A Chilean and American monument to Pinochet bombing victims rises in Washington

By Michael Laris February 25 at 8:14 PM

As anger at white-supremacist violence and a debate over Confederate monuments gripped the United States this past August, a group of plotters met at the Chilean ambassador’s residence in Washington.

A former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass). A reporter and a filmmaker. Researchers from a progressive think tank. And a Chilean ambassador. They wanted a lasting counterpoint at a time when America, and the world, needed one.

On Sunday, a statue of their democratic hero, Orlando Letelier, was unveiled on Washington’s stately Massachusetts Avenue, near the spot where Letelier was killed in a 1976 car bombing — an assassination ordered by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a 25-year-old American co-worker whom Letelier had been giving a ride, also was killed in the attack, which became a rallying point for human rights advocates.

“It’s coming full circle here. It’s putting him back on this piece of Washington where he belongs,” said Sarah Anderson, global economy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, where Letelier and Moffitt worked when they were killed. And unlike with statues of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders, “Orlando and Ronni were on the right side of history. I don’t see these monuments ever coming down.”

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-chilean-and-american-monument-to-pinochet-bombing-victims-rises-in-washington/2018/02/25/145462da-1a4c-11e8-9de1-147dd2df3829_story.html?utm_term=.acaf2437718f

LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141998894