34 Years of Solitude

Pinochet's dictatorship burned bodies and plowed them into the earth to make way for a concentration of power that leaves Chile, today, ranking alongside Swazilandia and Nambia in its inequality, worse than Bolivia. There was a lot of euphoria when Pinochet "stepped down from power" in like 1990. Of course the General stayed on as Commander in Chief for about five more years, but politically Chile had a new farce face.

Chilean economist Marcel Claude dedicates his new book detailing the disastrous economic and environmental fallout of former president Ricardo Lagos' policies The Return of Faust (El Retorno de Fausto) to the Chilean people and their "already 33 years of solitude". Today, September 11, 2007, another page in the calender is blown off and the year becomes 34.

Admittedly, it's a big step that nobody's being disappeared, and white people mostly aren't being incarcerated for political reasons anymore in Chile. Just Indians. But to say that Mapuches are the only ones getting the brunt of Pinochet's very-much-intact constitution would be glossing over the situation incredibly. Yes, they're being jailed in horrendous conditions via the application of a Pinochet junta anti-terrorism law, but this is not a freak exception, this is Chile's MO. Virtually nothing has been stripped from Pinochet's constitution. There's an amnesty law in Chile for 1970's human rights abusers, there are crippling anti-labor laws in place, etc.

Journalist Marc Cooper, who was translator for Allende and knew Bachelet's father put it this way in a recent discussion on his blog about the Chilean economy :

I ascribe only some of the worst motivation to the Concertacion. Almost universally I find their leadership to be reprehensible...I don't like them and I don't trust them, pa’nada.

Unfortunately my fellow blogger Mike seems to have been teargassed one too many times as he writes of Bachelet's adornment of Allende's statue with a clump of flowers:

The distinction between her governing style and that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is truly remarkable. She could say and do all kinds of things and although she may be disliked for Transantiago and a host of other things, one cannot claim that she isn’t at least extremely composed, cultured and diplomatic. I guess we could say she is a gentlewoman.

Someone get this guy a lemon to suck on. Fast. Bachelet is a shameless populist and the most undignified, unprofessional leader Chile's had since Lagos. Has it been that long? Does nobody remember her hasty and to-date not rescinded accusation of police brutality against violent Chileans in Canada, followed a month later by her defense of police brutality, her condemnation of a march for workers' rights, because "democracy has limits". Fuck buena onda, fuck gentleness. At least Chavez has enough bravado to call attention to his own evil.

Any kind word about the leadership of any Koncertacion president is an insult to human intelligence. But I'll cut that blogger some slack because he did inhale a lot of tear gas, thanks to Bachelet. (And I thought it was only Chileans were self-loathing!)