Chilean Supermarket Employs Pinochet Intelligence Agent to Head Up Security

Santa Isabel is actually the relatively benign grocery store chain in Chile, where checkers complained of having to wear diapers because they weren't allowed bathroom breaks. It's not Lider, where the head of supermarket security is Sergio "Dirty Harry" Díaz López a convicted murderer and agent for Pinochet's ruthless National Information Center CNI, who is applying his Intelligence "know how" to supermarket security, according to La Nación.



Happy Halloween. To be clear, though, the above-pictured security guard is my friend and has nothing to do with Lider or Dirty Harry. He works at Santa Isabel, where I usually shop, and use to follow me around the entire grocery store, he was quite frightening. Nevertheless, there was something pretty bad-ass about him, and so I took his picture once and, truth be told, he's a very sweet man and I think he was flattered, and ever since then he greets me warmly and doesn't stalk me anymore.

Dirty Harry, who is not my friend, is said to carry a gun with him as he travels from one grocery store to the next, checking up on employees, sometimes in cognito. He knows himself to be a controversial figure, that's the rationale for the gun. His murder sentence was reduced from 10 years to 4, and he meets with a parole officer once a month (leaves gun at home).

Dirty Harry's detractors claim he has absolute freedom to apply military intelligence techniques within the supermarkets. Natalia Duque, President of the Federation of Lider Unions, says "it is known that in many D&S [Lider's holding company] stores they follow people with cameras...mostly union leaders. Also, when the workers unionize, they are called in for extended questioning where they are made to say who they vote for, etc."

Taking tips from a military manual, Dirty Harry sets workers on other workers, who feel obliged to carry out such sick tasks because if they don't, well, it's fucking Dirty Harry are you crazy! Many interviewed chose to remain anonymous. It's an intelligence system set up to maintain fear and mistrust among the workers, says La Nación.

In one of the stores, two coworkers were caught kissing on videotape (and btw, Chile is hilarious in this way: everywhere you go - pharmacies, supermarkets - there's overt flirtation and grabass between coworkers) but anyway they were caught on videotape and the security guards showed the video to the entire workforce, with the intention of humiliating them. Just another way to break them down.

And me, to venture that those who scandalized poor, but Wena, Naty might get punished. When such techniques are institutionalized under the direction of a security who can't even get punished properly for a murder conviction. In addition to killing a communist party member Luis Rivera Matus in November, 1975, there are several human rights cases against Dirty Harry. Yet his sentence was reduced to 4 years and he's got a job terrorizing workers, doing his small part to continue Pinochet's legacy of neoliberalism from the barrel of a gun, after 18 years of this "socialist government", this "Democracy".

Apropo to the topic of supermarkets benefiting from the obliteration of labor organization, the Chilean Government is doing its big part by not reversing Pinochet's 1980 constitution, which criminalizes organization between "distinct" companies (and so with some easy paperwork, each Lider is a distinct store. In Chile, 2007, employees from two different Lider stores cannot legally unionize or strike together).

Good news though: Lider was rated among Top 35 Great Places to Work in Chile, thanks to its working environment.

Dirty Harry's interrogation methods are taken straight from the army manual, and include focusing a lamp in the face of the person being questioned, making sure the person employee feels guilty at all times.

You know, the list goes on, and it's really hard to choose what not to bring out from this fascinating article, so if you can read Spanish, seriously take a minute and read it in its entirety it's fucking fascinating. If you don't speak Spanish quickly learn Spanish for free online or plug the article into translate.google.com and see what happens.

I think I know who I'm gonna be for Halloween. Although it's too bad Pinochet's military dictatorship didn't take place in an English speaking country because his obvious nickname would be Scary Harry. I mean, right...?