US Foreign Policy and Allende Assasination Has Much to do With Chilean MIner's Fate

Trapped miner

Well here we go again. It's the same the whole world over.  It is coming to light that the mine where the Chilean miners are trapped some 3000, feet underground was once closed after some miners died there.  But then some government flunky intervened and reopened it. This is standard procedure that abuses of this nature surface after catastrophe's like this. The miners that are trapped, and will most likely be trapped until Christmas, assuming they are rescued alive at all, are in the situation they are in due to the mine owner's 'greed and graft'.

According to Britain's Independent newspaper, the mine owners were in a race to increase profits while the price of their product, gold and copper, was on the increase. Chilean Union officials say that there was a total "disregard for safety" as the price of the two metals rose. One of the reasons for the failure of the Unions to prevent the dangerous conditions from existing is the anti-Union legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship that overthrew the democratic government of Salvadore Allende with the support of the US.  Pinochet not only murdered thousands of trade Unionists, he also introduced anti-Union legislation that still exists today.

The Independent  reveals details of the present situation:

"The government ordered the closure of the San Jose mine after deaths in 2006 and 2007, but a year later a junior official, allegedly exceeding his powers, authorised its reopening without the owners having installed a stairway in the ventilation passages. This stairway would have saved the 33 men this month. Instead, employees were sacked and non-unionised labour taken on. On 3 July this year a man lost his leg in a rockfall, and later in the month the Labour Department warned of serious safety deficiencies."

As we wrote on this blog earlier this week, mine safety in Chile is not unlike worker safety here in the US; non existent. The country has only 16 mine inspectors to look after 4,500 mines. Billions in profits have been made from mining though.  The Chilean mine owners in this recent crisis have moved to declare bankruptcy which would relieve them of any financial obligations they have to their workers much like Delphi, the US auto parts supplier did in order to renege on its pension obligations to its employees.

The US/CIA, with Henry Kissinger playing a prominent role, were involved in the assassination of Rene Schnieder, a conservative Chilean general who was a staunch constitutionalist who defended the election of the socialist Salvadore Allende as Chile's president in 1973. The installation of the Dictator, Auguste Pinochet and the oppression and murders that followed Allende's assassination, were a direct result of US foreign policy.

In one way, the conditions that prevail in the mines of Chile are a direct result of the intervention of US capitalism in Chilean affairs.

Another waste of the US taxpayer's money.