Canada's official attitude towards the coup might be politely called 'ambivalent.' Some Canadian banks and mining interests openly supported the military take-over as a good investment opportunity. Our ambassador to Chile's rather sympathetic attitude toward the generals led to a rapid recognition of the military junta.
When embassy officials Mark Dolgin and David Adam allowed a handful of asylum-seekers to take refuge at our Santiago embassy, Foreign Affairs tried to shut the door on any more. The ambassador's classified cables, which called asylum-seekers 'riff-raff' and the military killings 'abhorrent but understandable,' were leaked by Bob Thomson, a federal CIDA employee in Ottawa.
Those leaks cost Thomson his job but helped build a public clamour in favour of offering refuge to those who needed it. At the time, Canada's lack of a formal refugee policy left these life-and-death decisions to ministerial discretion. Questions were raised in Parliament, church groups and unions called for more asylum, the media picked up the story, and solidarity activists occupied federal offices in four cities across the country: this growing groundswell in the fall of 1973 eventually led to 'Special Movement Chile' opening the doors for thousands of Chilean refugees fleeing Pinochet's terror to find safety in Canada.
That historic example of citizen action underscores the importance conscientious dissent. Whether high-profile whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden or rank-and-file war resisters who refuse to participate in war crimes, conscientious dissenters deserve honour and protection, rather than vilification and prosecution. Though their individual circumstances may be less dramatic, the same lesson applies to many conscientious scientists and researchers whose work is threatened or suppressed by the Harper government's ideological preference for evidence-free policy-making.
Many victims of military repression never reach asylum of course, but those who remember the tortured, murdered and 'disappeared' can take some comfort in the knowledge that there is no statute of limitations for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The renowned Chilean folk-singer Victor Jara was among those tortured and killed in the early days of the coup, and this year several military officers deemed responsible for his death are finally coming to trial. Some of the accused trained at the infamous School of the Americas (aka School of Assassins: they put Pinochet’s ceremonial sword on display) at Fort Benning Georgia, where human rights vigils continue to call for closure every year.
Whatever the outcome of these belated trials, let’s recall that General Pinochet was fond of lecturing about the health benefits of 'just forgetting.' So historical memory really matters: remembering can be an act of resistance in itself. Not only those officially sanctioned memorials, which prescribe just which atrocities 'We must never forget,' but also (especially!) independent grassroots initiatives that document and remind us of crimes our governments would prefer us to forget. Such is the case of Zochrot ('remembering' in Hebrew), which aims to 'commemorate, witness, acknowledge, and repair' the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in the face of widespread (and increasingly state-enforced) nakba denial in Israel and around the world.
Jara's poetic legacy lives on in song, of course. Better known for her satirical songs on CBC, topical folksinger Nancy White recorded a (now hard-to-find but recently recovered) medley of his songs called Victor Jara Presente, where she sings in part: 'His struggle is the struggle of all who would live free. We mustn't let a Victor Jara die again.'
But we do keep letting it happen, alas. Canada's governments have either participated in or tacitly supported coups against elected governments in Haiti and Honduras (just to name two recent examples). And with the Conservatives' increasing political interference in our asylum adjudication system, it is far from clear whether those 1970s Chilean refugees would even be allowed into Canada today under current rules. Refugees who do make it into Canada now also face a much harder time settling here, with mean-spirited federal cuts to health and other services -- another area where we see active resistance from conscientious professionals.
Let's also remember the real motivation for many coups. Henry Kissinger infamously explained why the U.S. set about to destabilize and then overthrow Allende's democratically elected government: "The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." Democracy doesn't count for much when voters 'irresponsibly' elect a government Washington doesn't like.
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial is even clearer about who they support and why: about a more recent military coup, they wrote on July 4 that Egyptians would be "lucky" if their new ruling generals turn out like Chile's Pinochet, who "hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy." Apart from the slur on midwifery, Pinochet's rule was a 'transition to democracy' like bacon is a transition to vegetarianism. His regime savagely opposed the return to democracy in Chile, relinquishing power only when forced to by national and international pressure, and after decreeing immunity for himself and his henchmen -- all the while continuing to receive support from hypocritical U.S. politicians who now lecture us about the immorality of talking with dictators.
But don't let the WSJ’s chilling historical revisionism mask the cynicism of their underlying message: international finance approves of dictators who bring in 'free-market reformers.' The 1973 coup gave free reign to the Chicago-school free market fundamentalists to create havoc in the Chilean social fabric, and similar failed policies are now being pushed down our throats under the guise of 'austerity.' Those who revere the 'invisible hand of the market' ultimately also rely on its all-too-visible fist.
The poignant title of one of Jara's most famous songs and albums (El derecho de vivir en paz, 1971) is still relevant today as it sums up the deepest wishes of so many people. A film about his life and an exhibit* of rare historic materials from the Chilean resistance against the coup both bear the name of the same song, inviting us to remember and reflect on those ideals for today and tomorrow: 'The right to live in peace.'
Original Article
Source: rabble.ca
Author: David Heap
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