Chile’s ghosts are not being rescued

The media swarmed as 33 copper miners were winched to safety from their underground prison in Copiap

By John Pilger Published 14 October 2010

The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a façade.

The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile, but the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile's privatised mines. The San José mine, where the men work, became so unsafe in 2007 that it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labour department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies", but no action was taken. Six days later, the men were entombed.

For all the media circus at the rescue site, contemporary Chile is a country of the unspoken. At Villa Grimaldi, in the suburbs of the capital, Santiago, a sign says: "The forgotten past is full of memory." This was the torture centre where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that Pinochet and his business allies brought to Chile. Its ghostly presence is overseen by the beautiful Andes, and the man who unlocks the gate used to live nearby and remembers the screams.

Heirs of the dictator

I was taken there one wintry morning in 2006 by Sara de Witt, who was imprisoned as a student activist and now lives in London. She was electrocuted and beaten, yet survived. Later, we drove to the home of Salvador Allende, the great democrat and reformer who perished when Pinochet seized power on 11 September 1973 - Latin America's own 9/11. His house is a silent white building without a sign or a plaque.

Everywhere, it seems, Allende's name has been eliminated. Only on the lone memorial in the cemetery are the words engraved, "Presidente de la República", as part of a remembrance of the "ejecutados políticos": those "executed for political reasons". Allende died by his own hand as Pinochet bombed the presidential palace with British planes and the US ambassador watched.

Chile is now a democracy, though many would dispute that. In 1990, Pinochet bequeathed a constitutionally compromised system as a condition of his retirement and the military's withdrawal to the political shadows. This ensures that the alliance of broadly reformist parties, known as the Concertación, is permanently divided or drawn into legitimising the economic designs of the dictator's heirs. At the last election, the right-wing Coalition for Change, the creation of Pinochet's ideologue Jaime Guzmán, took power under President Sebastián Piñera. The bloody extinction of true democracy that began with Allende's death was, by stealth, made complete.

Piñera is a billionaire who controls a slice of the mining, energy and retail industries. He made his fortune in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup and during the free-market "experiments" of the zealots from the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys. His brother and former business partner, José Piñera, a labour minister under Pinochet, privatised mining and state pensions and all but destroyed the trade unions. This was applauded in Washington as an "economic miracle", a model of the new cult of neoliberalism that would sweep the continent and ensure control from the north.

Today, Chile is critical to President Barack Obama's rollback of the independent democracies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Piñera's closest ally is Washington's main man, Juan Manuel Santos, the new president of Colombia, home to seven US bases and an infamous human rights record familiar to Chileans who suffered under Pinochet's terror.

Living in the shadows

Post-Pinochet Chile has kept its own enduring abuses in the shadows. Families still attempting to recover from the torture or disappearance of a loved one bear the prejudice of the state and employers. Those not silent are the Mapuche people, the only indigenous nation the Spanish conquistadors could not defeat. In the late 19th century, the European settlers of independent Chile waged a racist war of extermination against the Mapuche, who were left as impoverished outsiders. During Allende's thousand days in power, some Mapuche lands were returned and a debt of justice was recognised.

Since then, a vicious and largely unreported war has been waged against the Mapuche. Forestry corporations have been allowed to take their land, and their resistance has been met with murders, disappearances and arbitrary prosecutions under "anti-terrorism" laws enacted by the dictatorship.
In their campaigns of civil disobedience, none of the Mapuche has harmed anyone. The mere accusation of a landowner or businessman that the Mapuche "might" trespass on their own ancestral lands is often enough for the police to charge them with offences that lead to Kafkaesque trials, with faceless witnesses and prison sentences of up to 20 years. They are, in effect, political prisoners.

As the world rejoices at the spectacle of the miners' rescue, 38 Mapuche hunger strikers have not been news. They are demanding an end to the Pinochet laws used against them, such as "terrorist arson", and the justice of a real democracy. On 9 October, all but one of the hunger strikers ended their protest after 90 days without food. A young man, Luis Marileo, says he will go on. On 18 October, President Piñera is due to give a lecture on "current events" at the London School of Economics. He should be reminded of their ordeal and why.

