Salon.com > Michael Warren

Papal election stirs memories of Argentina’s “Dirty War”

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:33:00 +0000

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Pope Francis is known for his humility, his reluctance to talk about himself. The self-effacement, admirers say, is why he has hardly ever denied one of the harshest allegations against him: That he was among church leaders who actively supported Argentina's murderous dictatorship.

It's without dispute that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the 1976-1983 military junta while it was kidnapping and killing thousands of people in a "dirty war" to eliminate leftist opponents.

But the new pope's authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that this was a failure of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and that it's unfair to label Bergoglio with the collective guilt that many Argentines of his generation still deal with.

"In some way many of us Argentines ended up being accomplices," at a time when anyone who spoke out could be targeted, Rubin recalled in an interview with The Associated Press just before the papal conclave.

Some leading Argentine human rights activists agree that Bergoglio doesn't deserve to be lumped together with other church figures who were closely aligned with the dictatorship.

Chile mine rescue nearly complete; all but 3 out

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:48:00 +0000

With remarkable speed -- and flawless execution -- miner after miner climbed into a cramped cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, was hoisted through 2,000 feet of rock and saw precious sunlight Wednesday after the longest underground entrapment in history.

As night fell, 30 of the 33 miners, including the weakest and sickest, had been pulled to freedom, and officials appeared on track to pull up the last miner well before midnight (11 p.m. EDT).

After 69 days underground, including two weeks during which they were feared dead, the men emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. The operation picked up speed as the day went on, but each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.

"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.

They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.

Chile mine rescue nearly complete; all but 3 out

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:22:00 +0000

As night fell, 30 of the 33 miners, including the weakest and sickest, had been pulled to freedom, and officials appeared on track to pull up the last miner well before midnight (11 p.m. EDT).

"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.

28 miners free as Chile rescue goes off flawlessly

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:08:00 +0000

With remarkable speed -- and flawless execution -- one miner after another climbed into a slender cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, was hoisted through 2,000 feet of rock and saw precious sunlight Wednesday after the longest underground entrapment in human history.

By midafternoon, 28 of the 33 miners, including all the weakest and sickest, had been pulled to freedom, and officials said they might even be able to bring everyone to the surface by the end of the night.

After 69 days underjground, including two weeks during which they were feared dead, the men emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe.

"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out, and on a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.

They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame, jobs and previously unimaginable riches.

The men made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix -- 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, red and blue of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and its wheels needed lubricating at least once, but it worked exactly as planned.

Chile leader tells mom her son will be first out

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:25:00 +0000

The president of Chile has made it official, telling the mother of Florencio Avalos that he'll be the first of 33 men to be rescued from the collapsed mine where they've been trapped for 69 days

His mother, Maria Silva, says he's not surprised he was chosen and that she's very proud of him.

President Sebastian Pinera teased the journalists gathered on a viewing platform to await the rescue, saying he's pretty sure the first one out will have the last name of Avalos.

There are three men with that name trapped below.

Florencio's mom confirmed to The Associated Press that Pinera himself told her it would be her son.

Chile choreographs dramatic finish to rescue saga

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:02:00 +0000

Chile's president says the rescue of miners trapped for more than two months will begin in two hours, keeping his promise to never abandon them.

The 33 miners are about to breathe fresh air for the first time since they were trapped a half-mile below the surface on Aug. 5.

Pinera says "it has been a very long journey," but he's optimistic that everything will go smoothly.

He says his government "made a promise to never surrender," and kept it.

The miners will surface in a custom-made capsule in a highly choreographed operation designed to protect their health and privacy.

But first, two rescue workers will descend into their underground chamber to prepare them for the trip up.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile (AP) -- Fresh air and freedom were just hours away Tuesday for 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground for 69 days, men whose endurance and unity have captivated the world. No one in the history of mining has been trapped so long and survived.

The first of the miners was expected to be lifted to the surface late Tuesday in a custom-made capsule. President Sebastian Pinera praised the effort in a speech at the mine Tuesday evening, and the carefully choreographed rescue was expected to begin a short time thereafter.

Chilean miners could be free by Wednesday

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:22:00 +0000

Chilean rescuers say they have finished installing steel tubing to reinforce the top of a shaft they will use to bring 33 trapped miners to the surface.

Navy Cmdr. Renato Navarro says the team installed 15 tubes to reinforce the top 295 feet (90 meters) of the shaft. That work finished Monday. Now workers are installing a platform above the shaft to support the rescue capsule in which the men will be brought to the surface.

Officials say they hope that on Wednesday they can start bringing the men out of the mine where they have been trapped for more than two months.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile (AP) -- A torrent of emotions awaits the 33 miners when they finally rejoin the outside world.

As trying as it has been for them to survive underground for more than two months, their gold and copper mine is familiar territory. Once out of the shaft, they'll face challenges so bewildering, no amount of coaching can fully prepare them.

They'll be celebrated at first, embraced by their families and pursued by more than 750 journalists who have converged on the mine, competing for interviews and images to feed to a world intensely curious to hear their survival story.

Argentina legalizes gay marriage in historic vote

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:44:00 +0000

Argentina legalized same-sex marriage Thursday, becoming the first country in Latin America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.

After a marathon debate, 33 lawmakers voted in favor, 27 were against it and 3 abstained in Argentina's Senate in a vote that ended after 4 a.m. Since the lower house already approved it, and President Cristina Fernandez is a strong supporter, it now becomes law as soon as it is published in the official bulletin.

The law is sure to bring a wave of marriages by gays and lesbians who have increasingly found Buenos Aires to be more accepting than many other places in the region.

