Pinochet

(Because Dennis is Chilean, after all).

I should mention that Augusto Pinochet had a heart attack the other day but that he is fine. He is of course, a former Chilean dictator.

It's actually interesting- when I look at forums in English, regarding Pinochet (like on netscape.com), he is called "the Hitler of South America" and he is "going straight to hell".

But in Spanish-speaking Chilean forums (mainly located in Chile, if it matters), I am reading:

"Conversaciones que escucho:

- Una señora pidiendo morirse con Pinochet. (a woman asking to die with Pinochet)

- De que forma debería ser el funeral y que honores deberían rendirse (How should the funeral be conducted and with what honors?- he was a general after all).

- "Es de mal gusto referirse a los protocolos fúnebres sin que haya muerto" Basically saying we shouldn't talk about the funeral if he isn't even dead yet.

- "Esto es una exageración provocada para evitar responder a la justicia" (This is an exaggeration provoked to avoid justice) (I think)

- "Pinochet Inmortal"

- "Yo quiero mucho a mi general" (I love my general)

- "Por fin se acabarán los miedos" (Finally, the fear has ended)

- "Pinochet ha muerto, pero no quieren decirlo" (Pinochet has already died but they don't want to tell us) (conspiracy? like what they are saying with Castro?)

- "La televisión ya tiene los documentales preparados desde hace tiempo" (The media has had this news prepared for a long time).

Granted, my translations aren't perfect. But you get the idea. There is clearly a different tone and different points of view. It's fascinating, to see on the news people holding candlelight vigils in Santiago for the same man that many others see as comparable to Hitler. (But I'm quite sure that Hitler had his own fans). Dennis is annoyed, I guess, because a man who committed so many crimes against human rights is getting such "generous" treatment. It's like a great national wound that I'm not familiar with in my comfortable US bubble.

I searched "pinochet" in flickr and found so many different photos- photos of Pinochet, of protestors and of people supporting Pinochet, of artwork, of people holding up photos of missing loved ones (During Pinochet's dictatorship, a lot of people disappeared into thin air.) I found photos of concentration camps and walls with bullet holes. It is sad. He is 80 years old, under house arrest for stealing money from Chile (among other things), and he is going to die of old age. It's too complicated to post the entire tragic story but This Guy has some really amazing photos of the Chilean history, from the point of view of families that suffered under the government before the dictatorship of Pinochet, and then after when Pinochet and his government ruled.

It must have been difficult for Dennis, as a kid. He has told me stories, of night curfews and government censorship, etc. (And of things like waiting in long lines for butter, pre-Pinochet, when the government was Socialist).

(a photo in the 70's of Dennis going to his first day of kindergarten)