Sometimes Words Aren't Even Necessary...

Out With The Old, In With The New (But The Tremors Haven´t Gone Anywhere!)

It's now official: Sebastián Piñera is the new President of the Republic of Chile. I was able to make my way down near the Congreso here in Valpo, where the inauguration ceremony took place and snap these photos of both outgoing President Michelle Bachelet and the new President Piñera. There was a good turnout of supporters for both Bachelet ("¡Gracias Presidenta! ¡La única!") and Piñera ("Piñera, amigo, El pueblo está contigo!").

The inauguration wasn't the only excitement going on either. While I was out and about (and amidst the inauguration), another earthquake, 6.9 on the richter scale, shook the earth about 3 hours south of here. A tsunami warning has been issued, and Piñera has already taken quick action to declare an emergency alert for Region VI where the epicenter was located. He will also be making his way down to Region VII later this afternoon to visit the hardest-hit parts of the country. And so begins the Sebastián Piñera chapter in modern Chilean history...

Wednesday Night Links

1.) Tomorrow's a big day down here in Chile, as President-elect Sebastián Piñera will be assuming office. Numerous heads of state from all over the continent (and even the Prince of Spain) arrived today and Valpo will be abuzz mañana as they will all be coming to the Congreso Nacional for the inauguration ceremony, despite the fact that parts of the city and neighboring Viña are without water. Earlier this afternoon I watched on tv as Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's jet landed, while Piñera and Bolivian president Evo Morales had a friendly soccer match. Only in Latin America, right?

2.) Despite leaving office on the dour note of the earthquake and the widely criticized governmental response, outgoing President Michelle Bachelet's popularity numbers are as high as ever, with an utterly astonishing 84% approval rating. Of course, as Greg Weeks points out, keep in mind the fact that the hardest-hit areas could not be reached by telephone...

3.) While the Chilean economy will certainly continue to suffer the social and economic effects of the earthquake (One of the headlines I saw the other day read "TURISMO EN EL SUELO"- Tourism [industry] on the floor), Piñera himself is sure to be pretty comfortable. In the latest rankings of the richest people in the world, the Chilean magnate jumped 260 spots up to number 437 on the list. Latin American tycoons were well represented this year, as Mexican Carlos Slim claimed the top spot by knocking off Bill Gates, and Brazilian mining head Eike Batista made the biggest financial gains.

4.) Regarding the other serious earthquake in this hemisphere in the past year, the indomitable Noam Chomsky on Haiti in Counterpunch.

4.) Back in the United States, Glenn Greenwald lays open the brutality employed by the US government while torturing suspected terrorists. The chilling facts of what our "democratic" government did and continues to defend calls to mind the title of a previous article Greenwald wrote on this subject: "What Every American Should Be Made to Know [About the IG Torture Report]."

5.) Johann Hari has an excellent article in The Nation regarding the "selling out" of major American environmental organizations to corporate interests, and especially some of the most dangerous pollutors in the world. He also appeared with Christine MacDonald, a former member of one of the most widely-criticized such organizations Conservation International, on Democracy Now! I found this to be particularly interesting as I spent several summers canvassing for a grassroots environment organization in Indiana called the Hoosier Environmental Council. The last summer I worked there our canvass and several policy people was cut in what was a very peculiar cost-cutting move for a members-based advocacy organization. Many of my colleagues and I believed that there were shadier motives at heart, and was a result of pressure from the more moderate aka "business-friendly" members of the board of directors...

6.) And back home in the Hoosier State, Indiana Governor (and 2012 Presidential hopeful? Ha!) Mitch "The Blade" Daniels and his private sector goon squad have come under intense criticism for inflating Indiana's job creation numbers by 40%. (The statistics look so much better when you make them up!) I guess cutting the jobs of social workers and replacing them with private call centers isn't merely cruel and legally objectionable, but a bad economic policy as well!

7.) Finally, I encourage you to check out "Exiled in the Land of the Free," a benefit album for Native American activist and US political prisoner Leonard Peltier that was originally supposed to be released in 1995, but was instead shelved. 15 years later, a sympathetic recording assistant came across the tracks and has put them on the internet for free. Even better than the music is the cause, which you can become familiarized with and take action upon on the link above, and which I was first introduced to while reading the liner notes in Rage Against the Machine cds in high school and doing my own personal research on COINTELPRO. And yes, even the United States is guilty of holding political prisoners and sheltering terrorists.

