Chile lawyer seeks murder charge over Bachelet's father

[Judi Lynn]

Chile lawyer seeks murder charge over Bachelet's father
26 July 2013 Last updated at 20:10 ET

A Chilean lawyer wants charges brought against the father of the conservative presidential candidate for the murder of the father of her rival.

Gen Alberto Bachelet, father of centre-left candidate Michelle Bachelet, was tortured to death in 1974.

He died in a military facility directed by the father of centre-right candidate Evelyn Matthei, Gen Alberto Matthei.

Human rights lawyer Eduardo Contreras says new evidence shows that Gen Matthei knew about his death.

General Alberto Bachelet had been accused of state treason after refusing to join the military coup, led by General Augusto Pinochet, in 1973.

He died in a prison months later as a consequence of torture injuries.

More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23474096

On edit, adding photos of Michelle Bachelet's father, Gen. Alberto Bachelet:

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Michelle Bachelet, her brother, Alberto,
her mother, Ángela Jeria, her father,
Air Force General Alberto Bachelet.

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[Peace Patriot]

1. They investigate official killers in South America and have convicted some of them.

No one is too rich and powerful to escape scrutiny for heinous crimes. It remains a vital issue in the countries with real democracies--mostly South American countries. In U.S.-dominated Central America and Colombia, impunity for official crimes remains the rule, determined by riches and power and U.S. support and protection. But even there, strenuous and courageous efforts are being made to REMEMBER and to investigate and prosecute where possible.

Here, the opposite is true. Our society has been lobotomized by the corpo-fascist media in collusion with the 'military-industrial complex.' We have not only lost the ability to hold the rich and the powerful to account for the most heinous crimes imaginable--slaughter of a hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq; the establishment of torture prisons around the world--our collective memory of these crimes is drowned in the corporate media river of forgetfulness. As for PAST crimes, such as those of Nixon and Reagan, in supporting these horrendous dictatorships in Latin America, or Reagan's support for the genocide against the Mayans in Guatemala, they barely existed then and they don't exist now in the memory of our people.

Some people are OUTSIDE OF THE LAW. That is the reality. They CANNOT be held to account. Our president SAID SO. "We need to look forward not backward," he said, speaking of the crimes of those who are too rich and powerful to be investigated. One of our Democratic leaders SAID SO. "Impeachment is off the table" (Nancy Pelosi, no doubt giving us the word from some secret "table" where this and other things were determined). That is shocking enough--that our Democrats are collusive on forgetfulness. But more than this, those who claim to be "journalists"--the "4th Estate"--the linchpin of democracy--SAY SO every day by the things THEY DON'T REPORT, by what they DON'T say, by who they DON'T go after, by the unconscionable crimes that they IGNORE. What a worthless bunch of bastards!

So who has the better democracy? The people whose memories are in tact, or the powerless, lobotomized people of this benighted country, whose utterly hypocritical government LECTURES Latin America ON DEMOCRACY.

I would say that it's not even a matter of "better" any more. Our democracy is so ravaged that it barely exists and the prognosis for recovery of our democracy gets dimmer every day.

The Latin Americans--particularly the South Americans--have established that democracy CAN be achieved even in the most wretched of circumstances--murdering, torturing dictatorships fully backed by the U.S.A. They climbed out of that hell. So I never despair. And it's important to pay attention to HOW they did it. For instance, they did it DESPITE corporate media that is even worse than our own. In essence, it was/is grass roots organization combined with honest, transparent, PUBLICLY counted elections. (We need to start by getting rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, now 75% controlled by one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold. We need to DE-PRIVATIZE our elections! For starters...)

I don't know if this man--Gen Alberto Matthei--is guilty of Batchelet's murder, but I'm glad that someone is trying to find out! Here, anonymous persons in the CIA are slaughtering children with drone bombings--hundreds of children and other innocents--and NO ONE CARES. And ALL are innocent until proven guilty, are they not? Who decides? When was the trial that sentenced the targeted to death? It is APPALLING how far outside the law our war machine has gone. And why? Because NO ONE WAS HELD ACCOUNTABLE when unjust war and torture BEGAN! Those criminals are living in luxury with complete immunity--are even HONORED, regaled, put forward as legitimate commenters on events. Gawd. And until they ARE held accountable, our war machine is going to continue further and further down the path of murderous fascism.

Peace

[Judi Lynn]

2. Even after Pres. Dwight Eisenhower had been ensnared by the M/I Complex,

he STILL spoke out against it in his last public speech, warning U.S. Americans of the perils of allowing it to gather more power over US operations.

He had already initiated the horrendous Guatemalan war on its own citizens by overthrowing their beloved progressive President Jacobo Arbenz, and Eisenhower had also already initiated the still on-going embargo against Cuba, true economic warfare, as well as setting up training in Central America for the Bay of Pigs invasion which fell into the lap of the next President.

Even Eisenhower knew how monstrously wrong this is, before it ever got as powerful as it is now.