Frequently Asked Questions - 1

One question that passengers frequently ask is how Chileans feel about the United States considering the role that the Nixon administration played in the military coup. That's a hard one to answer because I obviously cannot speak for thousands, nay, millions of other people. I guess it all depends where you stand politically, and what type of political analyses you make. Also, in Chile, there are lots of people who don't have a clue about the CIA and the coup, Nixon and Kissinger, and other related issues. There are also many people in Chile who would do anything to live in the United States: They believe in the American Dream. But certainly, there are also many people who view the United States in a very negative light because of its government-level interference in Chilean politics.

Wherever you stand, there's one thing that's immutable: The major role that the United States played in the political events that unfolded in Chile from the sixties right through to the seventies. The advent of Internet has provided the world with amazing amounts of information about this period (and obviously just about everything!), but in this post I would like to concentrate on just one source, a very direct source. I'm talking (or to be more exact, writing) about The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training hosted by the US Library of Congress website. If you do a search for Chile in the series called Frontline Diplomacy, you'll be directed to a list of interviews with 100 diplomats from various walks of life and different posts who during their working experience had direct contact with Chile during the period we're interested in. You can access these fascinating interviews right here.

The website came to my attention via a very distinguished gentleman named Kenneth Guenther, who is actually the third interviewee on the list. Mr Guenther, who has an outstanding career in banking, heard one of my talks and once I finished he eloquently verified what I had said about US intervention (phew!) and told me about the existence of this online material. You will need time to browse through the swathes of information offered here, but if you don't have much time to spare, I recommend reading through Mr Guenther's interview and maybe a couple of others, for example, the interview with George F. Jones (interview 2), Michael W. Cotter (7), or George W. Landau (4).

What makes these interviews so interesting is that in the first place, the initial questions are often about the childhood and personal experiences of the interviewees, which provides us with that strange human touch that can be so endearing. Secondly, the interviews are very detailed and thorough, digging deep into the memory of these important players. In the third place, the interviewees offer their very personal opinions about Chile and its people, and it really strikes me how many of them found Chile to be a lovely and civilised society (before the coup, mainly)! However, I was also struck by the fact that many of them (not all) say that the US had "nothing to do with the coup", which at the end of the day contradicts the contents of declassified CIA memos and other documents that tell a very different story (if you'd like to see these memos neatly organised, a good place to visit is The Chile Documentation Project of which Peter Kornbluh is director, and which also offers material and contents straight from the proverbial horse's mouth! You can visit this site by clicking here.)

I shall leave you with a few choice quotations from these very interesting interviewees. I know I am taking them out of context, but I am being very careful not to manipulate information and I recommend you visit the site to read the whole interview (or at least the parts about Chile!).


Mr Kenneth Guenther (speaking about the US banks' role in Chile in 1974):
And I began exploring options to get out of the bank. I didn't like our role in Chile. We did have a major role in overthrowing a democratically-elected government and installing a right-wing military government. My father would not have been proud. It was time to think about leaving the bank...

Mr Michael Cotter:
I see today where Pinochet is. I must say that as I look back on this in hindsight, and with what the Pinochet government accomplished in reforms in Chile, that it is probably fairly cold to say so, but the cost of human lives that it took to bring about those reforms in Chile was probably cheap at twice the price. I know that it is politically incorrect to suggest this, but the fact of the matter is that, if some 3,000 Chileans died, there are a heck of a lot fewer than Salvadorans and Hondurans who died, or than have died in most other conflicts, and an order of magnitude less than the number who died in Argentina, where the estimates are ten to twenty thousand babies being sold, and everything else, which didn't happen in Chile.

I think the record has become clarified over the years. I don't think we were involved in the Pinochet coup, but I think it is fairly clear that we certainly made it clear that we would be perfectly happy to see that change of government take place.

Mr William Lowenthal:
Regarding my Chilean experience in the Allende period, I feel that the impression in this country that the Chilean Revolution came as a result of U.S. and CIA pressures is very false and very exaggerated. There have been books written about it but I don't think that the U.S. had a very large hand in it at all. The Chilean people were fed up with the Allende regime and his overthrow was a genuine overthrow by the country, by the people of the country.

