US State Department 2008 Report on Human Rights in Chile

US State Department 2008 Report on Human Rights in Chile
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119152.htm.

This is the US report on Chile. Chile replied.

SANTIAGO -- The Chilean government questioned the "moral authority" of the United States in criticizing the human rights situation in other countries, local media reported Friday. "There is no Guantanamo in Chile," Francisco Vidal, a spokesman for the Chilean government, said in a statement.

The US State Department pointed its fingers at the human rights situation in other countries without checking its own behavior first, he said, in reaction to the 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices presented to the US Congress by the State Department on Wednesday.

The detention center at the US military base in the Guantanamo Bay has been repeatedly criticized as several detainees there have claimed that they were tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment. Most of the detainees there have been accused of having engaged in terrorism but have spent several years in prison without trial.

Vidal said Chile's tragic experience during the military dictatorship has made the country "realize that violations of human rights is not a local issue."

"When a human being is tortured in any place of the world, the dignity of the rest six billion human beings is also violated," he said.


China received a scathing report, and was not happy, so published a "back-at-ya" report on the US. You can read that report here:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/26/content_10904741.htm

The sad thing is the China report is mostly correct. I know we get a pretty one-sided view in the US but I swear it gets worse. I've never been to China but the US was heavily involved in backing the Pinochet coup in Chile. Under the Pinochet dictatorship, they got the first privatized pension system in the world(see Jose Pinera at the Cato Institute, the brother of Sebastian Pinera who is running for President here again)and a school voucher system here.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000919/index.html