The approval came despite a concerted campaign by the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical groups, which drew 60,000 people to march on Congress and urged parents in churches and schools to work against passage.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said "everyone loses" with gay marriage, and "children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother."

Nine gay couples had already married in Argentina after persuading judges that the constitutional mandate of equality supports their marriage rights, but some of these marriages were later declared invalid.

Biggest aftershock hits Chile on inauguration day

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:42:00 +0000

The largest aftershock since Chile's devastating earthquake rocked the South American country Thursday minutes before the inauguration of President Sebastian Pinera.

The 7.2-magnitude aftershock was stronger than the Jan. 12 quake that devastated the Haitian capital. It happened along the same fault zone as Chile's magnitude-8.8 quake on Feb. 27, said geophysicist Don Blakeman at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado.

"When we get quakes in the 8 range, we would expect to see maybe a couple of aftershocks in the 7 range," he said.

Blakeman said Chile now can expect to feel "aftershocks of the aftershock."

"It's not a sign of anything different happening. But what does occur when you get these large aftershocks, typically we have a whole series of aftershocks again," Blakeman said.

The temblor rocked buildings and shook windows in the capital, and provoked nervous smiles among dignitaries arriving for the ceremony at the congressional building in coastal Valparaiso. Bolivian President Evo Morales seemed briefly disoriented and Peru's Alan Garcia joked that it gave them "a moment to dance."

Many quake survivors look to new president

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:12:00 +0000

Chile's earthquake and tsunami smashed this pretty little tourist town into splinters, leaving little more than immense piles of wreckage and an awful stench. Rooting through the remains Thursday, Dichato's residents said they are pinning their hopes for renewal on the new president, a conservative billionaire who takes office next week.

Nothing short of mammoth reconstruction can return Dichato to a semblance of what it was, and survivors here -- and throughout the disaster zone -- said they're hoping President-elect Sebastian Pinera is up to the job.

"Chile is a country on the rise, economically strong, with many businesses. And because of this we expected more" of President Michelle Bachelet's leftist administration, said Amanda Ruiz, a secretary in a construction firm. "We're disillusioned."

"I think he has the ability to do it," said Luis Omar Cid Jara, 66, whose bakery and roast chicken shop on Dichato's main street were destroyed.

Critics said Bachelet initially was reluctant to summon the military to stop looting and deliver aid, given the armed forces' brutal repression of the Chilean left in the past, especially during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Tsunami sweeps away entire towns on Chilean coast

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:17:00 +0000

When the shaking stopped, Marioli Gatica and her extended family huddled in a circle on the floor of their seaside wooden home in this gritty port town, listening to the radio by a lantern's light.

They heard firefighters urging Talcahuano's citizens to stay calm and stay inside. They heard nothing of a tsunami -- until it slammed into their house with an unearthly roar about an hour after Saturday's magnitude 8.8 quake.

Gatica's house exploded with water. She and her family were swept below the surface, swirling amid loose ship containers and other massive debris that smashed buildings into oblivion all around them.

"We were sitting there one moment and the next I looked up into the water and saw cables and furniture floating," Gatica said.

She clung to her 11-year-old daughter, Ninoska Elgueta, but the rush of water ripped the girl from her hands. Then the wave retreated as suddenly as it came.

Two of the giant containers crushed Gatica's home. A third landed seaward of where she floated, preventing the retreating tsunami from dragging her and other relatives away.

Soon Ninoska was back in her mother's arms -- she had grabbed a tree branch to avoid being swept away and climbed down as soon as the sea receded.

Rescuers struggle to save lives after Chile quake

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Rescuers edged their way toward quake victims trapped in a toppled apartment block early Sunday even as looters stole food and robbed banks after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Chile.

Authorities put the death toll from Saturday's magnitude-8.8 quake at 214, but believed the number would grow. They said 1.5 million Chileans were affected and 500,000 homes severely damaged by the mammoth temblor.

A tsunami caused by the quake that swept across the Pacific killed several people on a Chilean island but caused little damage in other countries, after precautionary evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people. The tsunami warning was lifted a day after the earthquake.

President Michelle Bachelet, who leaves office March 11, declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile. "It was a catastrophe of devastating consequences," she said.

Police said more than 100 people died in Concepcion, the largest city near the epicenter with more than 200,000 people. The university was among the buildings that caught fire around the city as gas and power lines snapped. Many streets were littered with rubble from edifices and inmates escaped from a nearby prison.

Argentine stolen at birth, now 32, learns identity

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:19:00 +0000

The search is finally over for Abel Madariaga, whose pregnant wife was kidnapped by Argentine security forces 32 years ago.

After decades of doubt and loneliness, of searching faces in the street in hopes they might be related, Madariaga has found his son.

"I never stopped thinking I would find him," the 59-year-old father said, squeezing his son's arm during a packed news conference Tuesday.

"For the first time, I know who I was. Who I am," the young man said, still marveling at his new identity: Francisco Madariaga Quintela, a name he only learned last week.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights group believes about 400 children were stolen at birth from women who were kidnapped and killed as part of the 1976-1983 dictatorship's "dirty war" against political dissidents, which killed as many as 30,000 people.

Madariaga and his wife, Silvia Quintela, were members of the Montoneros, a leftist group targeted for elimination by government death squads. He last saw his wife -- a 28-year-old surgeon who treated the poor in a Buenos Aires suburb -- being pushed into a Ford Falcon by army officers dressed as civilians as she walked to a train on Jan. 17, 1977.