View the discussion thread.

103 comments

Fri, 2010-10-22 22:33 — gwyn@ibw.com.ni (not verified)

Mr Dyke. I was n´t quite sure which country you were referring to, but now I understand that you are referring to the UK, which surprises me. Your level of English led me to believe you were a foreigner, perhaps spanish speaking.
She went to Britain because Dr Cassidy, when released by the Junta - in th early 80´s I think - bravely refused to leave the prison unless they also released Susana, who was in the next cell. The British Embassy accepted and she was exiled to UK. She had no job, no security anywhere. It was some 10 years later that I met her in Nicaragua where she had gone to work as a volunteer.
Your referring to her as a bitch is disturbing, leading me to suspect that you are indeed from the Southern Cone of South America. It´s a strange characteristic of people of the extreme Right that have so much hate for those who oppose them Reminds me of the hatred so many South African whites held for the blacks they exploited and persecuted
The tone of your comments suggets you need help: a psychiatrist perhaps?.

Sat, 2010-10-16 07:05 — Aussie Kim (not verified)

"In what possible way is Pinochet's coup comparable to the mass murder of 3,000 civilians? A 9/11 not just for Chile, if you don't mind, but for the whole of Latin America? "

It isn't really, since it's WORSE. (3,000 people compared with tens of thousands tortured, disappeared and murdered.) Just because something happens in the USA does NOT make it naturally infinitely worse than the suffering of EVERYONE ELSE in the world.

Besides - did Chile CAUSE the coup itself? No - it was organised for them. Does the USA bring its own problems on itself? YES IT DOES.
For example - who funded the religious fundamentalist extremists in Afghanistan right through the 1980s? Oh yeah, that'd be _the USA_. And then they whinge when their sordid, nasty little wheelings and dealings form the past come back and bite them on their Big Fat Arse.

Tue, 2010-10-19 21:08 — Hans Castorp (not verified)

Oh, have I? How nice and open-minded of you to declare so by hapless edict. I think crowing for censure as a would-be moderator is "desperate and pathetic". In any event, I think was clear my most recent post was my last one re Gwyn.

It transpires the dreaded BBC is in fact looking at Chile's miner's welfare, which shows how facile Pilger's argument is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11567213

"Thanks to the government's intervention, [the miners Gwyn mentions] have been paid up to 8 October. " But this doesn't fit the tale of Pilgerist woe, does it?

Fri, 2010-10-15 08:36 — Nikki Squires (not verified)

Pilger has this unique way of putting things into perspective. I like many others watched in awe as those men emerged from the mine to be greeted by the President, only to realise from the article that Mr President is part of the problem!
Thank you John, lest we forget the injustices of Pinochet.

Fri, 2010-10-15 10:27 — Bob (not verified)

As for JP's "perspective," Nikki, it might help to put that "in perspective" if you take on board the fact, unmentioned by our valiant warrior-journalist, that Pinera was actually elected with a decent majority in a totally free vote earlier this year over a Socialist candidate -- whose party and its allies had been in power since the 1990s -- and is not one of the caudillos of left and right of whom Pilger happily approves as long as they proclaim themselves to be "anti-imperialist." For real perspective on Chile today, look again at Paula's comment above.

Fri, 2010-10-15 10:37 — john (not verified)

@gordy, go back to sleep sheep

Tue, 2010-10-19 22:38 — PhilDuval

@ Lox

First of all I'm glad that the tone of debate has become more cordial.

I'm not arguing for the removal of the profit motive - I'm not a Communist. I'm arguing for reform to the Labour market so that people are paid a fair wage/ salary. Productivity has increased by 600% since the 70's but wages have barely kept pace with inflation. Even Cameron has found himself addressing the 'fairness' of the minimum wage.

