Miners are emerging, one by one, from the Fenix 2, the capsule painted in the national colors of Chile, attached to a cable and wound around a flywheel, and controlled initially by a man named Chipo, who controls a lever that pulls them from more than a mile below the Atacama Desert in Chile.

A man speaks to Chipo on the surface, and to Don Luis, or Don Lucho, in the mine. The man coordinates the rise and fall of the capsule, connected by a cable to the surface.

There were 33 men trapped below.

The flywheel squeaks, and there is a distant banging when the capsule descends. The alarm from a nearby White Toyota goes off. There is a hum and a whine. The video stream is raw and audio engineers shift their audio feed from one mic to another. Steam, or maybe smoke, appears to  rise into the cold night from the amazingly narrow cavity.

A few feet away, a woman waits near a gurney, preens her short, dark hair and then adjusts her white hard hat. She is the wife of Juan Illanes, age 52. He is the third man to rise.

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John Dinges, an American journalist and author of two investigative books on Chile, is leading the initiative to explore Law 20.285, known as the Public Information Access Law or Transparency Law, which is similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States. ArchivosChile is based upon the model set by the National Security Archives, which uses FOIA laws extensively to obtain and archive historical documents produced by the US Government.

Dinges is the father of the author of this blog.

With these documents, he is seeking to find documents indicating whether money was loaned to Pinochet, and if any of this money was returned to the Chilean state. He is requesting documents from Chile’s Central Bank.

“We are trying to force them to give us that information,” said Dinges in a phone interview. “There is supposed to be an accounting for how that money is spent, and that is what we are going after.”

Loaned hundreds of millions in the 80s unclear if Pinochet returned money

On Tuesday, minutes after Obama dodged a question about US culpability for the 1973 coup in Chile, the Chilean press pool asks for a photo opportunity with Obama after his press conference and meeting with President Bachelet. They ask him for a photo, he stammers, seemingly in disbelief.  They then proceed to walk outside, almost forget about their own President Bachelet, the Chilean Obama, according to one of great little video by Fox news White House reporter and blogger Anna Siegfriedt.

The assorted prensurri clamored to be around Obama, and say something, anything, like, for example, “You know she is the Chilean Obama,” said one, who I believe is Constanza Santa Maria, from Canal 13 (immediately left of Obama, with short brown hair.”

The comment by the Chilean reporter set off a wave of Twitter comparisons in self-deprecating, and highly revealing irony, and a blog post by Miguel Paz.

“En Estados Unidos se acostumbra que el Presidente se retrate con los periodistas. En Chile, no tanto. En Estados Unidos los periodistas acostumbran a hacerle preguntas difíciles al Presidente. En Chile, no. Esperemos que esta foto sirva de precedente en ambos aspectos,” said Paz in a Gchat today.

SQP is the Chilean E! The Soup Hospital de Talca is the chilean “Hostel” La Torre Entel is the chilean Statue of Liberty

Comparisons ranged from the historical:

Combate Naval de Iquique is the chilean Pearl Harbor

to the culinary:

Randomfull: Sopaipa is the chilean pretzel.

See in spanish this article in La Nación.

Now he faces prison. He will appeal. Will he serve?

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Two retired Chilean generals have been sentenced to prison for shipping arms to Croatia at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia.

A Chilean court has sentenced Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force Gen. Vicente Rodriguez to three years in prison for illegal arms sales. Letelier also was sentenced to 541 days for falsifying documents.

Hungarian officials discovered 11 tons of rocket launchers and automatic weapons being loaded on trucks headed for Croatia in 1991 in violation of a U.N. arms embargo. They had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka.

The former head of the army’s weapons factory was killed shortly after he was questioned about the case.

The ruling was announced Tuesday.

The mystery of who killed famed Communist singer-songwriter Victor Jara seems to be almost resolved, or at least says the compiled judicial testimonies released in Chilean court today and an elaborate recounting of his last minutes by Jacmel Cuevas, writing for Ciper Chile, an investigative journalism site. For the first time a group of officers surrounding his death has been identified. Also, the details of Jara’s last minutes are detailed as is the story of how his body was found dumped outside a cemetery, spirited away and anonymously buried by loved ones. 

It places into doubt previous testimony blaming the death of Jara on Edward Dimter Bianchi.

On September 17th, after four days of imprisonment and multiple sessions of torture in a basement room in Estadio Chile, with a swollen face and fingers fractured by the butt of a rifle, Jara was shot by a low-ranking officer on a round of Russian roulette, with the barrel of the revolver resting against the temple. Jara’s body fell to the floor on its side, convulsing, said José Alfonso Paredes Márquez, an 18-year-old military conscript on guard duty who witnessed the above events and testified to Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes recently.

