Wall Street Journal cites Chilean earthquake to praise Pinochet

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Wall Street Journal cites Chilean earthquake to praise Pinochet
By David Walsh
2 March 2010

In an editorial published Monday, “A Tale of Two Quakes,” the Wall
Street Journal compares the outcome of the massive earthquake that hit
Chile on Saturday with the dimensions of the human disaster that has
unfolded in Haiti.

Citing the far greater scale of death and destruction in Haiti, the
newspaper praises the comparatively higher level of preparedness for
such a disaster in Chile, and writes: “But such preparation is also
the luxury of a prosperous country, in contrast to destitute and
ill-governed Haiti. Chile has benefited enormously in recent decades
from the free-market reforms it passed in the 1970s under dictator
Augusto Pinochet.”

One wants to respond, to coin a phrase, “Lie, but at least make sense.”

The Haitian people live in dire misery above all because the small
island has been under the direct thumb of the US for a century, having
experienced military occupations, some lasting for decades, on several
occasions. The US propped up the regimes of the hated and brutal
Duvaliers, father and son, for thirty years, from 1957 to 1986.

In the most recent period, Washington and the global financial
community have imposed “free market” policies on Haiti—precisely the
policies that the Journal claims saved Chile from a massive loss of
life in its earthquake—with disastrous consequences for the Haitian
population. The small farmers in Haiti have been ruined and crowded
into Port-au-Prince’s horrific slums, the worst in the Western
hemisphere. Whatever infrastructure and social fabric previously
existed have been devastated, compounding the toll of death and
destruction from the January 12 quake.

Chile’s historical and social development is different. It won
independence from Spain in 1818, and although the social structure
remained largely intact and the population enjoyed few benefits from
independence, the country did not experience the direct domination of
the US as Haiti did.

In any event, Chile can be said to be “prosperous” only if one focuses
on the conditions of the wealthy. The CIA-backed military dictatorship
that took power in September 1973, overthrowing the Allende “Popular
Unity” government, killed tens of thousands of political opponents,
torturing an equal or larger number in the most barbaric fashion. This
is the regime the Journal holds up as a model.

Rule by Pinochet’s sadistic torturers (advised by economist Milton
Friedman and other “free market” theoreticians) created the basis for
the “Chilean miracle,” which, again, was a miracle only for the
country’s wealthy.

In the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the country experienced the
sharpest rise in joblessness and most severe drop in wages in South
American history. Between 1974 and 1975, as thousands of left-wingers,
academics and trade unionists were being mutilated and killed in
secret prisons, the unemployment rate doubled. By 1983, nearly 35
percent of the work force was unemployed. This led to a wave strikes,
and again tens of thousands were rounded up by Pinochet’s forces.

What the Journal so admires about Chile of the 1970s and 1980s was the
vast transfer of wealth that took place, enforced by the military and
secret police. By the time Pinochet was forced to give up power in
1990, the caloric intake of the average Chilean had fallen by some 20
percent.

Between 1980 and 1989, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population
increased its share of the national wealth from 36.5 percent to 46.8
percent; conversely, the bottom 50 percent of the population saw their
share fall from 20.4 percent to 16.8 percent.

Two decades later, Chile remains one of the most socially unequal
countries in the world. As a 2009 Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development study noted, “Chile has a high level of
income inequality compared to other countries… Income inequality in
Chile is high even by the standard of Latin America, the region with
the highest levels of inequality in the world.”

Chile was ranked behind only Brazil and Colombia on the continent in
terms of income inequality at the beginning of the last decade.

In any event, the Journal’s rosy picture of the Chilean disaster is
called into question by various news accounts. The Globe and Mail
(Canada) reports that Chilean authorities “are now saying the [death]
toll could be ‘in the thousands.’” Rescue crews, the newspaper notes,
were struggling “to assess the damage and raced to reach trapped
survivors in the numerous tiny, isolated coastal towns that bore the
brunt of Saturday morning’s quake.”

As for the Journal’s smug reference to “Chile’s stricter building
codes,” the Globe and Mail reporter notes, “the reality is quite
different in smaller towns like Constitucion [a resort and fishing
town]. In areas with shortages of affordable housing… ‘people built
houses wherever they lived’—shantytowns built of a mix of wood and
cement.”

Meanwhile, the Chilean regime has dispatched police and readied the
armed forces to suppress “looters,” i.e., the “desperate residents
[who] scrounged for water and supplies inside empty and damaged
supermarkets,” according to CNN. “Authorities used tear gas and water
cannons” to disperse the residents.

The cable channel also reported that in Concepcion, a provincial
capital, “there were not enough police to control all those seeking
food and supplies from stores. Some became desperate as supermarkets
closed and gas was unavailable.”

Praise for Pinochet is nothing new for the Journal. Like one of its
idols, Britain’s former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the
mouthpiece of Wall Street has weighed in numerous times on the side of
the murderous Chilean regime and its chief.

On the occasion of Pinochet’s (temporary) detention by British
authorities in October 1998, the Journal gnashed its teeth and
proclaimed that the general had “headed the coup that saved his
country.” Under the military, the newspaper asserted, Chile was
transformed “from a Communist beachhead to an example of successful
free-market reform.”

At the time of the hated dictator’s death in December 2006, the
Journal declared that Pinochet “took power in a coup in 1973, but
ultimately he created an environment where democratic institutions
would prevail.” He supported “free-market reforms that have made Chile
prosperous and the envy of its neighbors.”

The Journal’s affection for Pinochet brings to mind the famous phrase
about Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, “He made the trains
run on time.” The newspaper’s editors have a natural inclination for
authoritarianism and dictatorship.

They would be very pleased if the working class and political
opponents of capitalism in the US could be dealt with as they were by
Pinochet. The editorial board, speaking for the biggest financial
looters, dreams of police and military on the streets and internment
camps for socialists.

None of this pro-fascist filth evokes any sort of a protest from the
liberal media in the US. The Journal counts on the utter cowardice of
the New York Times and other such pillars of the liberal
establishment, as well as on the latter’s own increasingly
anti-democratic sentiments.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/wsjo-m02.shtml

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