I deeply regret the messages sent by Emílio (my Workers Party mate) which, in very practical terms, mean that he agrees with the impunity of the bloody tyrant, among other unpleasant implications for a Marxist (the thread is reproduced below).
I beg Thomas Kruse to add Brazil to the fascist syndicate named "Operation Condor", since he cited only Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. According to his definition, a "southern cone dictators' transnational enterprise to capture, torture and kill those who would oppose their regimes .... .Information was exhanged, joint operations coordinated."
A plenty file of the Condor's records and meeting minutes was found in a derelict house at Asunción del Paraguay. They are now in the hands of Jair Kirsche, the head of a Human Rights Committee sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church in Porto Alegre. It has been voiced since the arrest of Pinochet that Kirsche would file a judicial suit in Brazil against the last Brazilian dictator, general Batista Figueiredo (also a former commander of SNI, the main military intelligence service, under the Geisel dictatorship), since his signature is found in many documents as a coordinator of the Condor's actions. By the way, Figueiredo also suffers from a chronically aching back like Pinochet, so a humorist has proposed a public collection of funds to pay his travel expenses to the same London Clinic...
Speaking in plain political terms, the arrest of Pinochet is just a golden chance to inflict an important blow against the ever-menacing military fascist terrorism in the Southern Cone, Mercosur or the ABC area. The former military dictatorships of Argentina, Brazil and Chile were close allies and up today the troops keep strong camaraderie ties. If their main "saint-hero", the madman Pinochet, is carried before a regular court whether in Spain, Britain or Trombonzonia, they will surely think THRICE before trying another putsch or something alike. The same applies to other military gangsters everywhere, from Indonesia to United States.
The detention of Pinochet bears NO relations at all with Chilean sovereignty, Labour or bourgeois hypocrisy, the Malvinas (Falklands) war, alleged Manhattan socialists, western bias (the ABC is more western than several regions in Northern Hemisphere, by the way) and what else the devil inspires someone to talk twaddle.
Amnesties (or "puntos finales") granted for both sides do not legally bind other countries, as Spain and Britain, and they will not bear detrimental political consequences to the born again South American democracies. Only in cemeteries there is a "political harmony".
To keep Pinochet under arrest is somehow comparable to the kidnapping of Eichmann ---the inventor of the "final solution" --- in Buenos Aires in 1960 or the near imprisonment of Mengele in Brazil --- the Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". A thousand hurrahs for it !
In solidarity, Roberto
1848 / 1998: Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch !
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans (....) Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand PARTI DES TRAVAILLEURS. (L' Internationale)
####################################################
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:59:49 -0200 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: emilio <emilio at openlink.com.br> Subject: Re: Pinochet update
At 10:27 30/10/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Maybe Margaret Thatcher's tea companion will *not* be
>going home, after all.
> Carl Remick
**********
The Spain Supreme Court could also authorize the Judge Baltasar Garcon to
reopen the process against the former spanish first-minister Felipe Gonzeles
for the crimes against the Basque's independence fithters soldiers.
The concept of the Amnesty's Law is being triturated by the new liberal modern wave from the first-world.
If you live in Europe or in USA you don't have knowledge the importance of the fragile democracy in the south american continent.
The political harmony of third-world oppressed people only deserve a same sentence that Clark Gable said in the picture *" Gone with the wind "*; * " - Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dam " *
emilio
############################################## From: Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com> Subject: RE: Pinochet update Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:00:58 -0500 Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Re Emilio's: "If you live in Europe or in USA you don't have knowledge the importance of the fragile democracy in the south american continent."
Yes, in terms of *domestic* terrorism, our would-be dictators -- like New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- are, in terms of the sheer number of people brutalized, minor by comparison. But it's hard to argue the case that the US has a really robust democracy when a war criminal like Henry Kissinger walks the streets a free man.
Carl Remick
########################################### From: sokol at jhu.edu Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:32:20 -0500 Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong ! To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
At 11:15 PM 10/28/98 -0200, emilio wrote:
>General Pinochet obtained his first juridical victory against his prison in
>England.
>
>He will go back to Chile soon !
>
>He can only be tried for his crimes against humanity by the Chilean
>people who have borne the brunt of his fascist attacks.