Would you perhaps be in favour of an economy more like Japan's? Where the difference between the top and bottom earners is much smaller and yet tax is still low in comparison with Europe. Personally speaking I am vehmently opposed to the American model since I believe that it is fundamentally unfair - to the extent that it is immoral. As such I don't want to clash horns over it.

I hear your point about self-interest and of course we are all self-interested to some degree - that perhaps is the nub of our disagreement. My self-interest is different to yours. I don't believe that my self-interest is served by economic reward alone. I want to live in a happy, healthy country with strong community values. I don't believe that that can be served by free market economics.

If you take the Hayek/ Friedman theory to its conclusion I don't believe you will have a society of perfectly free individuals all working happily together because they are all self-interested. As stated our self-interests (perhaps we can say our 'wants') are all different. My best friend likes driving a car, another friend prefers his bike because he is a green. A society/ economy without regulation will rapidly become a dictatorship of the richest and most powerful - because their self-interest is likely to be about making ever more profits and as such they will want to drive down wages as far as possible. Look at sweatshops... As such the Hayek/ Friedman theory is exactly the same as the Communist idea - it is utopian and it has taken the form of a faith by it's supporters.

As such a 'free' market can never exist. It will only be 'free' to the strongest. You may agree with that but I find it immoral for the following reasons:

1, the free marketers justify their arguments with statements like ''it's survival of the fittest''. As I never tire of repeating that is a gross misquote of Herbert Spencer - he was referring to the survival of SPECIES against other species and the environment, NOT members of the same species against each other.

2, what is the point of this life? to make as much money and accumulate as many things as possible? I know rich people and I know poor people - the link between their material wealth and their happiness is not as clear as you might think.

3, at the heart of the free market capitalist agenda is the belief that we can have infinite growth in a finite world. We are already approaching peak oil - history shows time and again that civilisations die out when they run short of their resources or are befell by natural disasters.

4, if what we are really talking about is not money but power then if everything becomes about power relations those who hold power cannot be upset when others without power band together to challenge their position. Is it worth the strife to maintain such an uncivilised system? Was it worth all those soldiers lives to fail in Iraq as the US/ UK have done?

I'm a Christian Buddhist and so I must come clean that I see my self-interest reflected in the self-interest of others. Including yours.

best regards

Thu, 2010-10-21 01:31 — Lox (not verified)

@Phil, of necessity this will be a very quick response to your last post...

1. I'd never use the expression "survival of the fittest" with reference to individuals-only to corporations. Companies rise and fall depending on their ability to give people what they need or want.

2. Agreed. But personal gain is a motivator for most people-to deny that is to deny human nature.

3. One thing capitalism is particularly good at is invention. We'll find alternatives to oil, and once the price of oil goes high enough, it'll make economic sense to develop and sell them.

4. I don't want power over anyone; only control of my own life and influence-positive, I hope-on the lives of the people I care about.

I disagree with your point about ever decreasing rewards for workers in a free market. That could happen in a feudal society, but not in one where mass consumption is an essential feature of the economy.

Being a Christian Buddhist, I'm sure you have, on the whole, a pretty positive view of human nature, as I do and I think most people will-but I don't see what the state does beside dilute and displace our innate empathy for other people: you're your brother's keeper just as much as anyone else is.

A big state hasn't given us healthy, happy communities. On the contrary, it's ghettoised millions of people into welfare dependency. Everyone deserves better than that.

Mon, 2010-10-18 20:45 — Lox (not verified)

@PhilDuval, interesting article. But without the wage/productivity gap there's no profit, no incentive to innovate, no incentive for capital to take risks.

Self-interest leads to the desire for wealth, and there are two ways it can be obtained: by theft or by selling people what they want. Providing people with what they want can't be separated from making a profit-it's a necessary intermediary. In a state with relatively uncorrupted and open government, the profit motive cannot help but benefit everyone: in a corrupt state, a free market cannot possibly exist.

Tue, 2010-10-19 22:45 — PhilDuval

@ Gwyn

I apologise for my wordiness : )