong the killing of such persons? Can and should a state just up and kill those who oppose it ideologically?

As I see it, either the killing was wrong or it was right. Either it was justified or it was not. Either a state can and should kill those who oppose it on idealogical grounds or not. No grey there. It's a black and white issue or should be in my opinion

As I said Tom we may just have to agree to disagree but that is my further take on what you said for what it's worth. By the way I do appreciate the relatively tactful manner in which you are addressing what you may consider to be "faults" in my opinions. I appreciate that very much.

Carlos

Yea, is perfect to have diverse views on the same thing. And you guessed correctly: I am not too inclined to religion and probably this explain the diferent views, anyway, your opinion is respetable. "Agree to desagree" is a nice expresion

tombrad2 wrote:. . . . I refrain to cristize actions in Israel, palestinian territories or balkans . . . .

It ill becomes me as a guest (even if I were a naturalized Chilean, I suspect) to criticize the host; but questioning to gain knowledge is different. So, although I believe, as Carlos does, that killing of the innocent is wrong, I intend my remarks in this thread chiefly as a means to elicit discussion by those who know more about the matter than I do.

You, Tomás, lived there and then, and as a Chilean. Further, you've considered and reconsidered your own convictions. You deserve much credit for the willingness to change, and I am grateful to you for writing about what you've learned. Thank you.

Yes RWS, mine are just personal opinions develoed along time and -I hope- evolved as many other chileans from those years. I guess Carlos opinion is as valid as mine and even many chileans stand the same point as Carlos and doesnt worth to discuss too much on that. Obviously I cannot accept as a good thing the murder of inocent people as Tucapel Jimenez, Carlos Prats and some other political assesination.

Which is very hard to me to stand is the hypocresy from many chilean people who lived those years and changed their personal story, inventing himself horror stpries that I know well they are false. Many politicians are also rewrited the history with a manicurated version who excuses they own coward and vile behaivor on those years.

I am convinced that many men from army has been unfairly put in jail, besides some real murders (there was those also), all anmestys and lots of money in compensation (over 3 billion dollars) has been for former terrorists and all punishment for military, many of those having nothing to do with murders or just obeyng orders in estado de guerra (to dissobey them implied the death penality)

Military seldom claims too loud, but is very dangerous to play with so unfair prosecution, because in the future nobody can assure that a typical "latin american gorila" take charge on chilean army and take power by the force in a REAL gorila rule, politicians love to pull the tail the lion, guessing he is sleeping and that was exactly what happened with military in the 70s, they wake up and taked charge for a very long time. I fear for some "gorila resentido" deicdes take the goverment in the future and -if happen- it will be the hypocrital and stupid piliticians fault.

tombrad2 wrote:. . . . Military seldom claims too loud, but is very dangerous to play with so unfair prosecution, because in the future nobody can assure that a typical "latin american gorila" take charge on chilean army and take power by the force in a REAL gorila rule, politicians love to pull the tail the lion, guessing he is sleeping . . . . it will be the hypocrital and stupid piliticians fault.

Very insightful.

I found a very interesting article that supports the need for the military coup very well I think.

If anyone is interested here is the link...
http://www.josepinera.com/pag/pag_tex_nuncamas_en.htm

In short although Allende was elected democratically...what he was doing while President violated the Constitution and law of the land with respect to his attempts to bring about a socialist revolution, against the will of the Chilean people if need be - thus the need for a forceful overthrow of his government.

I do not know who the articles author is or much of anything of the web site hosting it but I found the article to be quite good in justifying the need for the coup.

I have not thought much about whether the coup was necessary or not until now but, after having read the article above (and some others) I have come to the conclusion that the coup was indeed necessary.

What I have always been against and still am is the state sanctioned unjust and inhuman murders that occurred after the coup.

I have read more accounts of murders that occurred, some being just briefs of legal trials against the perpetrators, and let me tell you...the persons involved in committing the murders were monsters. I mean that in every sense of the word. No less than the Gestapo were monsters.

Inhuman, lacking in conscience, justifying deeds that are on par with what the Nazi Gestapo did to it's prisoners. Sick monsters.

