Pinochet and bourgeois democratic right(long)

Sam Pawlett epawlett at uniserve.com
Tue Dec 1 11:01:29 PST 1998


Hola,Tom. thanks for the correct info. on the Petras book. I agree that any prosecution of Pinochet is a step in the right direction.Even if Pinochet does not get prosecuted, the whole affair has been in the world's press for what? A month now? This has exposed what went on those dark and despairing times to many people who were previously unaware--which is in itself a great victory.I remember seeing a picture of Pinochet seated in front of a birthday cake in the FT a few years ago. The caption read something like "Greetings from Margaret Thatcher on your 80th birthday". I was kind of stunned when i saw that. I wasn't aware that the ruling class' support for PInochet was that overt.I don't know if we'll see any more of that in the bourgeois press. Yeah, Chilean nazis mean what they say. I once got into a fistfight with one in a bar in Antofagasta. This bozo with a swastika tattooed on his arm sits beside me at the bar, realizes I have a foreign accent and starts spewing that weird, virulent nationalism that is the province of the Chilean ultra-right. I had imbibed a fair amount of liquid courage and started arguing with this guy. After a while, my working-class roots showed themselves and I socket the guy in the face a few times. We rolled around on the floor for a while when two beefcakes appeared out of nowhere and promptly through me into the street. The machismo was dripping off of the walls....On my walk back to my pension, I realized I had the blood of a nazi on my hands.

I was in Santiago when Gladys Marin was arrested for her speech "defaming" Pinochet. I ended up getting involved in the activities protesting her arrest.
>From the fundraising banquets to spray-painting "Libertad Para Gladys!"
everywhere. We didn't know how long should would be kept in jail and under what kind of conditions. The communists,naturally, feared the worst. I think she was released on Castro's bequest before he made his historic trip back to Chile. His first since the coup.Marin seems to have re-vitalized the CP, bringing back mass mobilization tactics and work in the unions. The CP at this point is the only party offering a decent alternative to the present order. She wrote an interesting book on the EZLN and has incorporated some EZLN type ideas into the party( the importance of indigenous struggle etc.) There is still a culture of fear in Chile. A lot of poor and working class people i talked to simply said; "look i agree with what the communists are saying, but if we put them back into power there will just be another coup" etc. A tough situation.Santiago was kind of disappointing. It is so Americanized; the same chain stores,restaurants etc. Am I in Santiago or St. Louis? The young communists control,what, the student councils of the largest 3 universities in Chile? They even control Catholica; the bastion of neo-liberal thought and former laboratory of Arnold Harberger. Student politics is very important in Chile and is covered in the national media. EL Mercurio(Chile's largest daily and long time conduit for CIA/DINA psy-war material) ran an editorial on student politics saying that with the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers joining the communist party the future of Chile is in grave danger( a little purge is in order perhaps?). With the best and brightest of CHile's youth joining the communists, there must be something wrong in CHile. Try as they may, the editors at El Mercurio could not figure out what. Chile's growth this year is supposed to fall to OECD averages, with the fall in copper prices. CODELCO is still responsible for what, 40% of exports? Is there any danger of a recession?

I second your endorsement of Punto Final. A fine bi-weekly that contained a 3-part series by Petras' when i was reading it in Chile. Punto Final used to lean towards the MIR, no? Many of its workers were murdered in the '70's, right? I was browsing in a book shop in Providencia when news came over the radio that 6 leaders of the MRPF had escaped from jail. I could here the Chilean yuppies hissing about "subversives". I laughed to the heavens.

What's the situation in Bolivia? I spent 'bout a month there during the last election campaign. Banzer is back power.Yuk.Why? Are the coca growers still organized and active? I didn't spend much time in Cochabamba but hit most other cities and towns. I took the ORuro-Calama train and nearly froze to death in Uyani. The approach to La Paz is breathtaking and rivals that of Rio or Hong Kong. The size of the informal economy is huge in Bolivia. Large even by LatAm standards. The informal economy seems to have atomized the working class, getting them to compete against each other instead of working through collective action.What do you think of Nash's work "We eat the mines..." Kind of interesting how traditional working class values like solidarity fused with indigenous social and religious traditions to produce a unique form of socialism. I visited a mine around Potosi and what's left of the miners were none too happy. Has Lochada(sp?) "recapitalization" scheme revitalized Bolivian industry in the way the neo-liberals said it would? The recapitalization scheme, seemed to me, to be really naive. The neo-liberals just said that "well it worked in Chile so it has to work here". 50-70% of economic activity is dependent on cocaine, no? The press were trumpeting the cultivation of the medicinal Echanichea as Bolivia's next great industry. Strolling down the Prado, I noticed about a 4 block stretch that was home to Bolivia's nouveau rich. It's funny. They are confined to a 4 block radius in the whole city. Quite a contrast to the indigenous with their bowler hats and bare feet. Bolivia is one of the heaviest drinking countries I've ever been to. Man, they can pack it away. The altiplano was tough on a 2-pack-a-day man like me. What are the prospects for the left in Bolivia? 'Bout the same as everywhere? I noticed a lot of Trotskyist action at the universities. Those damn cambistas! Sam Pawlett. Tom Kruse wrote:


> Sam wrote:
>
> >Lagos and the Chilean socialist party want to see Pinochet free because they
> >have capitulated to neo-liberalism since they joined the Concertacion in
> >Chile's first post-dictatorship "election". See the book "Democracy in Chile"
> >by Petras, and Veltmayer, Westview Press 1994. The socialist party of Chile
> >contains a number of former MIR militants who were given membership in the
> >party in return for informing the government on the past activities of former
> >comrades. Disgusting. Aylwin's finance minister Ominami was a former MIR
> >militant who used to advocate "armed struggle" but in government he
> praised the
> >free market for its benign effects on the poor.Some socialist. With the
> ongoing
> >efforts to see Pinochet tried, I'm curious as to why activists are
> spending so
> >much time and energy on one man. To be sure, I would swim to Spain to see
> >Pinochet hang, but in my time in Chile i found a lot of Nazi's and there are
> >many individuals in the military and the Chilean establishment who hold more
> >extreme views than Pinochet and would be more than willing to take his place.
>
> Quick correction: the book is Democracy *and Poverty* in Chile, by Petras
> and Fernando Leiva (nephew of Orlando Letilier), with Henry Veltmeyer. The
> "and poverty" is significant, as they throw the economic "miracle" into
> question on a number of counts. Your comment on capitulation is right on:
> disgusting. And now they all jockey for shrinking middle ground, which
> requires saluting the flag daily and calling for the return of Pinocho.
>
> On your last point, I'd suggest that giving Pinocho as hard a time as
> possible will help with the larger process of "de-nazification" of Chile,
> by reopening history to critical interpretation, revisiting crimes, and
> concretely prosecuting the big bastard for what he (and the rest of his
> neo-nazi crowd) considers honorable conduct in the service of la patria.
> (Just months ago Pinochet stated he'd do it all again if he had to.)
>
> BTW: de-nazification is not an overstatement. It is well established that
> nazis and neo-nazis played an important role in the architecture of
> repressive institutions (espceilly the DINA), murder and repression.
>
> Tom
>
> Tom Kruse
> Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
> Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242
> Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net



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