Seen through our lens sitting comfortably in NZ, Australia, Japan or similar it's very black and white. The General was one evil dude. But then we have never dealt with 600% inflation, rapidly eroding our comfortable way of life.
Living in London in the late 1990s I had a Kiwi flatmate who on weekends went to protest outside the Chilean embassy. Pincohet was in London getting cancer treatment. Her parents had fled after the 1973 coup, and settled in Christchurch. I'm guessing Macro Rojas's whanau might have a similar story.
I had 4 days in Santiago and Valparaíso in early 2017. Got a small picture of the pais. I'm a history tragic, and did an informative walking tour around the capital. The Presidential Palace still shows scars of the coup, alot of us would have seen the black & white footage of jets bombing the Palace. Did Allende commit suicide or was he murdered? Learning a little about Latin America's most famous poet the communist and Noble Prize winner Neruda, who may have been poisoned on Pincohet's orders.
But to many Chileans the history of the dictator is a very complex one, and a large part of the population think his presidency was a good thing for Chile. The poverty level in Argentina after it's history of left wing Peronism (10 of the last 14 governments??) is sitting around 50% now, in Chile & Uruguay it's down in the 11-13% range.
Chile having a strong economy by Latino standards has attracted a big number of Venezuelan economic refugees, who are quick to tell the locals about the danger of embracing a strongly socialist ideology. Venezuela despite being oil rich, is almost a failed state, and millions of Venezuelans have migrated to every corner of the continent.
When I crossed the Argy-Chilean border in Patagonia, went into a restaurant and there was a 20 yr waiter who had travelled for week from Caracas to there. Back home he closed his eyes and put his finger on a Sth American map. Where his finger landed he went to. Patagonian Chile it was. Incredible guts. And we think our lives are tough.
Chile also strangely has a big population of French speaking Haitians. Only part of Sth America I came across them. Not sure if they eat dogs in Santiago, but they do get blamed (probably fairly as there are basically no other visible black people in Chile I could see) for alot of the crime. If a man of a darker hue steals my bag at knifepoint, and his Spanish is sketchy.......
So yeah Pinochet does have some parallels with Trump. To most of the outside world these are very bad men, but in their home countries for various reasons they have swathes of strong support.
Living in London in the late 1990s I had a Kiwi flatmate who on weekends went to protest outside the Chilean embassy. Pincohet was in London getting cancer treatment. Her parents had fled after the 1973 coup, and settled in Christchurch. I'm guessing Macro Rojas's whanau might have a similar story.
I had 4 days in Santiago and Valparaíso in early 2017. Got a small picture of the pais. I'm a history tragic, and did an informative walking tour around the capital. The Presidential Palace still shows scars of the coup, alot of us would have seen the black & white footage of jets bombing the Palace. Did Allende commit suicide or was he murdered? Learning a little about Latin America's most famous poet the communist and Noble Prize winner Neruda, who may have been poisoned on Pincohet's orders.
But to many Chileans the history of the dictator is a very complex one, and a large part of the population think his presidency was a good thing for Chile. The poverty level in Argentina after it's history of left wing Peronism (10 of the last 14 governments??) is sitting around 50% now, in Chile & Uruguay it's down in the 11-13% range.
Chile having a strong economy by Latino standards has attracted a big number of Venezuelan economic refugees, who are quick to tell the locals about the danger of embracing a strongly socialist ideology. Venezuela despite being oil rich, is almost a failed state, and millions of Venezuelans have migrated to every corner of the continent.
When I crossed the Argy-Chilean border in Patagonia, went into a restaurant and there was a 20 yr waiter who had travelled for week from Caracas to there. Back home he closed his eyes and put his finger on a Sth American map. Where his finger landed he went to. Patagonian Chile it was. Incredible guts. And we think our lives are tough.
Chile also strangely has a big population of French speaking Haitians. Only part of Sth America I came across them. Not sure if they eat dogs in Santiago, but they do get blamed (probably fairly as there are basically no other visible black people in Chile I could see) for alot of the crime. If a man of a darker hue steals my bag at knifepoint, and his Spanish is sketchy.......
So yeah Pinochet does have some parallels with Trump. To most of the outside world these are very bad men, but in their home countries for various reasons they have swathes of strong support.