Novels you can read about chilean history and politics: Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman

Years after she was blindfolded and tortured by Pinochet's police force, Chilean woman Paulina marries Gerardo and through him meets, Roberto, whose voice she is certain was that of the man who tortured her years before.

Editorial Review: "This powerful political drama and psychological thriller by the noted Chilean writer premiered in London last summer, where it won the Time Out Award for Best Play. In March it opened in the United States on Broadway, with direction by Mike Nichols and starring Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gene Hackman. The play focuses on a woman who finds herself in the position to exact revenge upon a man whom she believes to have been her torturer 15 years earlier. In telling this story, the author also addresses the dilemmas which touch all our lives: innocence and evil, truth and lies, forgiveness, and revenge. This is a worthwhile addition to modern drama collections."- Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. LouisCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See the book in Amazon.com

See the movie directed by Roman Polanski on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

An Interview with Salvador Allende

In this historic interview with Salvador Allende, Chile's new president articulates his basic beliefs and lays out the program he intended to persue as leader of the Popular Unity government. The conversation shows with rare candor Allende´s deep-seated belief in the Chilean Constitution and in the ability of his coalition to maintain control for the elected six-year period. He discusses the legal road to socialism, the anticipated problems with the Nixon Administration and the CIA, and how he planned to handle the antagonism of the Chilean bourgeoisie. He also talks about his early days as doctor, recounting how his medical career and contact with the poor led to his conversion to socialism.

Watch the video here (in spanish with subtitles in english)

The 1988 referendum: Yes or No

As I've told you in the lecture, Pinochet's new constitution included a referendum in 1998 to define the continuity of his administration. Pinochet was convinced that he was going to win, so he prepared the referendum (plebiscito in spanish) defining himself as the candidate.

In those years Pinochet's advisers commited a terrible mistake: the government gave to the to options Yes and No, fifteen minutes on TV every day at 11 pm for free for political campaign. The Coallition of Parties for Democracy saw immediately the opportunity that 15 minutes on TV meant, and they put all their efforts to send a message positive, optimistic, talking about change, hope, and future. In fact the campaign slogan was "Chile: Joy is coming".

Pinochet's advisers didn't have much interest in this fifteen minutes. Who's going to watch and resist fifteen minutes of political campaign? they asked. But the truth is that everyone watched it, and after that, citizens matured their ideas and opinions, and then, on october 5Th of 1998, they decided: No option obtained a 56% of the votes. Yes option obtained a 44% of the votes.

I leave you two videos for you to watch: the No campaign and the Yes campaign. You'll notice the differences! After a few weeks, Pinochet's advisers tried to change their campaign, but didn't work either. Here we have the results.

Chilean Human Rights Program

After the democracy was restored, former president Patricio Aylwin organized a comission -the Rettig Comission- to investigate all the human rights violations commited in Pinochet's Dictatorship.

Here we have the link to the Chilean Human Rights Program where you can find all the reports and documents about the victims, that were in total 3.195. 1.183 of them are missing detainees.

Augusto Pinochet: 1915-2006

One year after his death, the right wing chilean newspaper El Mercurio published an interactive special about Pinochet, with multiple information about his life and the place that he has in chilean history (in spanish). In english you can visit our link section and then go to the Times Topic about Pinochet in The New York Times.

What chileans think about President Bachelet?

Few days ago, ADIMARK (an important researcher in public opinion here in Chile as Gallup in USA) published the results of the last poll about President Bachelet Job Approval. Here we have the results (in spanish):

Evaluacion Gobierno Febrero09

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Politics & Governmen Presentations & Slid 2008 Gobierno

11' 09'' 01

11'9''01 September 11 (2002, 135 min), is an international film composed of 11 contributions from different filmmakers, each from a different country. Each gave their own vision of the events in New York City on September 11, 2001, in a short film of 11 minutes, 9 seconds, and one frame. The original concept and production of the film were by French producer Alain Brigand. The film received the "Special Prize" at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

From this film, here we have the video of the contribution of the british director Ken Loach, the segment "United Kingdom".

Anonymous Image

The arrival of the president Salvador Allende, with helmet and rifle, to one of the patios of the presidential palace on the morning of september 11, 1973 show us the decision to defend the mandate of the people. Only one photographer was there, but nobody remember him.

Anonymous Image it is not only the story of the only one picture that won the World Press Photo prize in anonymous status, but that became, involuntarily, in the excuse to try to reveal a unknown piece of the complex puzzle of the recent history of Chile.

About this blog

Dear travelers,

My name is Loreto Navarrete, but my friends from USA call me Lory. I'm a social anthropologist and since this summer I'm doing a lecture called "Chile: Allende and Pinochet. Forty years of controversial history" for all the passengers that are traveling with Grand Circle Travel to Chile.

The idea is that you can learn and discovery more about Chile, and its exciting history. As you all know, history -and specially politics- can be controversial, and we'll always find persons with different points of view. The invitation here is to learn, share opinions, and discuss about our past and current politics. All ideas and comments are welcome, because the wonder of learning is that we all can learn from each other!

All the best,
Loreto Navarrete (Lory)