¡Fuerza Chile! One Week After the Quake

Well it´s now been officially more than one week after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded shook Chile, and things are starting to settle back into place, more or less. Here in Valpo, a rather uneasy normalcy has started to return, as most businesses, public transportation, and utilities are back up and running. Walking around the city, it´s really difficult to believe that only a few days ago we felt the same magnitude on the richter scale as what devastated Haiti- aside from a few broken windows, some cracked siding, and the like, there really isn't much to suggest that this city suffered much physical damage at all. And certainly, by my understanding, it is the case that we here in Valparaíso were extremely fortunate not to suffer more than we did.

One sees here in Valpo a large outpouring of support for our less fortunate neighbors. Chilean flags and messages of support can be seen everywhere. The past few days I also took part in some of the relief effort being organized by the Pontífica Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, gathering and sorting clothing and food and other supplies to send to the south. My personal experience in these circumstances is rather limited, so I have little to base my analysis directly off of, but nevertheless I think it is remarkable both how quickly things here are going back to "normal," as well as the amount of support being provided by the people themselves. I was completely overwhelmed by not only the amount of provisions that the student organizers at PUCV were able to gather, but also how many hundreds of students were dedicating their time and energy to the thankless task of sorting and packaging these myriad supplies, two weeks before their classes start back up.

But of course, I am only going off of what I know based on what I've personally seen. Beyond that, I like most everyone else has to rely on what I'm being told. The problem is that under such circumstances there's really no way of knowing what's really going on, nor how "bad" it really is- and we won't really have any way of knowing what the effects of this quake will for some time to come. Signs are emerging however, as the tourism industry is starting to suffer and certainly the devastation that this quake has had on Chile's infrastructure, especially the highways, railways, and bridges, will have a crippling effect on the economy for a long time to come.

In the meantime, there is much going on and many storylines emerging, but personally I am most interested in the issue of the looting and violence going on in Concepción and other hard-hit cities in the south-central regions, and what the implications of this and the government´s response will be. For several days one couldn´t turn on the television here without being bombarded with the images of people breaking into stores and businesses, to which the government responded with a strong hand by mobilizing thousands of soldiers, tanks, and issuing a toque de queda ("curfew"), which is the first time such action has been taken in the country since the restoration of democracy. I have little doubt about the seriousness of this matter and the need to restore order amidst this chaos and violence, and The BBC has a thoughtful article on the complex issues involved in deploying the Chilean military for this relief effort with the memories of the military government still fresh.

Nevertheless, I think we should also always remain cautiously skeptical about state efforts to use force to "increase security," especially when military units are deployed for policing efforts. Situations such as these often serve as convenient opportunities for state authorities to overextend their reach, which almost always ends up doing more harm than good, especially over the long term. Perhaps my background in the post-9/11 United States leaves me to draw unfair comparisons between the Chilean government's response and how my country typically operates under these circumstances, but tanks are surely an extreme measure to deal with bands of looters. And certainly questions of the long-term "security presence" need to be asked considering reports indicate that any decision regarding lifting the toque de queda down there will be postponed until March 11, when new president Sebastián Piñera assumes office.

Accordingly, what will be most interesting to watch (IMHO) throughout the duration of the Piñera administration will be how he uses this event to shape his agenda and ultimately his legacy, and how in turn the Chilean people will respond. With his right-wing background and his calls to "reestablish public order", I can't help but consider that this may be early indicators that Piñera may use this opportunity to take a more heavy-handed "law and order" approach than what Chileans have experienced in 20 years. Furthermore, this crisis and the much-critized response of the Bachelet government, especially regarding the failures of the tsunami alert system that may have led to more casualties than the quake itself, will leave a deep stain on her and the Concertación´s legacy and give Piñera further incentive to separate himself politically and ideologically. And this in turn will certainly impact Piñera's economic policies, perhaps leading to an onslaught of neoliberal reforms and privatization schemes in the reconstruction effort, as well as a convenient excuse to back away from his campaign promises on Chile's projected economic growth.

