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This is the lower-class section at the cemetary.. look at how colorful it all is. This post contains politics and history... be warned!
Alright so I'll just jump right into a little background summary of Chile:
In 1970 Chile did something no other country had ever done... they DEMOCRATICALLY (meaning voted, fairly) elected a socialist leader. His name was Salvador Allende. A lot of people like Allende, he was good to the working class and the poor however, the rich were not so happy with Allende taking their money to give to the poor (this is what happens in a Socialist society to make things more equal). The people of Chile were doin alright but the economy was TERRIBLE. The US government was, of course, living in fear of these "terrible" socialists due to the Cold War and fear of communism (Allende has ties to Cuba). They believed that Socialism could, and would, take over the world leaving capitilism in the dust not to mention the fact that nationalizing everything in Chile could hurt the US economically due to their huge amount of trade with Chile. So they began to plan a way to stop this. Originally the US gave lots of money to opposing candiates hoping that this would cause the Chileans to vote
Tip Tops
Some tops of the moseleums. for someone other than Allende... but Allende won again. The second plan was to violantly overthrow Allende once he was in office. This is what happened. Although the US government denies giving any funds or other aid to the military, in Chile on September 11, 1973 the military, in a coup, using bombs to destroy government buildings, took over the government. Their leader was Augusto Pinochet. This regime was similar to something seen in Germany... ya know the holocaust. (It's also VERY similar to the regime in Argentina... Argentina's was even worse). The "government" was strict, imposing a 12 o'clock curfew and violaters would be shot (and were). Free press was non-existent and anyone found protesting, peacefully or not, was arrested. These people (men, women, CHILDREN) were sent to camps, yes tourture camps. This went on untill 1990! Yea, 1990.
I'm bringing up this bleak part of Chilean history because of how I spent my day yesterday.
The last stop on our political tour (I'm going backwards in order to start with the bad and end with the good) was at a place called, Villa Grimaldi... a tourture camp. Our guide was a man of 53, a survior. He
The Wall
Literally hundreds of people and there were prolly over a hundred of these. The guy who set up the cemetary looong ago wanted a "city" for the dead. All the rows have street signs... its kinds cool. was 19 when he was arrested at a protest his 22-year-old friend was with him and was shot and killed while lying in his arms. They took our guide to the torture camp and this is where his story begins. The tourture consisted of everything imaginable from beatings to shootings. When the physical tourture wasn't occuring the "criminals" were kept in small wooden boxes about 5 feet long by 3 feet wide and 8 people to the container. Their hands and feet were bound, their mouths taped closed, and eyes blindfolded. They spent almost all their time like this in this particular camp. The boxes were freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer. The physical tourture consisted of beatings, women and CHILDREN (no one was spared) being raped by men (and even animals... can you imagine a dog TRAINED to do such a thing...), electric shock to ALL body parts, genitals included. Our guide is now married but is unable to have kids because he is sterile from this tourture method. Those that died, there were thousands, were burried in mass graves* or thrown into the ocean (after the bodies were cut open and filled with stones so
Cell Model
Here is a model of the cells the poeple were kept in. they wouldnt float). I could go into gross details (the lack of food, being forced to eat throw up, genital mutilation) about all this but you get the picture. These camps were open until 1990. Yea, 1990.
The first and second stops on our trip were similar. Both were organizations set up 1/2 by volunteers and 1/2 by the Catholic Church (who, unlike in Argentina, didn't play a role in the tourture... supposedly). They were groups who provided supplies to people who were in prisoned (obviously not in a tourture camp like Villa Grimaldi) to make handicrafts so they had something stimulating to do with their time (these people were making breadcrumb necklaces and earrings out of soup bones because they were so bored). The group grew and now provides supplies and training to poor women on the outskirts of Santiago. These women are trained in money management, price selcetion as well and quality control... these are business-women. The goal is to help them become independant business owners. Their work is sold all over the world via Fair Trade. (Those of you in Austin can check out 10 Thousands Villages... cool boutique.) The women themsleves recieve 90% of the
Memorial
This is the center of the tourture camp that is, obviously, now a pretty memorial. profits. They also sell goods nationally, such as dolls to government run daycare centers. It was a really cool experience mostly because the two people that explained this all to us were AWESOME. The woman was a former government employee who, obviously, lost her job when Pinochet came to power and was one of the founding members of this organization. The man was a baby when his family, under Pinochet was exiled from Chile to England. He actually sold the goods of this organization, in England, as a small child and came back to Chile to teach english. One of his students was the women of the Organization who got him the job! Talk about full circle...
