Word: castros
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...network and nationalize Venezuela's largest telephone and electricity firms, while pushing his rubber-stamp Congress to allow him to run for re-election indefinitely and rule by decree well into 2008. It's no wonder Chavez watchers compare Adan to Latin America's other conspicuous First Brother, Raul Castro, who would succeed Fidel...
There is no small irony in McCaffrey’s comparison of President Salvador Allende to Fidel Castro, because it is Pinochet who will be remembered alongside the Cuban dictator. Throughout his apologetic treatise, McCaffrey argues that Augusto Pinochet should be absolved of his crimes because he committed them in the pursuit of his uniquely pure ideology. But like Castro, who stated explicitly his desire to be absolved by history, Pinochet will find no absolution. He will be remembered only as a tyrant, a murderer, a traitor to his country, and a betrayer of his countrymen...
Such a focus poses a threat to Chilean stability and democracy in the long run. Though it might be tempting to think of Pinochet’s death as symbolizing the end of an era for military dictatorships in Latin America (after all, Castro is on his way out, too), the region has yet to wrestle with its past. Only after doing so will it be able to bury its dictators for good...
Allende was backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union, who sought to turn Chile into a despotic socialist state by providing him with money, man-power, and thousands of weapons. Fidel Castro toured Chile in early 1973, giving speeches in favor of Allende’s "revolution." Allende was accordingly condemned by the legislature, the judiciary, and three former presidents (including Eduardo Frei, a Marxist and former supporter of Allende) for his abuses. Finally, with many certain that a coup was inevitable given the hyperinflation (a paycheck from one week could not even afford bread in the next week), starvation...
...fist, Pinochet epitomized another specter that still haunts Latin America: a dogmatic mind. If it continues, the region's addiction to ideological governance - the chronic oscillation between right-wing and left-wing - will keep it from entering the 21st century as surely as Pinochet and leftist despots like Fidel Castro kept it from entering the 20th. Chileans seemed to indulge the old habits Sunday night as Pinochet backers and haters squared off in the streets. But perhaps the reason that Chile's democratic institutions are still more the exception than the rule in South America today is because its citizens...