Jara’s body was then shot again 43 times by the conscripts there, including by the person who is making this testimony. There were 44 bullet wounds in his body, according to the autopsy.

The ranking officer, Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei sat behind an interrogation desk and observed. This is according to the singular testimony of Paredes Marquez, who began his obligatory military service in five months earlier.

Paredes Marquez is currently 55-years-old, lives in the Central Coast region of Chile, and works building houses.

Haase, in testimony, denied that he was present in the Estadio Chile. Testimony of officers and soldiers, compiled by the judicial case and the investigation by CIPER, contradict Haase and place him in Estadio Chile during the time of Jara’s death. The name of the man who first pulled the trigger is not in the Ciper account.

Yesterday, Paredes Marquez was arrested by the Chilean judge. Last year, César Manríquez Bravo, the commander of the Estadio Chile prisoner complex, was arrested for being the responsible officer at the time.

On April 23, 2007, Haase, who owns a company that makes wooden crates for shipping wine, participated in a charity golf tournament in a team made up of other retired military officials. They are pictured below.

Guillermo Garin, Juan Lucar, Richard Quaas, Nelson Haase (not pictured in order)

In a telephone interview with La Nación newspaper Haase declares that he doesn’t like soccer and has never stepped foot in Estadio Chile (now re-named Estadio Victor Jara.) Haase said he was in an undisclosed location in the south of Chile at the time.

En una conversación telefónica con La Nación, Haase desmiente siquiera haber pisado el Estadio Chile.

-Algunos conscriptos lo mencionan a usted como quien dio la orden de asesinar a Víctor Jara en el Estadio Chile.

-Yo nunca estuve en el Estadio Chile y no conozco a ese caballero (Víctor Jara).

-Pero usted sí fue oficial del Ejército.

- Sí, estuve en el Ejército.

-¿Y estuvo en Tejas Verdes?

-Yo he estado en muchas partes.

-¿Y en el Estadio Chile?

-Yo nunca he estado ahí. No lo conozco. Ni siquiera me gusta el fútbol.

-No me refiero al estadio como recinto deportivo, sino de prisioneros.

-Nunca estuve ahí.

-¿Por qué cree que estos conscriptos lo señalan a usted?

-No tengo idea de lo que me habla.

-¿Dónde estaba usted el 15 de septiembre de 1973?

-En el sur.

-¿En qué parte del sur?

-Eso a usted no le importa.

-Seguramente será citado a declarar

-Mire, no sé por qué estoy hablando esto con usted, pero responderé a quien corresponda si es una llamada oficial.

Yesterday, La Nación asked Paredes Marquez a question in the hallways of the Chilean courts, did Haase give the orders. Paredes Marquez nodded his head.

“Si estando en el pelotón que ultimó a Víctor Jara, Nelson Haase Mazzei era quien daba las órdenes, José Paredes Márquez, albañil y obrero de la construcción, asintió con su cabeza afirmativamente.

Haase continued his military career as a confidant of Manuel Contreras, head of the DINA, and was the commanding officer of the clandestine detention center of the “Cuartel Bilbao,” according to CIPER.

Names of officers and soldiers mentioned in article 

comandante (r) César Manríquez Bravo

Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda

Marcelo Moren Brito

capitán David González Toro

capitán Germán Montero Valenzuela

conscripto José Alfonso Paredes Márquez

Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei

Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger

Arturo Viveros

teniente Pedro Barrientos

conscripto Francisco Quiroz Quiroz

So while my site gets spammed by russians, I figure I have nothing to lose. I leave you with the following.

“Comrades,

We bear tragic news from here in Chile.

During the early morning of May 22, we lost our beloved comrade Mauricio Morales Duarte. According to the bourgeois press, Mauricio was transporting an explosive device in downtown Santiago. The device exploded unexpectedly, and our comrade died in combat.

Long live comrade Mauricio Morales! Mauricio joins the list of fallen combatants under the democratic regime in Chile. He was a dedicated and militant anarchist. We remember Mauricio as a youth combatant like so many before him.”

Fucking idiot, if indeed the statement above is true. A weapon is a weapon, and to wield one, one must have competence and the conviction to use it. Mr. Morales Duarte, lacked the first. 