How will the rest of Chile respond? I see here in Chile and throughout much of Latin America a great deal of skepticism towards state authority and institutions, which has only been amplified by the government's response to this event. Furthermore, I think one can be assured that Piñera's efforts at neoliberalization or "securitization," if they come to fruition, will be met with a great deal of resistance. Ultimately, it's still too early to tell, but despite the devastation, chaos, and violence in some parts of the country, the compassion and support seen in the rest does give hope for what is yet to come.

(Both pictures taken in Valpo, March 2010. First is a micro, second is a scene from the PCUV relief effort.)

Just Returned from Santiasco; and Justice, Impotance, and Crimes Against Humanity

Spent the past weekend in the nation's capital. Didn't have as much time to visit museums as I'd liked, but with Santiago only being about an hour and a half away (via bus), I'll have plenty of chances to go back.

I did have the chance to find out why it's called "Santiasco." It's not that it's actually disgusting, but it's just generally a pretty underwhelming city. Not in size by any means mind you, Santiago is massive: a population ~6 million people, though with it being February an estimated 2 million Santiguinos are out of town on vacation. But it is, to be quite frank, rather bland and uninteresting for what one would expect from the social and political center of the nation. Obviously, there are plenty of things to do and see, but it really just doesn't have much character of its own, like a Buenos Aires or Madrid (to name two Hispanic cities that I'm familiar with). Lots of malls, smog, and Las Condes, an upper-class suburban neighborhood community who could be regarded as the base of the Chilean right and president-elect Piñera. Yuck.

Valpo on the other hand is another story. Literally, whereas Santiago's draws are the museums and parks and restaurants and such that you go to a city of its size to enjoy (and seek to spend as little time as possible getting from point A to B!), Valpo is the complete opposite: it's bursting with character and is a spectacular city to wander and get lost in, but it really doesn't have much to offer in the way of things to "do" (most of those kinds of things are located instead in nearby Viña). I love it here, and after being in Santiago for a few days I was longing to come back.

One thing that did strike me while in Santiago is the number of museums and sites dedicated to the victims of Pinochet's torture regime. I had the opportunity to visit the Parque por la Paz at the former site of Villa Grimaldi, one of the most notorious detention centers during the 70s and 80s and where thousands of political dissidents lost their lives.

What's so striking to me is that a number of them opened only a handful of years after democracy took hold and while still on the cusp of that military government and of course, long before any real attempts at holding any of the torturers, murderers, and other-human-rights violators accountable for their crimes (which of course has yet to happen at all on a broad scale, and is almost certainly unlikely to ever happen). Pinochet in fact would have still been serving on his self-appointed Senate seat, which he held until 1998, at the time that the Parque por la Paz opened in 1994.

I believe it is remarkable that these gestures can be made, even by the state itself, in the absence of any real attempts, or even discussion of an attempt, at exacting justice and holding these men and women accountable for their crimes against humanity. Even outside of the torture, rape, murder, and kidnappings, the Pinochet regime was even so bold as to track down and assassinate opponents on foreign soil, including the notorious car bombing of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC.

Of course, there is a significant discourse about what exactly it means to "hold the wrongdoers accountable" and what the implications are under such circumstances, especially when democracy is still so fragile in the years immediately after the dictatorship is over. But the fact of the matter is that in the Chilean case, and in so many other of these situations where severe human rights abuses are acknowledged but their perpetrators left unaccountable, it was never truly a matter of "the justice" of such actions. Instead, as my girlfriend says, having several family members who were imprisoned and tortured under Pinochet for their nonviolent political activities and beliefs, it's a matter of "la impotencia" to even consider legal accountability for these crimes.

Again, this is why Piñera’s election is so important for Chile. So much of media coverage, especially at the international level and by corporate interests, is focused on the narrative of the “progress” that Chile has made now that it can elect a right-wing president. But what progress is it when that President had close ties to the dictatorial regime and may be returning these same criminals back to power?

