The assassination of Rene Schneider, the constitutionalist Chilean general followed by that of Allende himself, was simply collateral damage on the road to economic freedom Henry Kissinger, a central figure in the affair might say.
All the details of Chilean society since the coup, never mind the murders, torture and abductions that occurred in the course of it are absent from world history as told to us by CNN. All that matters are the GDP stats.
Huge events like the 33 Chilean miners who are trapped in a shelter underground are a little harder to ignore, and like the recent mining accidents in the US, these stories are accompanied by data revealing all the failings and lack of concern for human life in an industry that sends human beings miles thousands of feet underground. They have to pretend they care.
Senator Baldo Prokurica, a Chilean Senator who is on the Senate mining committee tells the media that said he has been, “ Pushing Congress for years to increase the number of inspectors for the state regulatory agency, Sernageomin. It had only 18, he said, which made regulating the country's several hundred mines a daunting task.” *
Sound familiar? It should, I am sure the US government worker safety agency OSHA is in a similar position. These state agencies exist to give the impression that workers have a protector in the state but, in reality are completely toothless agencies. At safety meetings at work I always got up and jokingly announced to my co-workers that there are 25 million job sites in the US and 25 OSHA inspectors. An exaggerated, off the cuff estimate but they got the point.
Similar information followed the recent mining disasters in the US. The employers were lax on safety it is revealed. Details arise about all the safety violations that have been issued against the company or how many accidents have occurred during to neglect.
"The government has abandoned [the regulator]," the Chilean Senator tells the Associated Press, "If you look at the laws, they are good. We need to enforce the laws, not make more laws or increase fines." Damn, doesn’t this sound familiar? Isn’t this what happened not just in industrial accidents in the US but financial catastrophes? “We just need to enforce the laws on the books”, the American working class is told right before the bankers send the sheriffs to help us vacate our homes.
Continuing with the charade, Chile’s president has fired regulators and is forming some sort of commission in order to head off public anger in case the miners, who are presently breathing, end up dead before they are rescued which might take three months. Not much different to Obama chopping heads and taking names with government agencies that were responsible for mining safety and deep oil exploration in the US.
It turns out that the Chilean mining company responsible for this one, San Estaban, is a private company that may now declare bankruptcy claiming that the government’s shutting down of many of the smaller mines due to safety violations is forcing it to do so.
The miners may be stuck down there until Christmas while an escape tunnel is dug. The escape tunnel will cost around $1.1 million dollars and will be paid for by the Chilean taxpayer. And get this, the tunnel will be dug by Chile’s state owned mining company with the private sector broke and in bankruptcy. It’s amazing how they turn to that inefficient public sector when it suits them isn’t it? They did it here in the US to rescue banks and they do it in Chile to rescue workers left for dead by private industrialists.
One immediate step that needs to be taken is that all the profits that the workers in the mines of San Estaban have generated for its investors should be retrieved. This would be difficult because these investors are global, which points to the need for global working class solidarity.
Since 2000. An average of 34 people a year have died in mining accidents in Chile, 43 in 2008. Funny, this wasn’t news until now.
They bail out the banks here, the mines in Chile. The conclusion is obvious, capitalism is inefficient, wasteful, environmentally destructive and a catastrophe for workers and our families whether we live in China, the US or Chile, from one end of the earth to the other.
* Guardian UK
1 comment:
it is very important to report world news.it proves that a society is not so self absorbed.it is so compelling when one listens to world music.it highlights that other societies are blessed with very high levels of creativity.it is so important at a political level that we show understanding and mutual respect towards each other.we should educate the whole child,not just their intellect.this might be a good starting point.
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