Regardless, we have recently passed the Dia del Joven Combatiente, a laudable holiday, the Day of the Young Combatant, (3/28) in its essence, challenging an inevitable police state that infringes upon true freedom of individuals. It was a holiday born in dictatorship, of resistance to fascism aka Pinochet/Contreras,DINA/CNI, and the other, poor, imitators down the chain of command.

Los Hermanos Vergara died as a result of police brutality, in a población in Santiago in the early 80s. Their death has been held up as the flame that will never die. A flame of resistance to the Pinochet dictatorship that has since been tasked to light resistance to the modern day forces of fascism, so they say, of Michelle Bachelet y los Carabineros de hoy. The Status Quo de Hoy.

There are others as well, like Rodrigo Rojas (a photographer child of exile from Wilson High School in DC) y Carmen Quintanilla, whose brutal death and injury at the hands of out of control Carabineros, who should never be forgotten. 

Here in the cercanias de New York a movie is being released about the Dia del Joven Combatiente by SubversiveActionFilms a film production house based in Chicago and New York bourne of, “the heart of the neoliberal empire, and others who were born in a land torn apart by the legacy of a military dictatorship. We are the children of political exile and the product of decaying strip malls.”

Today I was in Mahwah, a town in the hills of Northern New Jersey that rises towards the Adirondacks. There are large houses, manicured lawns and BMW dealerships. Someone’s son died yesterday, in a boating accident on a Friday afternoon of a stunningly beautiful Memorial Day weekend. He drowned after the boat he was on collided with a boat twice its size. He was 24.

On Saturday, as his family took a delivery from a catering company, another family mourned in Paterson. 

Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, son of Carlos and Eugenia, was laid to rest in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, NJ. He was a soldier in Iraq and he was killed by an American soldier who shot four others in a fit of psychosis it seems caused by his service.

The fate of this victim seems not have been driven by political circumstance, or anger, or repression of an entire society. 

Bueno, as he was called by his friends in the Army, was generous, kind and determined to excel. Since 1988 his father worked 10-hour-days making wire hangers. They were both born in Peru.

I believe, if you permit me, that he sought, as his father did, an American dream.

Today he was buried in Totowa, NJ in a military ceremony. His two brothers, sister, wife, mother and father appeared exhausted and haggard from two weeks of mourning. The flag was folded and the ceremony terminated.

Dirt, I imagine, fell upon the coffin.

See this list of Chilean defense websites, which the Federation of American  Scientists gained access to and deemed important:
GUIDE TO CHILEAN DEFENSE WEBSITES

Like many other OSC products, the unclassified, 12-page report has not been approved for public release.  But a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Guide to Selected Chilean Defense Websites,” Open Source Center Media Aid, 29 April 2009.

So, Fuel Hedging cuts LAN’s profit. This means that LAN (ex-Piñera, Cueto) was too ambitious (arrogant? ballsy?)  and they lost 21 percent from a year ago. Who knows. See the article below. 

Good thing their game isn’t the natural environment. The Chilean salmon industry behaves like a fish out of water, on a beach, wriggling, thrusting, dying, ohh but for the tide. Could it be? Sorry.

They have recently replaced Rodrigo “Que siente pena pero Why now pregunto?” Infante, their second in charge and person in charge of public relations. Woe be his job, but a failure at the end of his career.  Good job Rodrigo. Who eats Chilean salmon now? Check this google search for “chile salmon”   

To be fair, was it your fault? Just follow Cesar “Crisis, que crisis,” Barros down the rabbit hole. 

Later, see Will “The Content Whore” Chileno

Funnily enough, it takes a video of this death to fire our imaginations and our hearts into unleashing the torrents of opinion, often uninformed and based solely upon these 2.5 minutes. This video came out a month after the death of the guide. No video, no discussion.

The only parallel I can think of is the war in Iraq and the videos of torture and maiming that float around in the web and sold in marketplace. Or maybe the dead American soldiers who just a week previous were allowed, unphotographed, into their country to be buried. Death was sanitized for political purposes. Now a certain reality about the war can begin to wash over the American public inured only to a sanitized representation of the consequences of war.

It seems in other countries, like in the Middle East, torn by violence, death is witnessed by us all and not just the precious few, like here in the United States. I would argue this is better, like this video is better.

There is something important in viewing reality and thinking of consequences of our actions on this earth, like in the video of Campagnini, a guide who made a decision of sacrifice for his clients and suffered death. But also in looking at the response by rescuers and understanding their perspectives in a challenging situation, even when distorted in a fragment of time.

I picked up this comment by Facundo Garcia, a Captain and member of the board of GOER, Grupo de Operaciones Especiales en Rescate, from the Backpacker Magazine blog.