The middle stop on our tour was to a cemetary. The Cementerio General. This cemetary is the final resting place of more that 2 million people! Just when I though the Recoleta Cemetary in BsAs was huge... Unlike the Recoleta Cemetary this is "home" to all walks of life, the rich (a TON of presidents are burried here) and the poor. There are MANY Moseleums and many more graves. TONS packed in there like sardines. *This is also where the military burried its camp victims... what place would no one look for bodies... a cemetary of course! There is also a memorial here to Allende as well as a wall with all the names of the disappeared (think Vietnam Wall). Check out the website...
Cementerio General for pics. Don't be confused this cemetary is also in Barrio Recoleta but is not in Argentina.
So, that was my day yesterday. I just thought I'd share a little bit of something that not many people know about. Guatamala's dictatorship killed millions and in Argentina 50,000 are disappeard. I know El Salvador suffered the same fate. These regimes recieved funds from the US... granted they *hopefully* didn't know how far these leaders would go when they gave them money. Just a little bit of insight...
In other news, abrupt change I know, I am NO WHERE near the volcano and all the ash and smoke actually blew to Buenos Aires... They evacuated all the people except 2 reporters and some 6,000 animals will prolly be killed... It's not only sad because, well, I love animals, but because they were these people's livelyhood. It really is a tragedy. All is well here in Viña. Well, except the whole Toma thing. Now the building with all my other classes in it is under seige... We'll see what happens with that come monday.
Thanks for makin it through this long blog post! Love yall!
**** All the pictures on this post are "borrowed" from my friend Ryan, Thanks dude!******
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james st. james
non-member comment
coup de grace
hey, great blog. your summary of "those years" was pretty good. as i'm sure you know, different chileans have differing opinions on what happened during those years, but i'd like to throw in my two pesos if i could. one thing that often gets overlooked is that a majority (not just a plurality, but a majority) of chileans wanted and were in favor of the coup. this does not mean they condoned the excesses of the military once they took power (most people didn't expect the detentions and tortures since the military had generally steered clear of politics and interfering with civil society) but most people were tired of the chaos, disorder, and economic problems at the time around the coup. of course, many regretted supporting the coup once they realized what they'd gotten themselves into. the intresting thing is that despite the atrocities of the pinochet regime, less people were killed in those 17yrs than in any other dictatorship in latin america, at around 3200. argentina killed 30k in just 7yrs (i've never seen the 50k figure, it seems exaggerated), brazil about 100k, guatemala over 250k) yet it seems pinochet is often cited as the worse. i'm no right winger (in chilean elections i vote socialist) but i wonder why his is singled out. also, 90% of the killings and the tortures happened in the first 4yrs of his government. tortures and killings went on after '77 to be sure, but to a much lesser degree. as you probably know, politically chile is divided into thirds (1/3 "left wing", 1/3 "right wing", 1/3 somewhere in between, allende having won just 36% of the vote, so he never really had a "mandate" so to speak). i think a lot of chileans struggle with pinochet's legacy. on the one hand there are all the human rights violations and repression. on the other, he set up base of the economic system that has helped chileans to prosper. despite complaints on the part of many chileans (if you haven't noticed, chileans love to complain and are a pretty negative people at times) everyone, even the poorest of the poor, are better off now than they were 20yrs ago and that they would've been under a different economic system. of course, the concertación governments have tweaked the system to support health, education, and social programs that pinochet ignored, but they're doing this under an extremely capitalist system. ¿would chile's relative prosperity have been possible under a democratic government? i think it's hard to say, since in a democratic system, there would have been fierce opposition to the harch economic measures needed to turn an economy from a socialist protectionist economy to a free market capitalist one (germany, japan, korea, taiwan, singapore, spain, now china--all of them laid the foundations for their prosperous economies under dictatorships or heavy handed undemocratic regimes). anyway, just thought i'd throw out some food for thought. sorry if it's long. enjoy the rest of your time in chile (and yes, chileans act as if winter didn't come every year and complain about it, even though many chileans are "proud" of the fact that they live in a "cold" climate and that makes them different and "better" than the happy go-lucky "tropical" latinos ;)). cheers!