The Tyranny of Forgetting
Chile's GhostsBy BENJAMIN DANGL
CounterPunch September 14, 2010
EXCERPT...
Reflecting on Chile under Pinochet, Littín remembers the tireless struggle of coal miner Sebastián Acevedo, who fought to end the torture of his twenty-two-year-old son and twenty-year-old daughter. The desperate Acevedo ultimately warned public officials, journalists and religious leaders, “If you don't do something to stop the torture of my children, I will soak myself with gasoline and set myself on fire in the atrium of the
cathedral.” Acevedo followed through with the threat, and became a haunting symbol of the fight against the dictatorship.
SNIP...
On September 11, 2010, over six thousand people gathered to mark the anniversary of the coup. Participants converged in homage to the victims of the dictatorship, as well as to demand justice and respect for human rights under the current Sebastián Piñera administration. Chile’s right wing President Piñera, one of the wealthiest people in the country, did not participate in the acts that commemorated the start of the dictatorship.
“We are living under a right wing regime which participated in the dictatorship and even today is justifying the human rights violations,” Mireya García, the vice president of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared, told Telesur.
Some members of Piñera's administration also worked in the Pinochet dictatorship and have not been brought to justice for their crimes. Speaking of the 37th anniversary of the September 11th coup, Piñera said that Chileans should move beyond the conflicts of the past. “We should not remain trapped in the same fights and divisions.”
Allende warned against the tyranny of forgetting. In his final radio broadcast to the Chilean people, the president condemned the coup plotters, “I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”
SOURCE:
http://www.counterpunch.org/dangl09142010.html