>
>The game now is: Chilean Sovereignty 1 x 0 Labor Party Hypocrisy!
--- snip ---
Nationalism is an amazing beast. It puts radicals and fascists to bed together as soon as a threat to "national sovereignty" appears on the horizon.
That is one reason why I think that socialism and "national liberation" should not mix - for if they do, they form a truly explosive mixture known as "national socialism."
Any comments?
Wojtek
>If you bet in Mr. Robin Cook's "bla-bla-bla", YOU LOST !
>
>Why not to collect of the Chilean Immigrants (they are not political exiles
>) that protest in front of the clinic ( only to BBC and CNN tv-cameras, of
>course), the US$ 600.000,00 of medical care bill which English Government
>will have to pay?
>
>Hypocrisy makes the world goes around !
>
>Sorry " Manhattan Socialists", but I also wish to notice you one more thing:
> "* LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS *".
>
>emilio
############################################# Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:26:44 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Thomas Kruse <tkruse at albatros.cnb.net> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong !
>Mr.Wojtek
>
>I am not facist or radical.
>
>I am just an Latin American without money in my pocket.
>
>During the last ten years many countries of South America fight to
>maintain its fragile democratic governments after have for many years
>lived under military dictatorships.
>
>Government's subject in Chile is very delicate and Chile went the last
>country to get the transition among the Military Dictatorship for
>Democracy as government's form.
>
>There was general amnesty and amnesty is worth for both sides.
>
>We didn't need a false liberal trying to become superstar burning our
>deceaseds which we would prefer to maintain them buried
>
>emilio
Emilio:
"We" quien? A quien representas vos?
De acuerdo: mejor tenerlos a los miliatres en los cuarteles, pero a que precio? Que tipo de "democracia" se puede armar en base a amnesia impuesta y violencia encubierta? Es democradura o dictablanda, compadre, pero no democracia.
Tom
Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net
############################################## Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 23:46:30 -0200 From: emilio <emilio at openlink.com.br> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong ! Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
At 20:26 29/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
>"We" quien? A quien representas vos?
>Tom
*****************************
Mr. Kruse
I don't represent anybody.
Even so I am against foreigners that are always exploring the slave work of the Bolivian people rendering service to the imperialism.
I am Brazilian and our democracy is very good placed and ours militarys turned back to their barracks.
Bolivia will have also democracy when a certain type of foreigners leaves the thinking that Bolivia take part of their back yards.
Are you Bolivian or an exploiting foreigner?
emilio
##################################### Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:11:13 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Thomas Kruse <tkruse at albatros.cnb.net> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong !
>Are you Bolivian or an exploiting foreigner?
Yes.
Tom
Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia ############################################### Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:59:41 -0200 From: emilio <emilio at openlink.com.br> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong ! Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
At 08:11 30/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>Are you Bolivian or an exploiting foreigner?
>Yes.
>Tom
*******>
Exploitin foreigner, I presume , because if you are Bolivian you would sign *antonio* as your name, not *Tom*
Or are you a foreigner born in Cochabamba, son of the owners of the tin and copper mines that enslave the native bolivian workers paying hunger wages?
emilio
#########################################
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 14:35:05 -0500 From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong ! Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Or are you a foreigner born in Cochabamba, son of the owners of the
>tin and copper mines that enslave the native bolivian workers paying hunger
>wages?
emilio
This is just ridiculous. Thomas Kruse is working with Bolivian trade unions to prepare educational material that the rank-and-file can use in fighting capitalist exploitation. Before he went to Bolivia with his Quechuan-speaking Bolivian wife, also a radical, he lived in Sandinista Nicaragua for five years where he worked on city planning in Matagalpa. He is one of deepest thinkers I have run across in cyberspace and a helluva nice guy in person as well.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
############################################# Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 23:50:47 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Thomas Kruse <tkruse at albatros.cnb.net> Subject: Re: Pinochet, get back where you once belong !
P.S.
>Or are you a foreigner born in Cochabamba, son of the owners of the
>tin and copper mines that enslave the native bolivian workers paying hunger
>wages?
Had to be tin. Copper is Chile.
Tom
Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net