w*r on Democracy, The (2007)

[bunniefuu]

Guatemala is going to enter a new era

in which there will be

prosperity for the people,

together with liberty for the people,

The question is,

why are we supporting El Salvador?

No, the question was,

why are we k*lling priests in El Salvador?

The answer is, we're not,

Now, you be quiet,

President Christiani

is trying to do a job for democracy

and the left-wing guerrillas

must not take over El Salvador,

(George W Bush) America will not impose

our own style of government on the unwilling,

Our goal instead

is to help others to find their own voice,

attain their own freedom,

and make their own way,

This film is about the struggle of people

to free themselves

from a modern form of sl*very,

Richard Nixon,

president of the United States,

once said of Latin America,

"People don't give a sh*t about the place,"

He was wrong,

The grand design of the United States

as a modern empire

was drawn on the hopes

of an entire continent

known contemptuously

as "the back yard",

The extraordinary witnesses in this film

describe a world

not as American presidents like to see it,

as useful or expendable,

they describe

the power of courage and humanity

among people with next to nothing,

They reclaim noble words like democracy,

freedom, liberation, justice,

and in doing so, they're defending

the most basic human rights of all of us

in a w*r being waged against all of us,

This is Caracas, capital of Venezuela

one of the richest countries

in Latin America

thanks too huge deposits of oil

The rich in Venezuela

live in leafy suburbs

with names like Country Club

Their spiritual homes

are Miami and Washington

The majority

live in what are known as barrios

on hillsides in breeze-block houses

that defy gravity

In the past

these people had been invisible -

excluded from their own society

Today they display the confidence of those

who know an extraordinary change

has come too their lives

This is Hugo Chavez president of Venezuela

the voice of the barrios

Chavez and his supporters

have won ten elections in eight years

(Cheering)

He's the symbol of an awakening

of people power

driven by great popular movements

that are unique too Latin America

The days of the old bosses

and barons are over,

That false, elite democracy

is over in Venezuela,

It's no surprise that Chavez, with the help

of an aggressive media coverage

has become a hate figure

in the United States

because what he represents

is another way

and a thr*at too American domination

(# Rock music)

All right, now, Hugo Chavez,

the criminal - speaking of criminal -

government of Venezuela,,,

- The criminal?

- It's a criminal government,

My opinion and that of

a lot of people in our government,

Hugo Chavez represents an extreme thr*at

not only to our nation, but to our hemisphere,

- He should've been k*lled long ago,

- By whom?

- Anyone who blames other,,,

- By whom?

By anyone,

(Speaking Spanish)

You want a cup of coffee?

Yes, Yes,

That was one of my English lessons

in secondary school,

Do you want a cup of coffee?

Do you want a glass of milk?,

Do you want a glass of water?

English lesson one!

Let me ask about you,,,personally,

I mean, travelling with you

for the last couple of days,

I've seen a man

who's clearly deeply committed

to what you want for the Venezuelan people,

Could you describe where that came from?,

I was born in a very poor home,

a peasant home, so I experienced poverty,

I was a poor child, barefoot,

My father was a teacher

at a rural school, and my mother too,

I had a beautiful grandmother,

She was Indian, She filled me with love,

My grandmother taught me a lot,

and I learned from her

about solidarity with other people,

about sharing the bread

even when there's little to eat,

Later, I went into the army,

the m*llitary academy, and I became a soldier,

And there I found out about Bolivar

and started to realise what the truth was,

Simon Bolivar

is venerated in Latin America

as the liberator

from Spanish colonialism

Bolivar believed that freedom only came

when people united against all invaders

no matter their disguise

Today the people of Latin America

are again rising up

against an empire

built on an extreme form of capitalism

known as the Washington Consensus

Whole countries have been privatized

put up for sale

their natural wealth sold

too foreign companies. for peanuts

In Venezuela they said "No more"

This is La Vega

a barrio of a million people

(Speaking Spanish)

Mariela Machadoo

has lived here most of her life

(Speaking Spanish)

She knows what it's like

too be excluded in her own country

I can give you a very specific example

on the maps,

All these hills and houses did not figure -

they were shown as green spaces,

That was before Chavez's government,

Before Chavez,

we did not feel a part of this society,

This is called a mission

It's a kind of parallel government

designed too bypass

the old bureaucracy

and deliver real benefits

too ordinary people

This is raw democracy -

a triumph of the grass roots

Today they're discussing the dream

of owning their own homes for the first time

We don't want the deeds

just for their own sake,

More important

than the deeds themselves

is that we own the property

in order to develop our cities,

and obtain the rights

that have been denied us for so long,

This is the most important thing,

This is not a matter of getting the deeds

and saying, "I'm sorted now, I can go,"

and stop coming

to the parish assemblies,

because after the deeds,

there are better things to come,

Like the development of our barrios,

Soon after Chavez was elected in 1 999

Venezuelans voted on a constitution

and this little blue book

has become a bestseller ever since

This is one of a chain of supermarkets

set up in the barrios

funded by the proceeds of oil

Here prices are kept low

and on the back of every rice

and soap powder packet

are printed people 's rights

under the constitution

Does it really mean something to you

to see it there?