And of course the same can be said here in the United States in the wake of the torture, repression, and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the Bush regime. Former Vice President Cheney was just on national television last week (crawling out of his lair to be on ABC News, mind you, not FOX), boasting about his support of and authorization of the US government’s use of waterboarding, one of the common methods of torture employed by the Chilean secret police at Villa Grimaldi. I recall a conversation I had with Boston University professor and author Andrew Bacevich before he spoke at Butler last spring on this very issue of holding the Bush Administration officials guilty of these transgressions accountable. I was trying to make the point that having a legal inquiry into what happened is essential for reestablishing the legal precedent against these actions (considering there already is a significant body of international and US legal writings regarding waterboarding as a torture method and the illegality of such methods) and preventing these crimes from happening again, while Dr. Bacevich, an ardent critic of the Bush Administration, argued the point that it was simply not politically feasible nor prudent to pursue such a course. Be sure to note that neither of us got around to the issue of “justice,” for it so often is merely a secondary issue to the “practicality” of criminal proceedings, if it is even considered at all.

But what really is to be said about the “impracticality” of these measures where in Chile a democratic government has been established for 20 years, and in the United States we are supposedly the most exemplary “democracy” in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world? Per Slavoj Zizek, we don’t actually believe in such things as “justice” and “democracy” and “human rights,” but instead we believe that we believe in these values. And here it's also worth recalling that much of the discourse in the mainstream media in the United States on the issue of waterboarding didn’t merely focus on whether or not waterboarding was in fact torture or not, but on whether or not “torture” in and of itself should be completely ruled out for use against terrorists!

Of course, part of the reason that states won't have these investigations, or when they do they are such toothless examinations as the ongoing UK invesigation regarding the leadup to the Iraq War, is because the responsibility lies with too many of those still in power. This is especially true here in the US, where so much of the political elite is so established that the US still refuses to join the International Criminal Court out of fear that people in Washington may actually be held accountable for their actions, and even the "progressive" Obama Administration still continues to carry out shady Bush-era tactics such as indefinite detention and extraordinary renditions (a brief scan of Glenn Greenwald's superb blog can quickly bring one up to speed on this). One might even make the case that all nation-states have at least some blood on their hands. But again, this should only further call into question the legitimacy of our political authorities and of the state itself, and we should not be afraid to ask these questions if we truly think we believe in "justice," "democracy," and "human rights."

In other news, later this week I'll be going to Cajón del Maipo, a forested area about an hour SE of Santiago that's a popular place to camp and go rafting and such. Definitely looking forward to it. In the meantime I'll be posting my most recent NACLA article and try to get some posts in before I take off.

A Bit of Background and Context on Current Chilean Politics

I think it's only appropriate to use my first substantive post for some commentary and background on the current political situation here in Chile into which I’ve arrived. This is indeed an interesting time for this country, who just this past January concluded their presidential elections, with the conservative billionaire Sebastián Piñera defeating the center-left candidate Eduardo Frei in the runoff.

Now, within most political contexts (at least, I suppose, that we in the North or other parts of Latin America are accustomed to), this would seem rather banal. For Chile however, Piñera's victory is quite significant on a variety of levels.

Firstly and perhaps most importantly, the election of Sebastián Piñera signals an official end to the nearly two decades of continuous leadership by the center-left coalition known as the Concertación. In fact only a handful, indeed if any, political organizations in the world have had as much success at effectively leading a democratic state as the Concertación. Over the past 20 years, Chile has established itself as arguably the most stable, peaceful, and best-functioning nation in the region. This is a remarkable feat in and of itself, but especially so considering the extreme challenges posed the historical and geographic conditions of South America that undermine the ability to run a functioning, let alone democratic state, and a quick look around at Chile's neighbors illustrates just how difficult this is.

Of course, Chile is not immune from some of the same problems as its neighbors. There is a substantial income inequality gap between the wealthiest of society and the poorest; infrastructure definitely lags behind European or North American standards; and other, though perhaps less “official,” indicators of underdevelopment, such as just the sheer number of stray dogs living on the streets here in Valpo (it’s quite remarkable!), suggest that Chile faces these same challenges as well.

