CIA Releases Files That Describe Ruthless Chilean Dictator Pinochet As 'Warm' and 'Mild-Mannered'

 Another shameful example of our meddling in other countries.  How much blood is on our hands and when will it end?

CIA Releases Files That Describe Ruthless Chilean Dictator Pinochet As 'Warm' and 'Mild-Mannered'

by Matt Novak on Paleofuture, shared by Matt Novak to Gizmodo

Gizmodo / 2016-10-18 12:03

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1974 (Associated Press)
Augusto Pinochet was a ruthless dictator who, with the CIA's help, overthrew the democratically elected government of Chile in 1973. But what did the CIA really think of Pinochet? Newly released biographic reports use words like "warm," "mild-mannered," and "businesslike."
I recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CIA's biographic reports on Pinochet from 1972 to 1976. Pinochet's regime oversaw the torture, rape, murder, and disappearance of thousands of Chileans during his rule from 1973 until 1990. But his anti-communist attitudes were enough to make him a strong American ally for almost two decades.
Pinochet's dictatorship institutionalized acts of domestic terrorism through murder and rape in at least 17 torture centers across the country. Yet the CIA's reports from 1976 claim that while he's "not a charismatic man, he is nevertheless genuinely popular in Chile." It also notes Pinochet's hatred for Senator Ted Kennedy, who wanted to stop the flow of American money to Chile.
Portion of a CIA biographic report on Augusto Pinochet dated April 27, 1976 and released to Gizmodo in 2016 (CIA)
The CIA's biographic report, dated April 28, 1976, acknowledges that while Pinochet can be "outwardly tough" and "rigid" he's also "warm and fatherly." Again, the CIA is talking about a man with domestic centers where at least 35,000 people were subjected to brutal physical and psychological torture, and systematic rape.
Portion of a CIA biographic report on Augusto Pinochet dated April 27, 1976 and released to Gizmodo in 2016 (CIA)
One of the most interesting quirks in the reports is that the CIA repeatedly insists that Pinochet has no real interest in politics, but then goes on to explain how the dictator plans to wipe out any trace of Marxist influence in the country. Apparently, in the eyes of the CIA, one can be "not political" while trying to destroy anyone with a very specific set of political ideas they don't agree with.
Another fascinating aspect of the file comes from November, 1974—one year after the bloody coup that ousted socialist President Salvador Allende in September 1973. As shown below, the CIA formerly redacted portions of that file that called Pinochet "quiet," "mild-mannered," and "businesslike." They also redacted portions of the file that referred to his drinking and smoking.
Peter Kornbluh, a reporter from The National Security Archive who helped expose just how substantial the CIA's involvement in the 1973 coup was, published an earlier version of that file in 2006, shortly after Pinochet died. But Kornbluh's version had some redactions about Pinochet's personal life, as you can see below.
Portion of a CIA biographic report on Augusto Pinochet released in 2006 versus a file just released to Gizmodo in 2016 (CIA)
The CIA reports note again and again just how "apolitical" Pinochet was. But one version of the biographic report from May 1976, and newly released to Gizmodo, describes Pinochet as an "inflexible anti-Communist."

A man known for his toughness, he will not tolerate any opposition to the government.
[Augusto Pinochet] is an inflexible anti-Communist, and dislikes politicians of all persuasions, blaming them for the chaos that necessitated the Allende overthrow.

The CIA then acknowledges in the same report that international critics consider Pinochet to be "the personification of all the evils they see in Chile." How does the CIA feel about this? The files generally have a tone of condescension, calling him "unsophisticated in international relations" when it comes to human rights. But the agency is clearly defensive on his behalf, even using the word "abusive" to describe "personal criticism from abroad."
Portion of a CIA biographic report on Augusto Pinochet dated May 17, 1976 and released to Gizmodo in 2016 (CIA)
Pinochet left power in 1990, allowing Chile to ostensibly become a democracy, while leaving some of his top torturers in power with police positions. But in an extraordinary move, prosecutors in Spain tried to extradite Pinochet in October of 1998 while he was having surgery in London.
Pinochet was arrested, which set off an international firestorm as a criminal head of state was about to be brought to justice. He remained under house arrest in England for over a year, where he even received friendly guests like Margaret Thatcher. But political wrangling by British politicians, in opposition to their own High Court, ultimately allowed Pinochet to flee to Chile in March of 2000. Pinochet died in 2006.
On a related note, Henry Kissinger—the American who helped orchestrate the 1973 Chilean coup, starting with the assassination of a top military officer in 1970—is still walking around a free man.
I've uploaded all the CIA biographic reports from 1972-1976 here.