Of course, because I didn't know

we had rights like everyone else,

but this one, article 23,

tells us about national politics,

and this makes us feel included,

Democracy, as I said recently,

before our people,

as Lincoln said, has a simple definition -

the difficulty is making it a reality,

We are making it a reality -

government of the people,

by the people and for the people,

A society where people are included

and equal, where there is no exclusion,

there is no poverty,

where human values reign,

For some of his supporters

Chavez has not gone far enough

Familiar obstacles remain from the past -

a stifling bureaucracy

and widespread corruption

And although poverty has fallen dramatically

in recent years, it's far from eradicated

When you drive in

from the airport at Caracas,

the one thing that shocks a first-time visitor

are the barrios,

the numbers of poor people,

Why is it, in Venezuela, which earns

so many billions of dollars in oil money,

that there still is this poverty,

in spite of all the changes you've made?

The poor of Venezuela

carry on being poor, yes,

I always say that we don't want to be rich,

Our aim is not material wealth,

It is to live with dignity,

of course to come out of poverty,

and to come out of extreme poverty

above all,

And to live, to live with dignity,

this is the objective,

Not to become millionaires,

the American way of life, No, that is stupid,

I'm telling you this because the issue of poverty

affects us deeply,

It's most of our daily struggle,

The daily struggle is made easier here

Ten years ago

this clinic would not have been dreamed of

Now, all over Venezuela

ordinary people have free health care -

many seeing a doctor

for the first time in their lives

(Speaking Spanish)

For the first time, children of the poorest

have a full day at school

and at least one hot meal a day

They're learning history and music and dance

often for the first time, and all of this is free

Under the constitution the poorest housewives

are now paid as workers

(Speaking Spanish)

There is now close too full literacy

thanks too classes like this

catering too those like Mavis Mendez, aged 95

now reading and writing for the first time

This means an enormous amount to us,

The only thing I wish is that I was younger

so that I could keep learning more,

We never had a government

that looked after the poor before,

or taught us to read and write,

There was none of that before,

I think its never too late to better yourself,

(Barks)

This is East Caracas, home too some of

the wealthiest people on earth

and what they call here the middle class

I dropped in on John Vink

who agreed too show me around

his grand house

Wow, this is such a striking house,

- Thank you,

- My goodness,

- Thank you,

- Yes,

You've been here long, have you?

This is the family home?

My family home, We grew up here,

John Vink has travelled the world

collecting objects d'art

Have you collected all the silverware?

- The chandelier, is that,,,

- Yes, That one I brought from Spain,

Wow,

This is a collection of Delft Blue,

I have them over there so they don't break.

This is from Peru, this silver,

Mm,

- But you're thinking of leaving,

- Yes,

Why is that?

Well, the situation of the country,

It's getting day by day worse, so, um.,,

- In what way?

- In a political way,

We thought that this gentleman

that's now in power,

that he would change the whole situation,

- because it was a mess,

- Yeah,

But now it's a whole mess,

John Vink's view is echoed

by Venezuela's powerful media

Mostly privately owned, it combines banality

with hard-line anti-Chavez politics

Coming up, more dangers

in the latest official decisions,

Venezuela is moving towards

a very similar regime

to that which prevails in Cuba,

For the government, what 21st-century socialism

means is simple -

the total control of society by the state,

A number of journalists now say,

"Well, there is censorship,"

they have been censored,

How can that be?

They speak. out every morning,

They have their shows every day,

They speak. out constantly

against the government every day,

How can they say this?

I don't know if you have seen

the programs that they have,

Anybody that comes to Venezuela

and spends two days looking at these channels,

knows there is no censorship in Venezuela,

You just have to sit down

and see those opinion programs

between six and eight in the morning,

Hugo is evolving from a fascist to a n*zi,

What's the difference

between a n*zi and a fascist?

Basically, Nazis m*rder people,

I don't think in any part of the world

you hear the things that they say

about President Chavez, about his cabinet,

his ministers, the governors, the policies,

It's even obscene in some ways,

It seems to me

that everything, including the weather,

is being blamed on Mr. Chavez,

Nobody blames Mr. Chavez for the weather

because it's the only thing left which still works,

OK?, All the other things fell apart entirely,

We're talking here 1 91 4,

Bolshevik revolution, Russia -

this is what's taking place here,

- If you go out,,,

- Eh,,, Eh,,,

Wait a minute,

Look., we're sitting here in your

wonderful apartment,,,

- Thank you very much,

-,.overlooking Caracas,,,

In Venezuela they say "es su casa",

this is your home,

,,and you're comparing this

with the Bolshevik revolution -

there are no revolutionaries

banging on your door

and none of your companies

have been invaded,

Your good life hasn't really changed,

It hasn't changed, has it?

Yeah, but as I said before

it is now on a wait and see position,

If I had come today on a two-year contract,

as I did in 1 976,

I would fulfill my contract,

pack my luggage and go,

because I don't see any more future,

His critics accuse Chavez

of building another Cuba

of being another Castro

And although he recently announced temporary

presidential powers that bypass parliament

he maintains that his aim

is solely too speed up reform

The irony is that, unlike Cuba

capitalism has never had it better here

At the Caracas motor show

Ferraris and other luxury cars are sold

Smart restaurants and private golf courses

and weekends in Miami are booming

What this class has lost is political power

over a huge oil economy

I think Venezuela,

because it is an oil economy,

its middle and upper classes are very much,,,

biased towards the US

and the American way of life,

In a way, they think they are cosmopolitan,

They don't feel that they are from this country

or that country, they belong to the world,

They belong to this

kind of privileged people of the world,

- Miami?