But it is also clear that Chile ranks at or near the top of Latin America in not only most of the social and economic ranking systems, but many of the political indices as well, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and The Economist’s Democracy Index. From 1990, since just before the Concertación came to power, until 2006, the poverty rate was reduced from nearly 40% of the population down to just 13%. And significant progress in these areas has been made under current President Michelle Bachelet, who actually defeated Piñera back in 2005 and whose popularity and approval ratings are amongst the highest in the world.

And these high degrees of socio-economic and democratic political development under the Concertación are most remarkable considering that they came immediately in the wake of 26 years of the right-wing dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet, who with the support of the United States ran one of the most notorious governments in Latin America. Much credit should then be afforded to Concertación leadership for stabilizing democracy and development amidst these turbulent conditions (though the role of the Chilean people themselves and civil society cannot be discounted either).

This of course leads into the second significant point to be made about Piñera’s victory, which is that it is the first return to power by the right in Chile since Pinochet stepped down. While I don’t particularly agree with some of the “Piñera = Facha [Fascist]” sentiments expressed down here, there are indeed some troubling right-wing connections for Piñera that betray his carefully-cultivated mainstream image. Piñera’s own brother was a high-ranking minister in Pinochet’s government and several of his top aides and political allies have close ties to dictatorial regime and the reactionary Catholic sect Opus Dei. Piñera himself also amassed his personal fortune under Pinochet’s neoliberal “shock therapy.”

Some may say that this is merely what is to be expected in politics, especially in a context where extremists held power for so long, that whichever candidate from the Chilean right who came to power would have some “dirty hands,” so to say. Can’t we just move on? Or better yet, perhaps this can in fact serve as evidence that Chile can finally or actually has in fact “moved on” from its unsavory past? Here however I would have to disagree, and instead assert that if this is the case that it is in fact more emblematic of a deeper ethical problem as opposed to evidence of “progress.” Complacency with regards to our political leaders’ shady connections suggests a normalization and/or acceptance of these poor characteristics that we should instead be trying our best avoid, and in the case of Chile perhaps this is even some semblance of a “return” to this state. These questions also altogether avoid any discussion of justice, as very little responsibility was ever truly meted out for the crimes and abuses of power perpetrated under the coup regime. As such, Piñera’s victory is for many Chileans not only a troubling rebirth for many of the same shareholders of power from the Pinochet era, but the calls for “moving on” and “change” are indeed also a slap in the face to those who still bear the physical and emotional scars of a nightmare that wasn’t all that long ago.

Going back to Piñera himself, in his attempts to distance himself from Pinochet’s legacy he may instead be molding himself into a more refined version after another unpleasant figure on the right, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. Chilean friends of mine are incredulous of the billionaire’s attempts to self-identify as “middle-class” despite owning key stakes in one of Chile’s top soccer clubs and its national airline. Piñera has also already come under intense criticism for cashing in to the tune of millions after wrapping up his victory. And just last week I was fortunate enough (if one so wishes to call it that I suppose…) to witness the bizarre “spectacle” of his cabinet appointment ceremony, in which he personally handed out flash drives with all of his “goals” and “ambitions” to each of his new team members on national TV. (As I remarked to a friend, “You better believe that Mitt Romney is taking notes on this as we speak!”)

And so, in so many words, this is the political situation that I am stepping into here in Chile. As for actual analysis of the election itself, political scientist Robert Funk has been invaluable: the general message however has been that this election result, despite efforts by favorable allies in the mainstream media to depict it as otherwise, was not so much a ‘victory’ by Piñera as it was a ‘loss’ by the Concertación, whose complacency, poor campaign management, and a tepid candidate spelled an end to its own rule. Hence, in a way, the coalition was a victim of its own success, yet it may also be seen as taking a fall for a recent slump in performance indicators that may or may not be linked to the global economic downturn.

As always, there is much more to say, but I will save it for another day. How this situation plays out from here, both in terms of how Piñera will govern (most analysts I’ve read thus far don’t expect much of a change, especially in terms of domestic policy; personally I see the recent developments in the regional politics as the most interesting area to watch as it offers the most potential for Piñera to define himself) and how the Chilean people will react to his rule (I am most interested in the divide between more traditional mainstream core of society and radical fringe elements and the tension between them). More to surely follow as things develop…