Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalWhy we (still) need to talk about Chile's El Mercurio
We examine coverage and CIA funding of the paper that supported the 1973 Chilean coup and the following dictatorship.
14 Sep 2019 10:33 GMT
Produced by: Marcela Pizarro and Flo Phillips
Frequently on The Listening Post, we are warned about getting too close to the story. Like a lens that zooms in too close, there is always a danger that proximity blurs our vision.
Yet, zoom-in we did, to a blurred image of fighter jets bombing La Moneda, Chile's presidential palace on September 11, 1973. That image may have made front pages around the world, but in Chile, media coverage of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, was kept to a bare minimum.
One of those papers was the country's conservative daily, El Mercurio, whose headline simply stated: "The military now controls the country." This was an outlet that did not just report on the story, but had become an integral part of it.
Three years earlier, days after Salvador Allende became the first democratically-elected Marxist president, El Mercurio's owner, Agustin Edwards, flew to Washington, DC and sat down with the then-CIA Director Richard Helms - urging him for support in a military coup.
It was the height of the Cold War and the United States had looked on nervously as socialist movements - and Soviet influence - gathered apace around the continent.
Years later, declassified US CIA documents revealed how the CIA pumped millions of dollars into El Mercurio to spearhead a propaganda campaign against Allende's government.
More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2019/09/talk-chile-el-mercurio-190914083123442.html
Also posted in Progressive Media Resources group:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/12691526
The video with the article is extremely important. Please take the time to listen to it if you have 26 minutes.
HYPOXIA CITY
At 5100 meters’ elevation, a Peruvian gold mining town is the world’s highest settlement—and a good place to study how life at extremely low oxygen levels ravages the body
By Martin Enserink, in La Rinconada, Peru; Photography by Tom Bouyer, Expedition 5300
12 September 2019
ON A COLD, GRAY MORNING earlier this year, Ermilio Sucasaire, a gold miner, sat in a white plastic chair with a stack of papers and a pen in his hand. His inquisitive eyes scanned a large room where a group of scientists were performing tests on his colleagues. One fellow miner rode a bicycle, panting heavily, electrodes attached to his chest. Another man had taken off his dirty sweater and was lying on a wooden bed, covered with blankets; a European researcher pressed an instrument against his neck while peering at a laptop.
Sucasaire was next—after he had signed a consent form and filled out a long questionnaire about his health, life, work history, family, and drinking, smoking, and coca-chewing habits. "I'm looking forward to it," he said.
The scientists, led by physiologist and mountain enthusiast Samuel Vergès of the French biomedical research agency INSERM in Grenoble, had set up a makeshift lab here in the world's highest human settlement, a gold-mining boomtown at 5100 meters in southeastern Peru. An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 people live here, trying to make it—and, many hope, strike it rich—under brutal conditions. La Rinconada has no running water, no sewage system, and no garbage removal. It is heavily contaminated with mercury, which is used to extract the gold. Work in the unregulated mines is back-breaking and dangerous. Alcohol abuse, prostitution, and violence are common. Freezing temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation add to the hardships.
La Rinconada's most defining feature, however, the one that lured the scientists, is its thin air. Every breath you take here contains half as much oxygen as at sea level. The constant oxygen deprivation can cause a syndrome called chronic mountain sickness (CMS), whose hallmark is an excessive proliferation of red blood cells. Symptoms include dizziness, headaches, ringing ears, sleep problems, breathlessness, palpitations, fatigue, and cyanosis, which turns lips, gums, and hands purplish blue. In the long run, CMS can lead to heart failure and death. The condition has no cure except resettling at a lower altitude—although some of the damage may be permanent.
More:
https://vis.sciencemag.org/hypoxia-city/
Brazilian Politician Offers US$2,440 to Kill Murder Suspect
State deputy made offer on the floor of the Espírito Santo state parliament
Sep.13.2019 1:26PM
PSL state deputy Captain Assumption, 56, stood on the legislative floor and offered a R$ 10,000 (US$ 2,400) award to anyone willing to kill whoever murdered young Maiara de Oliveira Freitas.
The crime happened in the morning, in Cariacica, a city in the Vitoria metropolitan region.