- Miami, New York, Paris,

We adore Miami,

Miami is our second home,

We discovered Miami, because Miami

formerly was, you know, it was a village,

And we were so rich, you know,

we went to Miami and we bought houses,

apartments, bungalows, boats, cars -

everything we got in Miami,

We were the owners of Miami,

And so we are very US-minded,

In the old Venezuela the United States

played the part of a mafia godfather

The deal was simple -

for supplying endless cheap oil the

Venezuelan rich kept a large slice of the profits

The election of Hugo Chavez

ended the deal

Obviously Venezuela is important

because they're

the third-largest supplier of petroleum.

I would say that Mr. Chavez,

and the State Department may say this,

probably doesn't have the interests

of the United States at heart,

We have been concerned with some of the

actions of Venezuelan President Chavez

and his understanding of what

a democratic system is all about,

I assure you that we tried to avoid

the clash with the empire, but it was inevitable,

I went to the White House,

I shook hands with Clinton,

Even on the phone, "How are you, Mr. Clinton? "

"How are you Mr. Chavez? "

We were trying to do the impossible,

To have a revolution without crashing

against the empire - it's impossible,

In Washington and Miami

and the country clubs of Caracas

getting rid of Chavez became an obsession

In early 2002, secret plans were laid

by the Venezuelan opposition

with the media leading the att*ck

Do you think the president is mad?

It's time for all of us

to start discussing the transition

without Chavez, needless to say,

Anti-Chavez protesters took too the streets

their anger inflamed by the media

There has never been someone

so ugly and bad as this,

Hugo Satan Chavez is the Antichrist,

Is the demon, the devil, the dragon, Lucifer,

He should leave immediately,

The campaign too overthrow Chavez

came to a head on April 1 1th 2002,

An anti-Chavez protest march

was called in the centre of Caracas

Out! Out!

Chavez, the die has been cast,

What they didn't know

was that there were two marches that day -

the other one was led by Chavez supporters

outside the presidential palace

known as Mirafloores

The two rallies were supposed to be kept apart

but then an extraordinary series of events

unfolded

Without warning the opposition marchers

were redirected to the presidential palace

by one of the organizers

He announced that the march would be

diverting towards the Miraflores Palace,

People tried to stoop the march

from changing course

but the organizer was having none of it

He responded "I'm in charge here,

so you can mind your own business,"

"This has already been planned

and we are going to Miraflores,"

The opposition marchers were suddenly herded

towards government supporters

As they approached the palace

sh**t rang out

(g*nf*re)

They were being fired upon by sn*pers

who sh**t them one by one

many with a b*llet to the head

Soon afterwards these pictures

began appearing on anti-government TV

blaming the sh**ting on Chavez supporters

on a city bridge

They kept sh**ting -

aiming and unloading

their a*t*matic weapons,

This will go down in history,

Thank God there's this evidence,

They're sh**ting at the people

marching below,

This is an unspeakable act of savagery,

Is this what they call revolution?

However, as this camera angle reveals -

there were no opposition marchers

on the street below the bridge

What the TV pictures did not show was this -

the people on the bridge

are clearly trying too protect themselves

crouching down too avoid the b*ll*ts

of unknown sn*pers above them

and anti-Chavez police units below them

The people on the bridge

were actually defending themselves

It was like a w*r zone

that they had planned and were controlling,

Within hours these m*llitary chiefs

appeared on television

They too blamed Chavez

and his supporters for the killings

Venezuelans,

the President of the Republic

has betrayed the trust of his people,

He is massacring innocent people with sn*pers,

So far,,,

six people have been k*lled

and dozens wounded in Caracas,

This is intolerable,

We cannot accept a tyrant

in the Republic of Venezuela,

It was all a set-up

The CNN correspondent in Caracas

Otto Neustald, later revealed

that the generals had recorded their statement

before the sh**ting

On the evening of the 1 0th,

they phoned me and said,,,

"The march will go towards Miraflores Palace,

There will be deaths

"and 20 high-ranking officers will appear

speaking against the Chavez government,

"and demanding the president's resignation,"

This proves that they were talking about deaths

when there hadn't been a single death yet,

It was all planned,

Soon the presidential palace

was surrounded by renegade army officers

Inside, Hugo Chavez was delivered

an ultimatum - resign or be bombed

One of his cabinet ministers broke the news

It is finally clear this is a coup,

The president has refused to resign,

He is being taken prisoner, this is a coup,

Let the world know,

It's a coup,

A coup against the people who love him.