One torturer who died in prison apparently went to his death maintaining that what he did was right. That one could not rightly call him a scoundrel for among other things...he was just acting under orders. That if he had to do it all over again he would torture victims more efficiently than he had. He died without cooperating to either disclose the location of other mass graves or implicating others involved in the killings. Classic case of self-justification no different than many Nazi's exhibited when brought to account for their evil.

I read of one man in the Chilean secret police at the time who imported nerve agents and then used them on prisoners who became his guinea pigs. Of the Caravan of Death where military officers were entrusted by Pinochet with going around and killing prisoners who had done nothing to deserve death. One father, whose son was among those killed was in turn killed himself when he came in to the local station to inquire as to his son's welfare. I have read of torture, of unspeakable cruelty in the killings themselves where some were matcheted before being shot, of mass graves, of bodies not being turned over to the families because of the shame felt by those in authority at the way the prisoners were killed. Of rapes and electric shock treatments and many other such things.

And to think that the Chilean military gave itself amnesty for such things done up to 1978 such that relatives of those killed cannot bring to trial those responsible in Chile (though one has apparently been convicted in a civil case in the U.S. that fined him for his role in the Caravan of Death)!

As I said when I started this thread....it makes me sick! More disgusted than ever that these kinds of things occurred in Chile. And even more that to this day efforts to find who was killed and to prosecute those responsible continue to be hindered by some of the very organizations and government entities that should, by all that is right, be at the forefront of coming clean and punishing those responsible. I think of the Chilean armed forces as a prime example of one such entity that seems committed to continuing to cover it's own butt.

Sure...progress...some progress has been made in the direction of righting the wrongs committed. And that is good. But such progress pales in comparison to the brutality and inhumanity of the acts committed. Not enough progress has been made. Not nearly enough.

Last I read, President Bachelet was making an effort to abolish the amnesty law that gives many immunity from prosecution. I hope her effort will succeed.

It's not just the state sanctioned killings that happened under Pinochet that make me sick. The socialist goon squads that went around and killed people before Pinochet and during the first years after the coup were no better.

All this has led me to realize that not all is right with Chile. That there is a great deal going on under the surface that is not so pretty. Downright nasty actually. That in many respects Chile is not such a great country to live in and that much of what happened under both the Allende and Pinochet governments reveal a Chile that is quite frankly worse than anything I have ever heard of happening in the U.S. (at least with respect to wholesale murderous acts being sanctioned by the state) - a country that some Chileans and others seem very fond of putting down. It's something to think about.

I don't know what it is about Chile where in it's relatively recent history, killing those who oppose you on ideological grounds seems par for the course. That some such killing is thought of as..well..almost necessary to maintain order. Chile is undoubtedly less brutal than most Latin American countries in that regard but like the others in the same hemisphere it seems to have that same tendency in it's collective psyche to use violence as a means to an end. I honestly don't know why that is.

Carlos

I'm hesitant to reply to your heartfelt post, Carlos; but I do wish to add what you already know: that what happened under Pinochet could happen anywhere, anytime. Even in the United States, the first major nation constructed upon a philosophical bedrock of humanism (pace, I intend this in a sense of generous yet accurate understanding of and sympathy for human nature), there have been horrors (though not mass terrorism by the state).

Chile today is a changed place. I've never spoken with a Chilean whom I know to have been complicit in the wrongs committed in the 1970s and '80s, but I know more than a few Chileans who've genuinely changed their attitudes from that period -- and for the better.

I continue to think that, just as exposing a cut in our flesh to fresh air and sunlight is the best way to allow it to heal, a thorough and public investigation of the wrongs of the period from Allende's election to Pinochet's retirement may be the best way to allow resolution of the warring paradoxes deep within many Chilean souls. But I could be mistaken.

I, as many other chileans, thik that doesn[ t even worth to think or discuss on that matter, It was long time ago and anyone has their own opinion and experience to stand it, it would be silly keep discussing so as to get angry today for things what happened in Guerra del Pacifico or in the american secession war, "lo que pasó, pasó" and anyone has the perfect rigth to stand their opinion on that matter, but we in Chile are pretty tired to keep talking about the same

Will the simple act of ignoring the past cause its effects to disappear, Tomás, or simply to fester? I ask in all sincerity, though doubtfully (remembering, for example, that one of my grandmothers, descended from a line of returned Tories, was still quietly angered by the severe mistreatment, never apologized for, of ancestors nearly two centuries earlier).