It is an apparent translation of the incident report of the Campagnini rescue as well as a list of comments on the rescure provided by Garcia. Worth reading in it’s entirety.

For a delirious rendering of what it’s like to barely climb Aconcagua while dehydrated and on an empty stomach, and then be present when someone has died, go to Purebound.com

-INCIDENT REPORT-
Mt. Aconcagua incident

TYPE OF MISION: Search & Rescue / Search & Recovery.
LOCATION: Mt. Aconcagua / Mendoza Province / Republic of Argentina.
ROUTE: Approach from Normal route (North Face) and from the main peak, down to the Polish Glacier route (South-West Face)
ALTITUD OF OPERATION: 6500mts. (21.325ft.)
RESPONDERS: UPRAM (Mendoza Police Mountain Rescue Team) / Civilian climbers on scene (Volunteers).
VICTIMS INVOLVED: 6
CASUALTIES: 2

-1-

SUMARY:
Wednesday, January 14th. 2009. After the conquer of the highest mountain in the American continent, the Mt. Aconcagua, an Italian climbing team leaded by an Argentinean mountain guide (UIAAGM-IMFGA) named Federico Campanini (31), were trapped into a big storm right on the top of the mountain at 22,841ft. at 4:30pm.

With below cero temperatures -24°C (-14°F aprox.) and the sun coming down, the team had to descent as soon as possible to camp Berlin at 19.127ft. During the way down and with a snow tempest on their backs, the guide missed the track of the Normal Route, and leaded the team to the Polish Glacier route. During this attempt to descend in a wrong and more difficult route, an Italian member of the team named Elena Selin (38) fell down a slope angle and rolled down the mountain aprox. 984ft. dyeing later by diverse wounds that immobilized her, entering in shock and later dyeing by hypothermia. (Coroner´s report)

Due the situation, the rescue team received the emergency call out from the mountain guide in distress but due the terrible storm happening, the rescue command advised to deploy the rescue team as soon the storm calm down. Meanwhile, a 14 men team was moved from Camp 1 to Camp 2 to stay ready to attack the peak when there was a chance.

The Italian team survived the night by staying together to keep the warmth, eating a few raisins, chocolates and mixing urine with ice to drink. The guide Campanini, in a heroic act, gave his gloves, jacket and half of his meal to the Italians. This accelerated the hypothermia process to his body.

Next day (12 hours later) the storm continued and the rescuers decided to move up at no cost arriving to the scene after climb 4921ft. aprox. from camp 2 (Condor´s Nest) in the middle of the storm to the top of the mountain to then turn down to the Polish route in the search of the victims.

During this time, a rescue helicopter operated by Horacio Frechi fled over the top of the mountain near the Polish Route trying to locate the victims, finding one climber alive who was making signs of their location. This helicopter fell in free fall almost 980ft. due the storm and lack of visibility and hopefully the pilot controlled the machine and returned safe to Camp 1 after report the location of the victims.

After being 24 hours in the mountain, the victims were located by the rescue team who encountered and evacuated the Italian climbers Matteo Refrigeratto, Mirko Afasio and Marina Atanasio who were all in very bad physical condition such as mountain sickness and severe hypothermia. The victims could climb up to the top again to then were packed into 2 stretchers and slide down the normal route to Camp1 when they were evacuated to an hospital in Mendoza DC by helicopter.

The rescue team made a subhuman effort by staying almost 12 hours at 21.325ft. at -22°F to perform this mission saving the life of the 3 Italian climbers and leaving behind the body of the dead climber Elena Selin who wasn’t located until 12 days after by a private rescue team formed by local mountain guides who were hired by the Selin family.

Meanwhile, the life of the mountain guide who was suffering deep brain edema and hypothermia was located and the rest of the rescue team (6 men) remained with him trying to take him out for around 4/5 hours. They made all possible to remain with Campanini and evacuate him, but the time was running and there was no more time and was too late to keep the team at that height while 2 members of the rescue team were experimenting health problems as well.

The lives of the rescuers were in clear danger taking in account that they spent almost 24hs. at -22°F and they climbed in 2 days and a half to the top and stayed there. A thing that most climbers do in 8 days.

-2-

Tired, exhausted and with no supplies, the rescue team cannot wait for backups cos´ there wasn´t. They were by their own and the tried to move up 1000 ft. the body of Campanini alive to reach the top again and try to descent him from the normal route were a team of civilian climbers were climbing up to help at the same time.