The plotters announced

that Chavez had resigned

He hadn't, He was kidnapped

The following morning

an unelected dictator was sworn in

He was a leading businessman

called Pedro Carmona

(Cheering and applause)

They were all celebrating,

I watched the whole programe

when they were on television,

You can't imagine how much I cried -

as if my children and my mother had d*ed,

and they are what I hold most sacred

in the world,

Just seeing how they said,

"A new dawn has risen in Venezuela,"

In one amazing proclamation

democracy was demolished piece by piece

We suspend the members

of the National Assembly,

(Cheering)

We suspend the president

and all the members of the supreme court,

(Cheering)

And also the Attorney General,,,

(Cheering)

,,and the head of the Central Bank.,,

(Cheering)

,,and the Ombudsman,,,

(Cheering)

,,and the members

of the National Electoral Board,

(Cheering)

(All) Democracy! Democracy!

You can't possibly imagine what that decree

did to us, It was such a terrible situation,

because we saw the past,

the repression coming back.-

the need to struggle for everything,

In the United States the broadcast media

carried the same pictures

and the same story used to justify the coup

The Bush administration made it clear

it is happy with the change in leadership

in the country responsible

for 1 5% of America's oil imports,

Anthony Mason has our report,

(Mason) In the end, this is what triggered

the overthrow of Hugo Chavez,

Armed gangs

loyal to the Venezuelan president,

f*ring on thousands

of anti-government protesters,

After 1 6 people were k*lled

and hundreds wounded,

Last night

soldiers surrounded the presidential palace,

At the White House the spokesman

of President Bush rubber-stamped the story

Let me share with you

the administration's thoughts

about what's taking place in Venezuela,

We know the action encouraged by

the Chavez government provoked this crisis,

The Chavez government

suppressed peaceful demonstrations,

fired on unarmed peaceful protesters,

resulting in ten k*lled and 1 00 wounded,

That is what took place and a transitional

civilian government has been installed,

Back in Venezuela three years of modest

democratic reform had been overturned

Fortunately, we have a great w*apon

which is the media,

As you and the people saw today,

neither the army nor the armed forces

fired a single sh*t,

Our w*apon was the media,

The plotters and their friends

had everything to celebrate

or so they thought

The next morning

distraught people began phoning

one of the independent radio stations

still broadcasting

(Woman) My soul aches for my son

and daughter and all the young ones

who will be adrift, at the mercy

of all these corrupt people

who have thrown this country into total chaos,

It's immoral,

(Man) The hope of a people is gone,

The constitution's gone,

Democracy's gone,

The hope of the children is gone,

But hope had not gone

The truth began to emerge

that the resignation of Hugo Chavez

had been faked

His wife Maria confirmed this

in a call to the radio station

He told me, "Let a handwriting expert

check that alleged signature -

"if it exists, because I never signed,"

And the people in the barrios

started to fight back.

Down from the shanties they came

too rescue their president

# The farther you take my rights away

#The faster l will run

(Chanting) Chavez, Chavez, Chavez,

# You can't deny me

# You can decide to turn your face away,,,

This is a dictatorship,

Chavez is the rightful president,

The people love him

and they will defend him.

# No matter,

cos there's something inside so strong

#I know that l can make it

# Though you're doing me wrong, so wrong

# You thought that my pride was gone

Oh, no!

#Theres something inside so strong...#

(Cheering)

Hundreds of thousands surrounded the palace

demanding the return of Chavez

Faced by such people power

the army turned

have re-sworn their pledge of allegiance

to the constitution

and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,

(Cheering)

Roared on by huge crowds

the presidential guard, whod gone into hiding

retook the palace

and the plotters fled

The young men, the m*llitary police who were

inside the palace, started to hoist the flag,

That made us feel stronger

as we realized that we were not alone,

We stayed there until we saw a helicopter -

it arrived in Miraflores at midnight,

Then we all knew Chavez was on board,

It was a glorious moment, seeing him arrive,

Just 48 hours after being kidnapped

Chavez was back in power

I think the supreme test

was the coup dtat of 2002,

I was made a prisoner, They took me away

and I thought I was going to die,

Now, the Venezuelan people,

the poor without weapons, went in,

Hundreds and thousands went onto the street

to ask for my life,

asking for Chavez to return,

And so, I have nothing left to do,

especially after that,

but dedicate all the life I have left

to those people,

and above all the most deprived,

the poorest,

As ordinary Venezuelans celebrated

the defense of their democracy

some of the leading plotters fled too Miami

and within days it was clear that Washington

had cast its shadow over the failed coup

The Bush administration had gone along

with the lies of the plotters

We know the action encouraged by

the Chavez government provoked this crisis,

As these CIA documents show

it was fully warned

and knew all about their conspiracy

Washington claims

that it warned Chavez about the coup

This is denied

by the Venezuelan government

Washington not only knew what was going on

it was backing and funding the coup indirectly

Documents recently released

show that the Bush administration

channeled millions of dollars

too the Venezuelan opposition

in the months leading up too the coup

The money was handed out

by its principal aid agency USAID

and an organization called

the National Endowment For Democracy

During the six-month period

prior to the coup in April 2002,

the US government invested more than

$2 million into financing these organisations

that they knew, at least six months before,

were planning to overthrow the government,

You're essentially saying

post hoc ergo propter hoc.

- Because,,,

- What was that again?

- Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

- I don't think our viewers will understand that,

Because,,, Just because it happened

after we provided support to these groups

doesn't mean it happened

because we supported these groups,

Of course,

- It is a logical fallacy,

- Right,

We,,, We would be very open and transparent

about what kind of support we provided

through the National Endowment

For Democracy and other institutions,

In fact

the National Endowment For Democracy

handed out money too groups

whose leaders were given cabinet positions

in the short-lived illegal regime

An official in Washington explained

that this was merely

"Part of President Bush's freedom agenda"

But I wanna just be very explicit about this

because there is,,, I think its very important,

in the interest of fairness,

to understand that the United States

did not support that coup,

President Bush

has promised to rid the world of evil

and to lead the great mission

to build free societies on every continent,

To understand such an epic lie

is to understand history -

hidden history, suppressed history,

history that explains why we in the West

know a lot about the crimes of others,

but almost nothing about our own,

The missing word is empire,

The existence of an American empire

is rarely acknowledged,

or it's smothered in displays of jingoism

that celebrate w*r

and an arrogance that says

no country has a right to go its own way,

unless that way coincides

with the interests of the United States,

For empires have nothing to do with freedom,

They're vicious, they're about conquest

and theft and control and secrets,

Since 1 945, the United States

has attempted to overthrow 50 governments,

many of them democracies,

In the process, 30 countries

have been att*cked and bombed,

causing the loss of countless lives,

In my lifetime the following countries

in Latin America

have been assaulted by the United States

directly and indirectly

their governments replaced by dictators

and other pro-Washington leaders

One of the first too be att*cked was Guatemala

one of the small countries of Central America

known dismissively as banana republics

(# Light orchestral theme)

(Male narrator) This is Guatemala City

as seen from the air,

People who live in the city dress very much like

the people in our own southern states,

There are many churches,

and people go to church regularly,

They speak. Spanish, of course,

as most of them are of Spanish descent,

In fact, most of the people of Guatemala

are not of Spanish descent -

they're indigenous Mayan people

and very poor

In the 1 950s

two per cent of the population of Guatemala

controlled the natural wealth

in collusion with giant US corporations

Like the United Fruit Company

which dominated banana growing

On the board of United Fruit

was John Foster Dulles

who happened to be US Secretary of State

His brother Alan happened too run the CIA

Booth were Christian fundamentalists

who regarded any opposition

as the work of communism and the devil

In 1 950, this man, Jacobo Arbenz

became the first Guatemalan leader

too be democratically elected

by a majority of his people

who saw in him the hope of social justice

He was the Hugo Chavez of his day

What was going on in Guatemala

is that there was a democratically elected

president in 1 950, Jacobo Arbenz,

who sought to institute a series

of New Deal style reforms

in which the state had a greater role

in both developing the economy

and redistributing wealth,

The centerpiece of that was a land reform,

Arbenz was far from radical

His land reform policies were modest

But Washington was having none of it

Howard Hunt was then working

for Alan Dulles's CIA

So they said, "A decision has been made

at the highest levels of our government

"to rid Guatemala of the Arbenz regime,

"and we would like you to participate in it,

"You'll be the chief of propaganda

and political action,"

In Guatemala, what the CIA did

was mobilize every facet of American power,

It didn't just isolate Guatemala militarily

and diplomatically,

but it used the techniques of social psychology

in a nearly year-long campaign

which created a sense of crisis in Guatemala,

What we wanted to do

was have a terror campaign,

uh, to terrify Arbenz particularly,

terrify his troops,

much as the German Stuka bombers

terrified the populations

of Holland, Belgium and Poland

at the onset of World w*r Two,

And that's what they did

so that the United States could control

the economy of Guatemala

destroying the dreams of its people

We sowed confusion through the countryside

and of course by this time

we had aircraft flying over dropping leaflets

and doing a little,,,harmless bombing,

A little harmless bombing and a CIA

terror campaign cost thousands of lives

Arbenz the democrat

now branded a communist

was humiliated, stripped naked and

photographed before being forced into exile

Richard Nixon

then Vice-President of the United States

flew in too congratulate the new dictators

(Nixon) Guatemala is going to enter a new era

in which there will be

prosperity for the people

together with liberty for the people,

General Rios Montt was too be

one of Washingtons faces of liberty

During his time as president in the 1 980s

thousands of people

were m*rder*d by death squads

most of them indigenous men

women and children

His g*ns and helicopters

came from the United States

President Reagan flew in

too warmly endorse the general

whom he described

as a man of great personal integrity

In the CIA, we didn't give a hoot

about democracy,

I mean, it was fine if a government was elected

and would cooperate with us,

but, if it didn't,

then democracy didn't mean a thing to us,

and I don't think it means a thing today,

The crushing of Guatemala

was Washingtons blueprint

Four years later

Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida

threw down the first direct challenge

ending Cuba's humiliation

as a North American colony -

a playpen for drug barons and the mafia

They now know that the Cuban revolution

knows how to fight and win battles,

Washington would never forgive Fidel Castro

Under the government aegis we had the,,,

,,taskforces

that were striking at Cuba constantly,

We were attempting to blow up power plants,

we were attempting to ruin sugar mills,

we were attempting to do all kinds of things

during this period,

This was a matter of American

government policy, This wasn't the CIA..

