The following is an interview with 25 year old Chilean student Juan Manosalva, in which he discusses his own reaction and that of his fellow Chileans to the death of General Augusto Pinochet.
Q: How did you and your immediate friends and family react to the news of Pinochet's death?
A: My first reacting was one of surprise because I thought Pinochet was going to get over that heart attack and everything was going to be as before. Many people had the feeling that the heart attack was another of his tricks to cheat justice, so it didn't look that bad at first. But when the news of his death came it was surprising and particularly shocking the reaction of people, it was like something they were long time waiting for, and then overnight celebrations and weeping made up all the TV content in all the channels.
About my friends reactions the first thing I have to say is that young people are not really paying much attention to this, they understand that this is a very important episode of our history but that's it. The ones who are really concerned and preoccupied are the older ones, the ones who lived in fear under the oppression of the regime and weren't allowed to speak their minds, or had to remain hidden for fear of being murdered or tortured.
I'm 25 and my friends are of similar ages, so we were kids when all this was going on, so we don't feel it as something to be fighting for on the streets showing placards or celebrating. On the other hand the older members of my family and elder relatives are the ones who are more affected by the news, for instance what my mother feels is great disappointment because Pinochet didn't stand trial and didn't show any hint of repentance for what he did to a part of our countrymen. Some relatives hope that after his death we could finally find reconciliation between ourselves.
Q: What are people saying about this?
Not much really, we are a rather conservative society and it is not our custom to show our political preferences, if it is not during an elections time. If we do show them it is with respect and with an understanding of others' right of think freely. The ones who are talking more about this are the extremes minorities, by this I mean: the extreme left and the extreme right, but for them to become reconciled we will have to wait.
Q: What is the general feeling in Chile regarding this man?
A: The general feeling in Chile is one of a profound division amongst the older generation and a sense of shame amongst the rest.
Q: How do you expect this man will be remembered?
A: As the symbol of what we will never allow ourselves to undergo again in this land, and a symbol of the harm that the US government can inflict on Latin America or any other part of the world; we were very close to becoming a developed country before all this happened but the US screwed us, we had an excellent country and were rather unified, but they made our parents fight and kill each other. That's part of our history and we have learned our lesson, we are now mature and aware.
The Washington Post is today carrying a story containing a statement of denial from the NSA that it ever targeted Princess Diana's communications. The statement reads,
The 39 NSA-originated and NSA-controlled documents referenced in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 1998 only contained references to the Princess, and she was never the communicant.
NSA did not target Princess Diana's communications. Furthermore, NSA has cooperated with the investigations into this tragic incident to the full extent of the law."
This is strange, because the agency admitted to holding at least 1056 pages of classified data about Diana back in 1998. The communications were said to need classification in order to protect "sources and methods" of US Intelligence gathering. It was widely reported back then, that such intelligence was gathered using the highly secretive Echelon eavesdropping system.
The official report, due for publication on Thursday, is likely to confirm the original story that her death was an accident.
In yet another twist, in an ever twisting maze of a story, the Observer newspaper yesterday published an article claiming that the US Secret Service were bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations on the night before she died.
This revelation will do little to dampen a widely held feeling amongst the British public, that all was very much not as it seemed where the death of the Princess of Wales was concerned.
This has been a long running saga in the British tabloid press. On various occasions it has shown signs of emerging from the heavily veiled shadows it has been cloaked in, only to be re-veiled, or re-obscured, by varying interpretations and misdirections folded into the narrative threads presented to the public.
For example, it has been revealed that the driver of the Mercedes, Henri Paul, was an asset of the French Secret Service and that £100,000 had been transfered into various French bank accounts owned by him, in the months before Diana's death.
Alongside this, there have been claims that the autopsy of the Princess was deliberately botched and that Henri Paul's blood samples were tampered with to make it appear that he was drunk on the night of the crash. The notorious white Fiat Uno, which has been linked by some to Diana paprazzo James Andanson, and which left paint traces on the body of the crashed Mercedes, has never been properly identified. Andanson eventually turned up dead, having apparently commited suicide, when his burnt remains were found in French woodland in May 2000.
Then of course there was the letter written by Diana 10 months before her death, in which she claimed that someone, who has yet to be named for 'legal reasons' was,
planning an ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head
injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry".
This latest twist, only confirms what has already become obvious from previous stories of phone tapping and intelligence agency involvement. Princess Diana's private affairs in the weeks and months leading up to her death were indeed considered of very great interest to certain people. The kind of people who are well known for having both very secret and potentially very lethal agendas.
For anyone interested in getting an unusual and fairly comprehensive overview of current incidents connected to terrorism, Global Incident is providing an open source, constantly updated and navigable visual map. Using Google mapping, satellite imagery and news feeds to source its information, it presents a detailed and unsettling picture of the fractious and fear-filled world we currently live in.