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Venezuela's Nightmare Government Will Not Get a Recall Vote This Year

Venezuela's Nightmare Government Will Not Get a Recall Vote This Year

by Anthony L. Fisher

Reason.com Full Feed / 2016-09-22 09:57

Venezuela's National Election Council has rejected opposition calls for a referendum on President Nicolas Maduro to be held this year, which virtually guarantees that Maduro's Socialist Party will remain in power through the end of 2018.
Had the recall vote been held in 2016, a new presidential vote would have to be held—one that the Socialists would likely lose, particularly after being trounced in the 2015 National Assembly elections. But by delaying a possible vote (contingent on the opposition collecting enough to represent about 20 percent of the voting populace) until 2017, even if Maduro were recalled, his Socialist vice president would succeed him, leaving the unpopular party which has presided over the country since 1999 in power for the remainder of Maduro's term.
Opposition leaders claim the election council is aligned with Maduro and is denying the will of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who want the Socialists out of office. Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands (some estimates went as high as 1 million) of demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas to demand a referendum. In the days leading up to those protests, Venezuelan government authorities arrested a number of protest organizers, including 2008 Cato Institute Milton Friedman Prize winner Yon Goicoechea—a longtime advocate of peaceful protest whom the government accused of being in possession of explosives.
Maduro—who has been president since the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013–has presided over an economy that only three years ago was described by leftist Western journalists as an "economic miracle," but which has since completely collapsed. Under Socialist rule, the oil-rich country has spent tens of millions on propaganda movies which never get made and race car drivers who never win races, while hospitals go without electricity, food and basic household items are scarce, and the rule of law has essentially collapsed—evidenced by widespread looting and lynchings of petty thieves.
The government's response to such crises has been to ban the dissemination of video footage of the violence, and to outlaw lines outside bakeries, which it believes is a "strategy of generating anxiety" perpetuated by the opposition and their imperialist puppet-masters in the U.S.
And what socialist "economic miracle" would be complete without forced labor, which Maduro's government has also decreed can be forced on citizens for up to 60 days, "if circumstances merit."
A massive protest today by bus drivers demanding "better pay, more security against violent crime and spare parts for their buses," has choked traffic to a halt in Caracas, according to Al-Jazeera.

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Indian Court Says 'Copyright Is Not An Inevitable, Divine, Or Natural Right' And Photocopying Textbooks Is Fair Use

Techdirt. Indian Court Says 'Copyright Is Not An Inevitable, Divine, Or Natural Right' And Photocopying Textbooks Is Fair Use
Last week there was a big copyright ruling in India, where a court ruled against some big academic publishers in ruling that a photocopying kiosk that sold photocopied chapters from textbooks was not infringing on the copyrights of those publishers. We wrote about this case over three years ago, when it was first filed. It's actually fairly similar to a set of cases in the US that found college copyshops to be infringing -- leading to a massive increase in educational material costs for college students.

The Indian court went the other way. The full ruling takes a fair use-style look at the question, and recognizes that educational purposes are more important than padding the bank account of some big publishers. The ruling is pretty long, but there are a number of good points in there. Here's the one that a bunch of people have been quoting, noting that copyright is not inevitable, divine or a natural right:

Copyright, specially in literary works, is thus not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creations. It is designed rather to stimulate activity and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public. Copyright is intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors in order to benefit the public.

Now that's a damn good quote on copyright law.

The court also talks a lot about how technology has changed over time, and that it shouldn't be held back by copyright.

Today, nearly all students of the defendant no.2 University would be carrying cell phones and most of the cell phones have a camera inbuilt which enables a student to, instead of taking notes from the books in the library, click photographs of each page of the portions of the book required to be studied by him and to thereafter by connecting the phone to the printer take print of the said photographs or to read directly from the cell phone or by connecting the same to a larger screen. The same would again qualify as fair use and which cannot be stopped.

The German Federal Supreme Court in Re. the Supply of Photocopies of Newspaper Articles by Public Library [2000] E.C.C. 237 held that in a modern technologically highly developed nation like Germany, an extensive fast functioning and economic information exchange was vital; that is why the libraries were given the freedom to operate and the reproduction rights of authors were restricted in favour of freedom of information; that it was sufficient to escape liability for copyright infringement if the customer of the library could claim the benefit of the exemption which allowed the copying for personal use, of articles published in a periodical; whether or not the library charges for its service is immaterial;

The court similarly notes the hypocrisy of lawyers who regularly photocopy things now complaining about students doing the same:

What the defendant no.2 University is doing is not different from what is being done in the Bar Association library in the premises of this Court. With the advent of photocopying, the advocates of this Court, instead of carrying books from their residences / offices to this Court for citing judgments therefrom during the course of arguments and instead of giving in advance the list of such books to the Restorer of this Court and the Restorer of this Court also taking out the court's copies of the same books for the Judges to read, and all of which was cumbersome and time consuming, started having the photocopies of the relevant judgments made from the books in the Bar Association Library of this Court. Initially the said photocopying was got done by having the book issued from the library and carrying the same to the photocopier who had, for the convenience of the advocates, been granted a licence to operate from the premises of this Court. Subsequently, for expediency and to avoid the books being taken out of the library, the Bar Association library itself allowed the photocopier to install his machine within the library premises and any advocate could get the photocopy done by having the relevant judgment photocopied within the Bar Association library by paying the cost of photocopy as is fixed by the Bar Association.

It's always nice to see a good copyright ruling -- especially one that will make it easier for the dissemination of knowledge and learning in an academic setting.

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