Cuba's achievements in health care

and education are widely respected

However, for not bowing

too the greatest power on earth

the Cuban revolution has paid a high price -

a 45-year economic w*r

waged by the United States

and the loss of vital democratic freedoms

How dare you, 90 miles from my country,

Last 45 years

with a different form of government,

How dare you haven't allowed

American corporations to buy you out,

How dare you continue this arrogance

that says you will never succumb to us,

Don't you know who we are?

Don't you know who these corporations are?

Don't you know your life would be better

if you could drink. Coca-Cola every day?

What justified the att*cks on Cuba

and other Latin American countries

was the so-called red menace

(Male narrator) We all know

the atomic b*mb is very dangerous,

Since it may be used against us,

we must get ready for it,

First, you duck and then you cover,

And very tightly you cover

the back of your neck and your face,

Propaganda like this

excused every American invasion

every toppling of a government

every assassination

every act of terrorism

The real thr*at was an orchestrated paranoia

in the United States

that became a super cult

called anti-communism

The true goal of the United States government

is control,

They feel that if the United States did not control

the governments of Latin America,

then somebody else would,

and the principle of government by the people,

for the people, of the people,

that is, uh, just,,, that's just silly,

This is Santiago the capital of Chile

In 1 973, the National Stadium

was turned into a concentration camp

as a m*llitary coup

backed by the United States

overthrew the democratically elected

government of Salvador Allende

The leader of the coup was a fascist

General Augusto Pinochet

who rounded up Allende's supporters

and brought them here

A young medical student, Roberto Navarrete

was one of them

These changing rooms were used as what

when you were imprisoned here?

They were used as places where people

were kept inside here, 50 or more,

You can see that there was actually

no room to move around here,

Even all these places

were full of people sleeping here

and there were no blankets or anything,

Even some people actually slept here,

There was very little room.

When they started to t*rture you all,,,

- Yeah,

-,what did they do to you then?

The techniques they used

were b*ating you,

especially in sort of places

where it could become very painful,

with a rubber truncheon,

Especially the genitals

and the soles of the feet,

and, you know,

the arms and various places,

Over 2,00000peoople were confined here

many of them never too be seen again

Victor Jara was Chile's greatest balladeer

His songs had celebrated

the popular democracy

of the government of Salvador Allende

He was taken to the stadium, where he was

a source of strength for his fellow prisoners

singing for them until soldiers b*at him

too the ground and smashed his hands

In his last poem smuggled out of the stadium

he wrote.

"What horror the face of fascism creates

"They carry out their plans

with Kn*fe-like precision

"For them, blood equals medals

"How hard it is too sing

"When I must sing of horror

"ln which silence and screams

"Are the end of my song"

After two days they k*lled him

How old were you?

I was 1 8,

- 1 8?

- Yeah,

The fear that you experienced then,

is that something that imprints itself

on the rest of your life?

Yes, but we felt it was part of,,,

what we were trying to build in this country,

What they were trying to build

was a just, equitable democracy

that took control of Chile's economy

from the United States and its proxies

For the invisible people of Latin America

Chile under Allende became an inspiration

In Washington, President Nixon

secretly plotted too destroy the Chilean economy

"We're gonna make the economy scream"

said Nixon

(Bang)

In Santiago

General Pinochet, America's man

sent in his British-made bombers

against the presidential palace

It was September 1 1th, 1 973-

a date that held an infamy and irony

(Bang)

My wife and our children were at the house

and they had a marvelous view

of these planes winging over

and then dipping down

and sending their bombs into the Moneda,

From inside the palace

Allende refused to leave -

true to his promise

not too surrender the government

for which the ordinary people of Chile

had voted

He broadcast this last message

then he sh**t himself

With General Pinochet in power

Washington again denied

it had destroyed another democracy

We had no contact with any of the people

that carried out the m*llitary coup

and therefore the coup

that overthrew Allende was done,,,

uh, without conduct,,, contact

with the United States,

A very different story is told

by these secret documents

In October 1 970,

the CIA cabled its man in Chile

"it is firm and continuing policy

that Allende be overthrown by a coup"

When that happened three years later

a US official cabled back to Washington

"Chile's coup dtat was close to perfect"

Fascism is a word that's often misused,,,

but you've experienced it, the real thing,

Yeah, I think so,

When,,, When did you realize

that you were,,,ensnarled by fascism?

When did it manifest itself?

I think it was evident from the very beginning,

Just the ferocity,

the sheer brute force that they used,

The disregard for any kind of human dignity,

I mean, their aim

was really to make you into a thing,

I think., in order to protect themselves

because if they made you into a thing,

then they didn't have to have

human feelings towards you,

They dehumanized you,

from the very beginning,

Once again, a Latin American elite

was delighted to be rescued by fascism

A country has to be well set,

has to be well run, well worked,

and see that everyone does the work.

cos if they don't,

then that country goes to the dogs,

This is the one man

that's been able to hold them.

I don't believe there's any torturing done

in this country,

Because, you understand one thing,

why t*rture somebody

when you can sh**t them?,

This is where they tortured and k*lled them

Villa Grimaldi was once a palatial home

in a suburb of Santiago

Under Pinochet, it became a place of horror

Today, it's a memorial to its many victims

Sara De Witt then a student activist

was a survivor

What was the date that you were arrested?

Do you remember?

Oh, yes, I was picked up on 3rd April, 1 975,

seven oclock.,. on the dot,

(Pilger) So, the junta had been in power

for about 1 8months?

