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Pinochet In The News Brief comments on and links to news in relation to Pinochet – primarily from the South American press and South American internet media.
El Comercio Perú, January 18th 2010 »Sebastián Piñera: the new right that tries to disengage from Pinochet«
El Mercurio Online, August 4th, 2010
Link: Nieto general Prats conducirá a Chile réplica auto de atentado en Argentina
»Grandson of general Prats will drive to Chile in replica automobile of bombing in Argentina«
This article from Chilean El Mercurio Online tells how Francisco Cuadrado Prats, the grandson of general Carlos Prats González (1915-1974), is planning a 1500 kilometer drive from the place of the fatal DINA bombing of the former army chief and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, on September 30th 1974, Malabía 3351 in the part of town called Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile.
For symbolic reasons he will drive in at car simliar to the one, his grandparents was killed in, a Fiat 125-S in the same color as his grandfathers original one, at colour he calls gris soldado, »soldier grey«. The original car was blown to pieces at the assassination bombing. On the tour he will pass the border between Argentina and Chile the same border crossing that the former head of army used on September 15th 1973, when he left Chile for his exile in Argentina. Cuadrado is famous for in 2006 to have spit on Pinochet's coffin while lying in state at the military school in Santiago. The Pinochet controlled secret security force, DINA, conducted the 1974-bombing.
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Prensa Latina, May 7th, 2010
Link: Chile: revelan leyes secretas emitidas por la dictadura de Pinochet
»Chile: Reveals secret laws issued by the Pinochet dictatorship«
This article from the official state news agency of communist Cuba, Agencia de Noticias Latinoamericana S.A., tells of the declassification on May 7th of such an odd thing as 150 »classified laws« from the Pinochet era.
Silly as it may seem, the laws are however mostly concerning economic conditions of the Armed Forces and other formal issues sush as salaries, hierarchy and structure, military justice, troop movements and weapons purchases. Also secret were issues concerning the security forces, the Chilean secret police, called DINA, and later its successor, CNI. The 150 documents are published and can be seen at the research organization, Archivos Chile, in Santiago. Link to the documents at Archivos Chile: Desclasificamos extraoficialmente un gran secreto de la Dictadura | Archivos Chile (Unofficial declassification of af great secret of the dictatorship.)
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El Diario Vasco, April 26th 2010
Link: Víctimas de Pinochet expresan 'absoluto rechazo' a la causa contra Garzón
»Pinochet's victims express 'absolute rejection' of the case against Garzón«
This article from the Basque news paper El Diario Vasco reports on the reactions on the part of victims and relatives to victims of the Pinochet regime to a case against Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón (b. 1955).
Garzón is being charged With abuse Of power in his attempt to persue persons having committed atrocities during to Gen. Francisco Franco's four-decade-long dictatorship. The charges are he has overstepped his jurisdiction. Garzón came to international attention on 10 October 1998 when he issued an international warrant for the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for the alleged deaths and torture of Spanish citizens. The case was a landslide in international law. If found guilty, Garzón could then be removed from courts for as long as 20 years.
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BBC News, April 24th 2010
Link: Chile cult leader Schaefer dies in Chile prison
»Chile cult leader Schaefer dies in Chile prison«
This article reports on the death of Paul Schaefer (1921-2010), a former Nazi corporal and founder of the 137 square kilometers Colonia Dignidad, a german cult-like colony in the Maule Region of Chile.
The Colonia Dignidad had ties to the Chilean intelligence agencies during the Pinochet years, with prisoners being held there and allegedly experiments into bacteriological warface being carried out on political prisoners there. At the time of his death, Paul Schaefer was serving a 20 year sentence for sexual child abuse.
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Kennebec Journal, April 12th 2010
Link: U.S. struggles to secure bomb-capable uranium
The Kennebec Journal published in Augusta, Maine, USA, here reports on the transport of 18 kilograms of highly enriched uranium 235 being shipped from Chile to South Carolina, USA, in March 2010.
Chile had two nuclear reactors being built in the 1970's during the Pinochet dictatorship. Chile had the U235 from Britain and France for its two research reactors. Chile's two reactors did raise fears about Chile's nuclear intentions during Pinochet's long dictatorship.
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El Comercio Perú, January 18th 2010
Link: Sebastián Piñera: la nueva derecha chilena que busca desprenderse de Pinochet
»Sebastián Piñera: the new right that tries to disengage from Pinochet«
In this article from peruvian El Comercio is writen that Sebastián Piñera now is about to head a right wing government and thus shall make the Chilean right step out of Pinochet's shaddow.
In Piñera's coalition, Coalición por el Cambio, consisting of among others the party Renovación Nacional (RN), a centre-right party founded as soon at political parties were allowed during the Pinochet dictatorship in the late 1980's. Sebastián Pinera has been president and is a member of Renovación Nacional. Another party in the coalition is Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), a right wing party that appeared as a continuation of the technocrats who ruled Chile under Pinochet, a political continuation of Pinochet's rule of sorts. Pinera is born in 1949 and among numerous business activities he is the chairman of the board in the Chilean airline company LAN that he owns 26 % stock in. He is a bilionaire and estimated the 701st richest man in the World by the North American magazine Forbes.