The statement was broadcast live on state television during the discussion of the law to create new prison fund in Espírito Santo.
PSL state deputy Captain Assumption, 56 - Reprodução TV Ales
The congressman, who belongs to the party of President Jair Bolsonaro, said that whoever accepted the order had to show the corpse to him to receive payment.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/09/brazilian-politician-offers-us2440-to-kill-murder-suspect.shtml
The State of Colombia vs Alvaro Uribe Day 6: three former paramilitaries and one senate aide
by Adriaan Alsema September 13, 2019
On the fourth day of Colombia’s trial of the century, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear three former paramilitaries and one of the assistants of former President Alvaro Uribe, who has been charges with fraud and bribery.
Witness #17 | “Castañeda”
“Castañeda” is a former mid-level commander of the Bloque Metro paramilitary group that was founded by Uribe and his brother in the 1990s, according to two former members.
Uribe used the former paramilitary commander’s written testimony to support criminal charges against opposition Senator Ivan Cepeda in 2014 that were dismissed last year and laid the basis for the criminal charges against the former president.
Castañeda is going to have a tough day; he an three other former paramilitaries went on record in 2013 claiming they feared for their lives after having testified before a court about Uribe’s alleged ties to paramilitary death squads.
According to the Supreme Court, the former paramilitary later changed his claims in Uribe’s alleged conspiracy to discredit the testimonies of the two key witnesses who have testified the former president formed the Bloque Metro and “politically finish off Senator Ivan Cepeda and discredit the debate he was promoting about paramilitarism in Antioquia.”
Uribe was wiretapped talking to several people allegedly involved in manipulating Castañeda to withdraw his initial accusation and falsely accuse Cepeda instead.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/the-state-of-colombia-vs-alvaro-uribe-day-6-three-former-paramilitaries-and-one-senate-aide/
Chile's 9/11 Coup: Salvador Allende's Last Words
Salvador Allende | Photo: Flickr
Published 11 September 2019
"Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!"
Leftist former Chilean President Salvador Allende gave his last speech to the nation while the presidential palace was surrounded by the coup plotters led by Augusto Pinochet's command.
The U.S.-backed coup on Sept. 11, 1973 was the culmination of a long campaign of sabotage carried out by the local elite class alongside the U.S. administration of Richard Nixon who had said that Washington must "make the economy scream."
Following the coup, 30,000 were killed under Pinochet's rule, with countless tortured and disappeared as the right-wing dictator implemented neoliberal shock therapy to the Chilean economy.
Hours after his speech, Allende committed suicide with an AK-47 rifle gifted to him by Fidel Castro.
Here is the full transcript of his speech:
"My friends,
Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the towers of Radio Portales and Radio Corporación.
My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May there be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [national police].
Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign!
Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever.
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Chiles-911-Coup-Salvador-Allendes-Last-Words-20190911-0006.html
Newly discovered species of electric eel can produce most powerful electric shock of any animal
By science reporter Suzannah Lyons
Posted 40 minutes ago
Electric eel, Electrophorus voltai
Electrophorus voltai has the most powerful electric discharge of any known animal. (Supplied: L. Sousa)
It's an update to the electric eel family tree that's been over 250 years in the making.
The electric eel was first described by the famed Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1766.
But after years of hanging out on its own as the only species in the genus Electrophorus, researchers have now discovered that the electric eel, Electrophorus electricus, is in fact not one species but three.
What's more, one of the newly described species of eel, Electrophorus voltai, has been recorded generating an electric shock of 860 volts.
. . .
Electric fishes are fish that can generate electricity, or are electrogenic, as opposed to fish which are electroreceptive, meaning they can detect electric fields —although some species can be both.
Other examples of electric fish include electric rays and electric catfish.
More:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-11/newly-species-of-electric-eel-amazon-electrophorus-voltai/11491934
Lima's 'Wall of Shame' and the Art of Building Barriers
The structure, a response to a wave of migration in the 1980s, now divides the Peruvian capital’s rich neighborhoods from its poor ones.
MEGAN JANETSKY SEP 7, 2019
LIMA, Peru—They came by night, Raquel Yanac remembers, the throngs of construction workers with cement trucks and police, ready to build the wall meant to keep her out.
