Dir. Miguel Littin (2009)
After the 1973 coup that deposed Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile, the former members of his cabinet are imprisoned on Dawson Island, the world's southernmost concentration camp. Veteran filmmaker Miguel Littin follows the ordeal of these men who are determined to survive and provide history with their testimony.
Dawson Island 10 on IMDB
Showing posts with label september 11th 1973. Show all posts
Showing posts with label september 11th 1973. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Movies you can watch: Machuca
Dir. Andrés Wood (2004)
In 1973, in Santiago of Chile of the first socialist president democratically elected in a Latin-American country, President Salvador Allende, the principal of the Saint Patrick School, Father McEnroe makes a trial of integration between students of the upper and lower classes. The bourgeois boy Gonzalo Infante and the boy from the slum Pedro Machuca become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets leads Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973, changing definitely their lives, their relationship and their country.
Machuca in The Internet Movie Database
Labels:
military coup,
movies,
september 11th 1973
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Chile Church seeks pardons, including rights cases
SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile's Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday urged President Sebastian Pinera to grant a sweeping pardon to aged and long-serving inmates — and the fact it would aid military officers who committed crimes against humanity has angered relatives of their victims.
Families of people who were slain or who vanished during Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship protested outside La Moneda palace as Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz and Monsignor Alejandro Goic, president of the Episcopal Conference, met with the president.
"Our proposal is not meant to open up wounds of the past, nor to make them heal by decree," Goic said of the plan, which is designed to mark Chile's 200-year independence celebrations Sept. 18 with a display of clemency.
But the wounds of the past remain bitter for many Chileans.
According to official statistics, 3,065 opponents of Pinochet's right-wing regime were killed and 1,200 more disappeared. Some 600 military personnel have been accused of crimes against humanity but no more than 150 are now in prison.
Mireya Garcia, vice president of the Group of Relatives of the Detainees and Disappeared, said those who commit crimes should serve their sentences. "Justice doesn't have to do with clemency but with what is fair," she told The Associated Press.
The church's proposed amnesty would apply to prisoners who are sick or older than 70 or those who have served half their sentence. Garcia's group says about 35 military personnel jailed for dictatorship-era "dirty war" crimes apparently would be eligible, though officials have not given an exact count.
The main opposition to the pardons for former military officials comes from left-center sectors who have a majority in the Congress, but some law-and-order members of Pinera's conservative bloc are also uneasy at the idea of seeming to go easy on convicts.
Pinera himself has sought to distance his brand of conservative politics from the far-right Pinochet dictatorship
Gen. Humberto Julio, president of an organization of retired military officials, praised the church proposal, saying it would help national reconciliation.
"It's incorrect to talk about impunity when the intention is to apply a sentence according to the age and health condition of prisoners," he said.
Families of people who were slain or who vanished during Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship protested outside La Moneda palace as Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz and Monsignor Alejandro Goic, president of the Episcopal Conference, met with the president.
"Our proposal is not meant to open up wounds of the past, nor to make them heal by decree," Goic said of the plan, which is designed to mark Chile's 200-year independence celebrations Sept. 18 with a display of clemency.
But the wounds of the past remain bitter for many Chileans.
According to official statistics, 3,065 opponents of Pinochet's right-wing regime were killed and 1,200 more disappeared. Some 600 military personnel have been accused of crimes against humanity but no more than 150 are now in prison.
Mireya Garcia, vice president of the Group of Relatives of the Detainees and Disappeared, said those who commit crimes should serve their sentences. "Justice doesn't have to do with clemency but with what is fair," she told The Associated Press.
The church's proposed amnesty would apply to prisoners who are sick or older than 70 or those who have served half their sentence. Garcia's group says about 35 military personnel jailed for dictatorship-era "dirty war" crimes apparently would be eligible, though officials have not given an exact count.
The main opposition to the pardons for former military officials comes from left-center sectors who have a majority in the Congress, but some law-and-order members of Pinera's conservative bloc are also uneasy at the idea of seeming to go easy on convicts.
Pinera himself has sought to distance his brand of conservative politics from the far-right Pinochet dictatorship
Gen. Humberto Julio, president of an organization of retired military officials, praised the church proposal, saying it would help national reconciliation.
"It's incorrect to talk about impunity when the intention is to apply a sentence according to the age and health condition of prisoners," he said.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
1973 Revolutions Per Minute
1973 revoluciones por minuto is a 2008 chilean movie directed by Fernando Valenzuela.
In New York, an actor in an empty theater, revives the last hours of President Allende, in September 11, 1973. Here, all alone, with the certainty that he is fighting his last battle, he remembers his childhood, his beloved father, his family, the women he loved, and confronts without hesitation his ultimate fate.
In New York, an actor in an empty theater, revives the last hours of President Allende, in September 11, 1973. Here, all alone, with the certainty that he is fighting his last battle, he remembers his childhood, his beloved father, his family, the women he loved, and confronts without hesitation his ultimate fate.
Labels:
allende,
military coup,
september 11th 1973
The Last Speech of President Salvador Allende
In the middle of the attack to the Presidential Palace, on September 11th of 1973, President Allende spoke for the last time to the citizens. Here you can listen to the speech and read it, in english.
My friends,
Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes.
My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they 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 [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 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.
Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges.
I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals who continued working against the sedition that was supported by professional associations, classist associations that also defended the advantages of capitalist society. I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They were committed. History will judge them.
Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.
The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.
Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.
My friends,
Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes.
My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they 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 [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 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.
Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges.
I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals who continued working against the sedition that was supported by professional associations, classist associations that also defended the advantages of capitalist society. I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They were committed. History will judge them.
Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.
The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.
Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.
Labels:
allende,
military coup,
september 11th 1973
Saturday, March 7, 2009
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)
Friday, March 6, 2009
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".
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.
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.
Labels:
allende,
documentaries,
military coup,
photographs,
september 11th 1973,
videos
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