Saturday, March 16, 2013

Jimmy McAleer: The Other 9/11 in Chile

Translation as a Human Rights Tool: Stories from the other 9/11. Dr. Oscar Sarmiento and students. Kellas 105, Thursday 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

The other 9/11: Chile 1973 and Beyond by Jimmy McAleer

Imagine that your country is caught up in battle, but the battle is between the army generals and the president of that same country. Then your customary way of life was turned upside down by a brutal military coup. A coup is an “unexpected takeover in government usually in a violent manner by a small group” (Merriam-Webster). Think about how your life would change if your society were to go from a democratically elected government to vicious military dictatorship. A dictatorship is “a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in one person or a small clique” (Merriam-Webster). Well, this imagined nightmare became a reality for the citizens of Chile on September 11th in 1973 as the leader of the military coup, Augusto Pinochet, took over the country of Chile with brute force from the democratically-elected president Salvador Allende.

There will be a presentation given by Spanish professor Oscar D. Sarmiento and his students about the takeover in Chile on September 11th 1973 by the military coup. This is one of the most monumental takeovers in history. After Pinochet and his military coup were defeated, they were responsible for at least 3,200 people that disappeared or were killed during his regime (Gareau). The Chilean people have had much sorrow and distress with their 9/11 and the hardships that it entailed. In 2001, we experienced our own hardship as the World Trade Center got struck down and killed many innocent people. Both the United States and Chile have had tragic September 11ths, and each has their own stories (Sarmiento).

Since the takeover has had such an everlasting impact, many people are curious to find out exactly why Pinochet preformed such a bold assault on the President. That’s why Time magazine went out and interviewed Augusto Pinochet and asked the very question “Why did the coup take place?” and this was his answer:
We did this because the President had exceeded the constitutional limits of his office. He had made fools out of the judiciary and the legislative branch. On the one hand he told us [the military] that he did not want a civil war. Yet day after day our intelligence service reported the presence of arms even in his own house. While he said to us that he was the victim of civil war, we had documentation that he was preparing for one. (Time)

Pinochet clearly states here in his response that he felt threatened by President Allende. Pinochet felt that there was going to be a conflict either way, so he might as well strike first rather than getting burned first. It seemed like a logical technique from Pinochet’s standpoint.

The government of Chile was also at a standstill under Allende, which only encouraged Pinochet’s military take over. Under the democratic rule of Salvador Allende, there were both political and economic instabilities. To start off, Allende only beat out his opponents (Jorge Alessandri and Radomiro Tomic) in the election by a very small margin, which instantly concerned the citizens because he didn’t have the majority of votes or anything even close to it. Allende decided to introduce many socialist ideas to the country, which caused major divides between the church and the country. This put Pinochet in a great position politically to make his move to take over. When Allende took over, the economy wasn’t doing any better than the already crumbling policies. “Chile was in the middle of an economic crisis, unemployment was increasing and national production levels were falling.” So Allende tried to fix this, but instead his efforts only resulted in extremely high inflation levels. Then strikes broke out amongst doctors, lawyers, miners, truckers and many others; the strikes were carried out both in favor of the government and in protest against it. This presented the opportunity for Pinochet to make his move as some of the people were unsatisfied (Political Pathologies).

Pinochet’s intention was to do a better job stabilizing the country; however that surely changed when he took over with military force and began his reign of terror. Pinochet struck fear in the eyes of all the innocent citizens of Chile. Within the first 3 months of the coup’s takeover, there were killings and disappearances of people reaching the thousands (Gareau).
“The National Stadium was being used to hold 5,000 prisoners, and as late as 1975, the CIA was still reporting that up to 3,811 prisoners were still being held in the Stadium. Between the day of the military coup and November 1973, as many as 40,000 political prisoners were detained in the Stadium. 1,850 of them were killed; another 1,300 are missing since then.” (Gareau)
These numbers are definitely overwhelming to say the least and are completely unprecedented. These actions caused many citizens to flee the country to escape Pinochet’s wrath. Pinochet was not only extremely intimidating, but was also unfair and took away people’s rights. Once in power, he decided to get rid of elections, political parties, free speech, Congress, unions, and civil liberties (Political Pathologies).

One may ask, can we truly relate to those impacted in Chile? Yes, we did have several thousand innocent deaths but we were not under a brutal military coup for 13 years. In Chile, it was more like a civil war, where the only real enemy was the country itself. People in Chile had to live in fear for those 13 years where the minute one tried to fight back, they would be taken away and tortured. Most of these citizens that were tortured were hidden and never got to see their families again. So was Chile’s tragedy on 9/11/73 the same as ours on 9/11/01?

Are we a wounded country trying to heal ourselves with democracy that today we take for granted? It should be extremely interesting to hear the views and points of the students in Dr. Sarimiento Spanish class during this presentation. They have translated into English fictional stories from Chile that mention the devastating events that occurred. Having heard all the different viewpoints from the different students and stories they share, one will be able to make their own unique connection regarding the tragic events that happened on 9/11/73. This is difficult, especially because there were thousands of records from 1979 all the way through to the end of the dictatorship that are completely classified (Kornbluh). This is why the fictional stories have an importance for remembering, since so many records are unobtainable. Fictional stories about the coup and dictatorship help people remember incidences when there aren’t enough facts available. Translation of these stories helps people give more attention to these past abuses as well. Today, we can make connections with Chileans by listening to stories that were translated from Spanish to English. These stories are often interesting and insightful to the reader. Each story has its own different perspective, and, after listening to several of them, we could then form our own personal connection. These connections are special and something that you will remember for the rest of your life. Being informed of these translated stories helps us learn about and become aware of past abuses. Translating these stories also helps us to prevent future abuses as well. However, something that is worth thinking about is the title of the presentation which is Translation as a human rights tool. Perhaps the speakers will show us how translation acted as such a vital tool in their situation.

The truth of the matter is this presentation is going to be really intriguing and unpredictable. Our students here at Potsdam are doing something meaningful by translating stories about Chile’s experience and they deserve your attention. So attend this spectacular presentation, witness this history in a unique way and support your fellow Potsdam students.

Works cited

Gareau "Chile under Pinochet.". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Feb. 2013. Web.

Kornbluh, Peter. "Chile Declassified." Nation 269.5 (1999): 21-24. Academic Search Complete. Web.Feb. 2013.

Merriam-Webster. "Coup D'étatAbout Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun, Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed on One Page.", n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2013.

Merriam-Webster. "Dictatorship About Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun, Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed on One Page. “, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013.

Political Pathologies. "Table of Contents." 2013.

Sarmiento, Oscar. “Proposal for Making the Future”. In Personal Communications. 15 Feb. 2013

Time "General Pinochet: Bloody Democracy." 102.14 (1973): 44. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

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