Without supplies to stay another night, a proper stretcher and oxygen bottles, they were in a clear danger and asking for permission to the rescue command first, they decided to leave Campanini where they were at 884ft. down the peak in order to evacuate their selves. Campanini was alive but hardly could make it out with his brain edema and sever hypothermia case.

FACTS:
1- Mt. Aconcagua has insufficient resources to perform a SAR mission successfully in some situations like this. The rescue teams that operate above 17.000ft. precise to have in both Camp1 and Camp2 supplies stored in deposits in order to attack the peak fast and light and re-supply in this high altitude missions.

2-All rescue teams in Mt. Aconcagua are fiscally fit, trained and are very experienced, but no one has an MD or EMT member in the team. Team members has strong PHTLS training, but a lack of elements such as collapsible/lightweight SKED/Sled stretcher (SKEDCO type) and lightweight oxygen tubes to carry at that heights.

3-The rescue teams did not carried basic personal survival equipment, snow shovels, sleeping bags, oxygen bottles, stoves, etc. in order to go lite and reach the victims ASAP.

4- Poor evaluation of the rescue mission. Good rescue strategy but bad evaluation of the logistic capabilities.

CONCLUSIONS:
Typically found in many 3rd. world countries. Financial problems are also found today in the Argentinean rescue teams. Even with the lack of resources named before, the rescue teams at Mt. Aconcagua evacuated successfully a rate of 3 persons a day and in this season evacuated 240 climbers from the 3.844 climbers that were this season in the mountain. From 1926 to 2009, 126 climbers died trying to reach the top of Mt. Aconcagua, this season were actually 4 casualties in total.

The controversy around the video recorded in the last minutes of guide Campanini doesn’t reflect the real effort that those rescuers made for almost 24hs. Actually, after that heroic mission, 2 rescue members suffered lung edema and severe hypothermia en their hands.

A common question around the rescue community is why they pulled up the body of Campanini instead of made a rope-stretcher or utilize another lifting technique. For those who don´t understand, I must say that in those conditions, lift an stretcher by hand is almost impossible if you don´t have al least a 12 men team to lift in turns half of the team a couple of meters and then the rest of the team a couple of meters more and doing this to reach the top.

Due the slope angle and rocks, make a backpack stretcher to sled the body were impossible. The rescuers stayed 3 hours to lift with a rope the body of Campanini only 329ft. That can provide and overlook of the difficult terrain and body condition of the rescuers.

The right technique would be to pack the victim in an SKED stretcher, climb up 180ft. per lapse, and mount a ¨Z¨ rig or another hauling system to accelerate the lifting process to reach the top.
Today, rescue teams in South America are cutting in half climber plastic containers (those big blue colored ones used in expeds.) to use them to improvise and sled. But at those heights, carry that on the outside of the backpack or even sliding it over the ice will take down any climber/rescuer at high winds. Besides, take your gloves out to build some system like this with -29°F will chill and freeze your hands for sure.
If the team has a lack of technical rescue stretchers at least they would have to carry a bottle of oxygen, sleeping bags and snow shovel in order to extend the life of Campanini till the backups arrived.

Is absolutely understandable that at those heights, all rescue personnel needs to go light, but this is an example on how the basic personal survival equipment must be carried ALWAYS.
At that height, ask to the victim to walk by their own is impossible. The cold freeze your body, num your legs and the lack of oxygen make you dizzy and you lost the thinking capabilities.
In the video, you will note that the rescuers insult verbally Campanini. This is cos´ commonly at that altitude where there´s a lack of oxygen and you’re mentally incapacitated; your brain is hard to think and focused in a specific action. In general persons with acute mountain sickness tend to get angry sometimes, pull down the jacket´s hood and stay quiet remaining in on a place. The insults tried to break the apathy and sometimes rescuers need to shake up the victim’s body to make him release adrenaline and take him out of there.

In conclusion, the rescue team made the best they could and more. Their lack of recourses are not their fault, are the fault of those in the government who supposed to equip the law enforcement teams like this case.
This rescue team saved the life of the 3 other members of the Italian team. I don´t think their failed on the mission at all. They did all what they have on their hands to save Campanini also. Those rescuers took a hard decision that no rescuer wants to take, but also, they were ¨walking on thin ice¨ for hours. No rescue team needs to loose their men to save others life for an unnecessary reason. Is cold, tough to say, but here was the life of Campanini or the life of other 6 rescuers in play. The team leader took the right decision for sure.

For those who read this, sorry for my English. I tried to do my best to inform you about this controversy and gave you an example of a situation like this.

Inst. Facundo Garcia
Captain/Directive Committee
GOER – Argentina