Chile Opens Museo de la Memoria Y Los Derechos Humanos
Not much news here in the U.S. of Santiago, Chile’s just opened Museo de La Memoria Y Los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights) for all that the wretched American officials of the time aided and abetted the kidnappings, tortures and murders of so many Chileans. I wonder if there is a special room in the museum to acquaint the curious about Kissinger, Nixon and their nameless CIA henchmen?
At any rate, the museum has been opened, to large throngs in downtown Santiago.
The museum contains wrenching testimonies, documents, letters, personal objects and art by prisoners, as well as the photos of the 1,197 people who disappeared during the crackdown by security forces on Pinochet’s opponents. Among the exhibits is a small metal bed that victims were tied to before receiving electrical shocks.
A commission established that 3,197 people died during the dictatorship, including those listed as missing. Another commission found that 30,000 people were imprisoned and/or tortured.
As of last Aug. 31, 769 members of the armed forces and some civilians had been charged in the killings and abuses, of whom 276 have been sentenced. Pinochet died in December 2006.
Of course, if Bill Stott, and the polls he cites, are right some 25% of Chileans want to remember Pinochet and the years of his dictatorship, in a positive light — like those who will ooh and aah at the sparkle of an electrical arc, neverminding the effect on the bodies it is aimed at.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comment Guidlines: This space is for commenting on the post above, the ideas, the context,the author. Your ideas, strong but civil, are appreciated. Long cuts and pastes from elsewhere are not. This is NOT the place to create your own private BLOG. Links to other articles are fine, if appropriate. Line and paragraph breaks are automatic; e-mail address are never displayed.
HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
January 17th, 2010 @ 2:34 pm
the architects: Carlos Dias, Lucas Fehr, Mario Figueroa e Roberto Ibieta
February 14th, 2010 @ 6:12 pm
To answer your question bout CIA being involved in the Coup d’etat or the school of the americans participation in the persecution of left-winged political activists. And to give my opinion about the museum i want to say that I visited this museum today … and there’s nothing in there about the people involved in ploting the Coup not in Chile nor abroad. No mention of Agustin Edwards going to the US in order to ask help from the White House and the CIA. I grew up hearing stories about the violation of the human rights in this country and testimonies from people that survived that hell. In spite of this I was moved by some things shown in the museum. As you’ve posted here it exhibits testimonies, videos, art craft made by prisioners, torture machines such as the one made to electrocute people known as the parrilla (the grill), documents and posters and flyers made in other countries to support the people that was suffering under the dictatorship. To me unfortunately it was not enough but at the same time how can that level of horror can be (re)presented, depicted?
February 25th, 2010 @ 7:00 am
Does anybody know the URL of the Museo de La Memoria Y Los Derechos Humanos of an email address? Thanks
February 26th, 2010 @ 7:27 am
Here it is: http://www dot museodelamemoria.cl/ in Spanish, desde luego…