Yanac, 38, lives with her children on the edge of the great divide here. Their home lies amid a sea of multicolored plywood-and-metal-sheet shacks that make up the city’s slums. Just a stone’s throw away is Casuarinas, a neighborhood of startling luxury, with bright-white mansions and pools twice the size of her home.
And Casuarinas, Yanac learned that night three decades ago, wanted them gone.
“In one week, they had built up practically the entire wall, and people couldn’t do anything about it,” she told me.
The border would soon become infamous in Lima, and indigent Peruvians dubbed it “The Wall of Shame”: a six-mile-long concrete structure dividing the city’s rich and poor. Today, the nearly 10-foot-high barrier, topped with barbed wire, runs like a jagged scar through four municipalities. It divides the poor areas of San Juan de Miraflores, where Yanac lives, and Villa María del Triunfo from the rich districts of La Molina and Santiago de Surco, to which Casuarinas belongs. The concrete wall has altered the lives and perceptions of those on each side, and stands as a testament to Lima’s economic disparity, which has cut across Peruvian culture for ages.
More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/peru-lima-wall/597085/
Digging into Colombia's history at Bogota's oldest cemetery
by Adriaan Alsema August 19, 2019
Bogota‘s central cemetery is the oldest in Colombia’s capital and was the first to allow people to bury their dead outside a church.
Until the late 18th century, the custom is all Spain’s colonies was to bury loved ones’ remains inside the church. King Carlos III (1759-1788) ordered to change this tradition in 1787, but this order was largely ignored after his death a year later.
The archbishop of Bogota constructed a cemetery, “La Pepita,” in 1793, but this was boycotted by the colonial ruling class, which refused to be buried alongside ordinary citizens.
. . .
Following the so-called “Bogotazo” in 1948, the city’s authorities were forced to add a mass grave to the cemetery to bury the hundreds of people who were killed in the extremely violent uprising that followed the murder of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/digging-into-colombias-history-at-bogotas-oldest-cemetery/
Senate peace chief wants paramilitary warlords to testify before Colombia's war crimes tribunal
Senate peace chief wants paramilitary warlords to testify before Colombia’s war crimes tribunal
by Adriaan Alsema September 9, 2019
The chairman of Colombia’s senate peace commission wants former paramilitary commanders to testify before the country’s war crimes tribunal to clarify their ties to politicians and businessmen.
. . .
Among the paramilitaries’ alleged associates in what has become known as “para-economics” are some of the country’s largest companies like state-run oil company Ecopetrol, beverage company Postobon, airliner Avianca and cement giant Cementos Argos.
These companies are allegedly complicit in the assassination of labor unionists and the mass dispossession of land of the country’s 8 million victims of displacement.
Among the AUC’s alleged associates in “parapolitics” are former President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s ambassador to Washington DC, Francisco Santos and Antioquia governor candidate Anibal Gaviria.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/senate-peace-chief-wants-paramilitary-chiefs-to-testify-before-colombias-war-crimes-tribunal/
Medellin could be Latin America's largest mass grave, Colombia's war crimes tribunal finds out
Source: Colombia Reports
Medellin could be Latin America’s largest mass grave, Colombia’s war crimes tribunal finds out
by Adriaan Alsema September 9, 2019
Recent findings of Colombia’s war crimes tribunal indicate that Medellin has been trying to hide the fact it is Latin America’s largest mass grave and may have been falsifying homicide rates for propaganda purposes.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) last week ordered to inspect two quarries where, according to a local court, more than 300 people are buried.
The city’s authorities reluctantly told the court it had buried at least 900 homicide victims at the municipal cemetery between 2002 and 2012 without efforts to identify the victims.
Because the city’s administration admitted to only have “precarious information” on how many unidentified bodies were really dumped in the municipal cemetery, the court ordered to “conduct interviews with the authorities in charge of the administration of the cemetery or with those in charge of keeping records of the entry, removal or movement of the bodies of buried persons.”
Read more: https://colombiareports.com/medellin-could-be-latin-americas-largest-mass-grave-colombias-war-crimes-tribunal-finds-out/
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