Source:
La Nación, 11. januar 2010
Link: Bachelet inaugura el Museo de la Memoria: “Nunca más”
»Bachelet inaugurates Museo de la Memoria: "Never again"«
With six days to the deciding round of the presidential election in Chile the resigning president, Michelle Bachelet, inaugurated a museum in memory of the victims of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship from 1973 to 1990.
The museum is 5600 square meters and is situated on Avenida Matucana in Santiago. The inauguration saw participation of all presidents since the reintroduction of democracy, Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), Eduardo Frei (1994-2000) and Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006).
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La Nación , January 11th 2010
Link: El fantasma de Pinochet marca el final de campaña
»Pinochet's ghost marks the finale of the election campain«
With about a week left to the second and final round of the presidential election in Chile a new theme has appeared in the campain: Will there be former Pinochet staff in Sebastián Piñera's government if he, as expected wins the election Sunday 17th of January? Piñera himself has said, that »it is no vice to work loyally for a government« while his opponents make it a controversy to have former Pinochet people in a possible new government. Among expected men in a Piñera government is Joaquín Lavín who himself ran for president and who worked as an economist in Pinochet's government. It is uncertaion who wins the election. Frei's people express an expected 51-49 win; Piñera's people on their part a 52-48 sin. In case Piñera wins it will be a discontinuation of the line of the Concertación coalition's streak of centre-left governments since the reintrocuction og democracy in 1990 and also the first elected right wing government in more that 50 years.
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La Nación, 14. december 2009
Link: Silva y Monckeberg doblan en Las Condes
»Silva and Monckeberg doubles op in Las Condes«
Augusto Pinochet's grandson Rodrigo García Pinochet did not succeed in the election for the chamber of deputies at the election December 13th 2009.
Rodrigo García ran in the 23rd district with the three rich areas in Santiago: Las Condes, Vitacura og Lo Barnechea. Getting about 10 % og the vote Rodrigo García came in fourth in the district that saw reelection to Cristián Monckeberg and Ernesto Silva running for the Coalición por el Cambio, the list that on the same day had Sebastian Piñera as its candidate for president of the republic. Rodrigo García Pinochet at ten years was in the car with his grandfather, Augusto Pinochet, when in September of 1986 he was attacked by the militant group og left-radicals, FPMR. The attack failed.
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Univision, 8. december 2009
Link: Tres protagonistas de elección chilena con padres asesinados por Pinochet
»Three protagonists in the Chilean election with fathers killed by Pinochet«
In this articla from the US based site Univision is told, how in the Chilean presidential election there are three protagonists, whose fathers were killed by Pinochet security forces back in the day.
It is resigning president Michelle Bachelet and the two candidates for election Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle and Marco Enríquez-Ominami. Michelle Bachelet's father, Alberto Bachelet, was a general in the air force and died in prison in 1974 after torture on charges of treason. Marco Enríquez-Ominami's father, Miguel Enríquez, was a leader of the militant, marxist-leninist movement MIR and was killed by security forces from DINA, also in 1974. Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle's father, Eduardo Frei Montalva was killed by poisoning by security forces during hospitalization in 1982. A trial against Frei's assumed killers is pending.
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El Comercio Digital, 1. december 2009
Link: Aborto; el voto del pecado
»Abortion, the sinfull vote«
In this article from the Spanish internet news page El Comercio Digital, is told how the papal church relation to among others Augusto Pinochet now is brought up in the debate in Spain prior to a referendum on an easing of the countrys abortion laws. An arch bishop, Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, has called for the politicians voting for the new laws not to be allowed to celebrate communion. In the article is twisted, how men like Pinochet and Spains own Francisco Franco with their bloody regimes not only were not expelled from the papal church but litterly had a good and close relation to it.
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Timesoftheinternet.com, 22. november 2009
Link: Pinochet authorized the sale of arms to Ecuador in the Cenepa Conflict.
»Pinochet authorized the sale of arms to Ecuador in the Cenepa Conflict«
In this article from the Ohio based internet media Times of The Internet, is referred to an interview in the Ecuatorian newspaper El Comercio with a retired air force general, Ernesto Checa, who has conformed rumors, that Pinochet supplied Ecuador militarily with supplies of different sorts in two Hercules planes.
Source:
Clarín.com, 7. november 2009
Link: Bachelet designa a un polémico jefe del Ejército
»Bachelet appoints controversial army chief«
In this article from Argentinian Clarín is written about controversies in connection to Chile's president, Michelle Bachelet's, appointing Friday November 6th of general Juan Fuente-Alba as coming successor of Óscar Izurieta as commander in chief of the army as of March 2010.