Yes,

So when I realize, you know,

someone had put what

I imagine was a g*n in my back and saying,,,

and said to me, "Don't make any noise,

don't try to run, because we will sh**t you,

"You are coming with us,"

In a strange wooden tower like this

in spaces the size of a dogs kennel

people were tortured to death

(De Witt) They took me to this room, you know,

they were punching me, hitting me,

grabbing my nipples,

telling me that I was a whore,

So, they asked me to take off my clothes

and they tied,,,they tied me up,

And then they started giving me electricity,

Now, the electricity was all the time

inside my vag*na, in my breasts,

and then it was going round, you know,

round my body, my legs, my arms,

And when they did that, they would stop,

asking me questions, you know,

and then touching me everywhere

and shouting, abusing,

And then they would go -

they continue with electricity,

Duane Clarridge was head of the ClA's

Latin American division in the early 1 980s

Chile, the only reason it exists,

is because of Pinochet,

At a huge human price,

What human price? Gimme a break!

The thousands who were disappeared

and m*rder*d,

Thousands? You count 'em,

What thousands?

And don't talk to me

about Truth Commissions,

I've seen their names

in the cemetery in Santiago,

- You're saying they're fakes?

- There aren't thousands,

- Well,,,

- There aren't thousands, sir,

There are thousands, each name documented

by human rights organizations

some of them remembered here

on the memorial wall at Villa Grimaldi

(Pilger) You have a couple of friends there?

(De Witt) Yes, yes,

I have friends,

Mainly people from my training,

I got,,, There is a girl there, Jacqueline Rigi,

Another one Cecilia Larrain,

She was pregnant, Cecilia,

three months pregnant, when they took her,

They took another woman, Elizabeth Recas

who was seven months pregnant,

She went missing as well,

Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

No, because, erm.,, sometimes, you know,

I think about,,, what were they feeling,

you know, when they were being k*lled?

And why, you know, and whether they,,,

Sometimes, I think too much,

and I start feeling, you know, like the pain,

What do you feel when you are being k*lled?

And in such a way that I find it,,,

- Well, I find frightened, really,

- Yeah,

Because you wish, you know, that you

could have done something for them.

Such,,, The isolation, You must feel totally,,,

I don't know, I don't know, What do you think?,

- Alone,

- Very, very much alone,

It was a period in which almost everybody

in the present situation

regards as a dark time,

in which the CIA played a major role,

That's right, They played a major role

in overthrowing whatshisname,

Whatshisname was Salvador Allende,

- Yeah, fine,

- He was democratically elected,

Right, OK

Is that OK to overthrow

a democratically elected government?

It depends

what your national security interests are,

Are you denying that Pinochet

caused huge suffering in that country?

I don't,,, l,,, l,,, Huge, I don't buy,

That he committed crimes, I agree,

- But it's worth it? Is that what you're saying?

- Yes,

- Those crimes are worth it?

- Yeah,

Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be

changed in a rather ugly way,

By the late '70s, most of Latin America

was controlled by dictators

including those, like Pinochet

who are openly fascist

All of them were backed directly and indirectly

by the United States

They sent their henchmen too be trained here

at the School of the Americas in Georgia

Officially, it was described

as little more than a boy scout camp

teaching American values

such as respect for human rights

In fact, from these manuals were taught

interrogation and t*rture techniques

Major Joseph Blair taught at the School

of the Americas in the early 1 980s

The doctrine that was taught

was that if you want information,

you use physical abuse,

you use false imprisonment,

you use threats to family members,

you use virtually any method necessary

to get what you want,

- t*rture?

- And k*lling,

- k*lling?

- k*lling,

If there's someone you don't want,

you k*ll them.

If you can't get the information you want,

if you can't get that person to shut up

or stop what they're doing,

you simply assassinate 'em,

and you assassinate 'em

with one of your death squads,

(Rapid g*nf*re)

This is a death squad in action

in El Salvador

Actually, it's the national police

many of whom were trained

at the School of the Americas

Here on the steps of San Salvador cathedral

they're gunning down mourners attending

the funeral of Archbishop Romero

who was m*rder*d as he said Mass

on March 23rd, 1 980,

This man, Robert D'Aubuisson

gave the order to k*ll the archbishop

Major DAubuisson

was Washingtons dirty secret in El Salvador

He was trained

at the School of the Americas

According to the Truth Commission,,,

- Oh, please!

-,,and a whole swathe of,,,

Come on, John! If this is where we're going,

you're wasting my time,

That's all bullshit,

Those people all had agendas,

So, it was bullshit that the Salvadorian m*llitary

were murdering tens of thousands of people,,,

No, I bet you can't count more than 200

in the whole ten or twelve years,

We can count 200 in this one village alone

They were mostly women and children

systematically m*rder*d

in just one day and night in December 1 981

in the village of El Mozote

The K*llers belonged to a special battalion

of the El Salvador army

trained by the United States

There were few survivors

(Woman) I saw the women

clinging to each other,

crying and screaming at them not to k*ll them.

I fought for my children,

I didn't want to let them go,

I said I would die with them,

but they wrenched them from my arms,

We heard them k*lling the children,

They k*lled them at night,

You could hear their screams

for their mothers and fathers,

You're taking the stuff from these

propaganda mills, and I'm not interested,,,

What are the propaganda mills?