Sublime Photography or It's Amazing How Many Stories One Photograph Tells

I'd like to invite you to visit some photographs from the period we spoke about during the chat. I'm a bit worried about posting photographs without permission from the authors, for which reason I will just publish the links. I'll start off by recommending one of my favourite photographers, Marcelo Montecino, who shot a wealth of beautiful and poignant material during the years before, during and after the military regime. I know little about him, except that he was born in the early forties, he was brought up and educated during part of his life in the United States, I know he has a brother who (aged in his twenties) was made to disappear during the early days of the regime, (Spring days, dark hours) and I also know his work is sublime.

The photograph I have chosen for this post can be found here. I suggest you open the link on a separate window so that you can flit back and forth as you read this (in case you don't know how to do this, using the right hand button on your mouse should do it!)

Please visit it, it's so beautiful. As you can see it's a shot of a bunch of people sitting on the steps of a grand old building somewhere in Chile (I think it's probably the Cathedral in Santiago, but I'm not 100% sure) being drenched by the guanaco. What is the guanaco? I hear you ask. Well, most people in Chile know of two types of guanaco. The original and furry version of the guanaco is this one:

The guanaco, or lama guanicoe (scientific name) is a camelid animal native to South America, including Chile. The guanaco has a quirky habit of spitting a mix of saliva and digested food when threatened or attacked (and also apparently when the male tries to subdue the female.) A strange habit indeed! The other guanaco, however, is this one (and it has even stranger habits):

This more modern and man-made version of the guanaco doesn't have a scientific name. As you can see it's a type of police tank/water cannon. Like the furry guanaco, it spits, although it does so under very different conditions. This is why it's widely known as the guanaco. It is used in Chile by Carabineros police to control and disperse crowds and individuals during protests. It shoots water with great force at very high pressure, and is capable of physically shifting bodies. Sometimes, the water is mixed with chemicals or foul smelling dirty contaminants.

Let's go back to the photograph. It's from 1988, two years before Chile got democracy back. It looks like a surrealist oil painting to me. There's even a religious hint to it. It makes me think of the 12 apostles multiplied by 10. There's a sign above the huddled mass, it reads: EN CHILE SE TORTURA: LA TV CALLA. It means: PEOPLE ARE TORTURED IN CHILE : THE TV KEEPS QUIET. These people, obviously being attacked by the police guanaco, belonged to the Sebastian Acevedo Movement Against Torture. The movement, founded in 1983 by a Jesuit priest named José Aldunate, was a peaceful movement against torture. Peaceful meant it swore to not use violence of any type to protest against torture. For example, they would meet (punctually) and sit outside a secret police torture center holding signs saying "PEOPLE ARE TORTURED HERE", or they would carry out massive mailing/handing out of letters denouncing human rights violations.

Who was Sebastián Acevedo? The movement took its name from a Chilean man called Sebastián Acevedo, who burnt himself alive on a sunny Spring day of November 11 1983 in the main square of the Chilean city of Concepción on the steps of the Cathedral, to protest against the detention of his two children (both young adults, a woman and a man) by armed civilians three days earlier. Knowing they were most probably detained by the CNI secret police (state agents) and unable to get help, Mr Acevedo decided to burn himself alive in plain daylight. Torture was a common practice in Chile in those days, in fact, it was carried out systematically as state policy. Mr Acevedo, aged 50 at the time, knew his children would be tortured and so he shouted for them to be returned to him intact, as he doused his body in paraffin. He then set himself alight. Mr Acevedo died some hours later in hospital, but not before knowing that his daughter had been released (she was set free hours after he burnt himself, and managed to speak to him before he died.) His son was also released and it is widely believed that they were saved by their father's protest, and that this ultimate act of public sacrifice actually helped other political prisoners by making it known throughout the world that torture was rife in Chile .

The movement came to an end in 1990, after the first democratic government was sworn in, and Augusto Pinochet's secret police lost the control granted to it during 17 years.

There you are! So many stories behind one photograph. Marcelo Montecino, his brother Christian, the two types of guanaco, an anti torture movement and the love of a father. There's actually many more, but it's so late I must get a rest. I was hoping to go out tonight for a drink with a friend who stood me up. I was a bit peeved, but eventually it didn't matter because I finally sat down to do this and I've enjoyed it thoroughly, even though the stories can be so sad. I hope you found it interesting.

Until the next post!!!

P.S.
If you would like to see some more photographs of this type, including some by a US born photographer (but based in Chile), Helen Hughes, I recommend you visit this excellent site called Chile from Within. Many of the photographs are subtitled in English.