In 1973 Fuente-Alba was a second lieutenant in the town Calama in the Atacama Desert near the Chuquicamata copper mine. A group of left-behinds desaparecidos, (Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos) have questioned weather Fuente-Alba was present when the infamous Puma helicopter in October 1973 flew around Chile and around 75 summary executions of political opponents were committed; an endeavour billed La Caravana de la Muerte, »the Caravan of Death«. The spokesman of the Bachelet government (minister of Ministerio Secretaría General de Gobierno, that is to say. »general secretary«), Carolina Tohá, denies incriminating issues concerning the general who was chief of communication in the army from 1993 to 1997 when Pinochet was no longer chief of state, but still chief of the army. Carolina Tohá by the way is daughter of former minister under Salvador Allende, José Tohá, who was killed af Pinochet's security forces in 1974 after serious torture. At a time as minister he was deposed from the post for not having taken measures against militant, socialist groups.
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Expansión.com, 3. november 2009
Link: Lord Bingham: "A los jueces no les afecta la presión de la opinión pública"
Lord Bingham: »Judges are not influenced by the pressure of public opinion«
The Madrid based Expanción.com on November 3rd 2009 had an interview with former Lord Chief Justice Bingham of Cornhill (f. 1933), who was in Mardid for a conference in the International Bar Association about among other subjects the universal jurisdiction. It was Lord Bingham, who at The High Court of Justice, the highest court for England and Wales, in 1998 at the first court ruling at Pinochet's detainment in London from 1998 to 2000 ruled that Pinochet according to UK’s State Immunity Act 1978 had immunity as a former head of state with regard to the charges of torture and murder that Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón (b. 1955) had requested UK to extradict Pinochet to Spain for. Garzón was at the conference in Madrid too.
Lord Bingham said on his ruling in the interview, that no one, and not himself either did have the slightest sympathy for Pinochet, but that it was his task to make the first ruling in England in the case. Lord Bingham proposed that universal jurisdiction can lead to at lot of problems when Country B suddenly feels like opening a case and opening som wounds in another country that has handled the case in it's own way. That can cause diplomatic problems, said Lord Bingham. He further said that judges are not influenced by the pressure from public opinion in a case like the Pinochet Case.
Source:
La Nación, 31. oktober 2009
Link: Falleció historiador conservador Gonzalo Vial
»Conservative historian Gonzalo Vial dead«
Friday October 30th 2009 Chilean historian, lawyer, author, journalist and former minister of education under Pinochet, Gonzalo Vial Correa died at 79 years of cancer.
During Salvador Allende's time as president he was coauthor of the controversial »white book« on the alledged »Plan Z«, a proposed plan of a left-wing, violent putch. The book legitimized the military coup in 1973, and is today seen as a piece og systematic misinformation. Vial was in the truth commission that in 1990 should investiagte into brutality during the military rule. Vial is till now the only one who has written a thorough biography on Pinochet, Pinochet – La Biografía, that is a frequently used source in the texts on this site.
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Qué Pasa, Santiago, Chile, 3. oktober 2009
Link: El Banco de Chile cierra el caso Pinochet
»Banco de Chile closes Pinochet case«
In this article from Chilean Que Pasa, that is part of the news paper La Tercera, dated 3/10 ’09, is written about an accord between on one side Banco de Chile – one of Chile's biggest banks – and on the other side Consejo de Defensa del Estado (CDE) – Chile's national security counsil – in a case about some of the many secret foreign bank accounts that Pinochet had. The case has been pending since 2004. In the article is written about one digit million dollar amounts in US dollars.
Allegedly these sums are public means – means from CDE – and therefore the national security counsil on its side would have the money back while on its side Banco de Chile would not give up the money. The accord is kept secret.
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El Comercio, Quito, Ecuador, 6. juli 2009
Link: El hijo de Pinochet revela más detalles
»Pinochet's son reveals more details«
In this article from El Comercio in Quito in Ecuador, dated July 6th 2009, Augusto Pinochet's oldest son, Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, confirms, that his famous father had an affair during the time in Quito in Ecuador with a Piedad Noé and that it led to a breach between his parents at a time when he was 11 years old and his kid brother was born. Augusto Hiriart went to the same school in Quito as one of the womans sons.
Augusto Hiriart conforms his knownledge to rumors of an out of wedlock son – his alledged halfbrother – and tells that he after 1973 set investigations in work in Quito but that these investigations ended with no results.
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El Comercio, Quito, Ecuador, 28. juni 2009
Link: El hijo quiteño de Pinochet quiere un ADN
»Pinochet's son in Quito wants a DNA test«
In this arcitle from El Comercio in Quito in Ecuador, dated 28th of june 2009 a local doctor, Fabián Guarderas Jijón, is interviewed, saying that he for forty years has been a friend of »Juan«, the out of wedlock son, Augusto Pinochet alledgedly had with a pianist in town in the years 1956-1959 when he was posted as an educator on the country's officers school in town. The doctor says he served in the army with »Juan« during a military stay in Brazil and that he looks exactly like his father and is ready to have his identity confirmed by way of DNA test.
Thr rumors of an alledged sixth child har been around for decades and got new life with the publishing of the book La Familia – Historia Privada De Los Pinochet, »The Family – The Private History Of The Pinochets«, that came out in June 2009, but in which the existence of this sixth child incidentally is rejected. |