All this Truth thing and all of that -

they're nothing but propaganda mills,

- Do you really think..,,

- I know so, You,,,

Are they all conning us, lying to us -

Amnesty international?

Amnesty internationals right in the middle of it,

During the 1 980s

the years of Ronald Reagan in the White House

a trail of carnage and grief

was blazed across Central America

I reported America's w*r against Nicaragua

which had the temerity to overthrow

a Washington-backed dictator, Somoza

The CIA att*cked Nicaragua

with death squads known as the Contra

Why did Washington att*ck

such tiny countries?

Because the weaker they are

the greater the thr*at

People who can free themselves

against all the odds

are sure to inspire others

What right have you,

and I mean you, the CIA, the United States

government or any foreign power,

what right do you have

to do what you do in other countries?

National security interests,

But that's a divine right, isn't it?

Because the people that you do it to

have no say,

Well, that's just tough,

We're gonna protect ourselves

and we're gonna go on protecting ourselves,

cos we end up protecting all of you,

and let's not forget that,

Right, Right, no, I won't,

We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in

our national security interests to intervene,

and if you don't like it, lump it,

Get used to it, world -

we're not gonna put up with nonsense,

If our interests are threatened,

we're gonna do it,

In Guatemala the United Nations described

the Washington-backed campaign

against the Mayan people as genocide

An American Roman-Catholic nun

Sister Dianna Ortiz

experienced this at first hand

as a missionary

In 1 989, after speaking out about the

brutal treatment of the indigenous people

she was kidnapped

In,,,1 989, November 2nd,

I,,,

OK.

I was,,,

,,abducted and,,,

,,l was put in a police car,,,

,,blindfolded and taken to a m*llitary installation

in Guatemala City

known as the Politecnica,

which still exists today,

I was,,,

,,taken to a basement, and,,,

I still remember to this day,,,

,,upon entering the building,

the clandestine prison,,,

,,hearing the screams

of people being tortured,

Can we stop?

For 24 hours, she was tortured

and g*ng-r*ped

During her ordeal

she identified the leader of the g*ng

as a fellow citizen of the United States

I came out a totally, um.,,

,,different person,,,

,,but also with new eyes,,,

and,,,more attuned to the hurting,

the brokenness,

the oppression, the deceit

of my government,

I've heard people say that what happened

in Abu Ghraib is an isolated incident,

and I have to just shake my head and say,

"Are we on the same planet? "

You know, "Aren't you aware of our history? "

You know, "isnt history taught in the classroom,

"about the role of the US government

in human rights violations? "

By the late 1 980s

Washingtons policy changed

Dictators like Pinochet are seen as

an unnecessary embarrassment

A new and innovative way

of controlling nations was launched

Good morning and welcome,

It's good to have you all here to help celebrate

the launching of a programe

with a vision and a noble purpose,

The National Endowment For Democracy is,

just as we've been told, more than bipartisan,

The establishment of the national endowment

goes right to the heart of America's faith

in democratic ideals and institutions,

It offers hope to people everywhere,

Like any new brand, it had a snappy name -

democracy

It was largely fake

an illusion of marketing and spin

This brand of democracy meant

that whoever you voted for

the policies would be broadly the same

and your countrys economy would be in step

with the United States

Washington would be your closest friend.

or else

In the 1 990s these democracies in name

replaced dictatorships in Latin America

with Chile providing the model

This is the commercial centre

of Santiago, Chile

On the surface today

everything seems normal, modern prosperous

Too the Bush administration

Chile is the very model of economic success

"a laboratory experiment"

according to the magazine Business Week.

Much of life has been privatized

There are now billionaires

and the rich are getting richer

Pinochet fixed the country,

- Who says?

- He,,, Oh!

- The United States says?

- No!

The World Bank says,

The lnter-American bank says,

Everybody says it,

He brought about an economic miracle

in Chile,

I'm not saying he had the brains for it,

but he had the brains to hire all these people,

Chileans, who had studied

at the University of Chicago,

who knew something about real economics,

Real economics

were advocated by Milton Friedman

an extreme right-wing economist

at the University of Chicago

Friedman was invited too perform

his "laboratory experiment"

on the economic life of Chile

The families of the tortured and disappeared

were silent witnesses

Without irony, he called his experiment

"shock treatment"

Please be seated,

Thank you all very much, It's, uh,,,

an honor for me to be here to, um.,,

pay tribute to a hero of freedom -

Milton Friedman,

He has used a brilliant mind

to advance a moral vision,

We have seen Milton Friedman's ideas

at work in Chile,

where a group of economists called the

Chicago Boys brought inflation under control

and laid the groundwork

for economic success,

This is the other side

of the economic miracle

Chile today is a deeply unequal society

This shanty town

is just minutes from Santiagos smart hotels

There are so many unemployed,

There are thousands of unemployed,

And those who work,

their money isn't enough,

So how can they pay for electricity?

How can they pay for water?

They have to buy gas -

everything must be paid for,

Every day a mother asks,

"How am l going to feed the children? "

How can I afford it?

We found this couple

living and freezing in the shanty town

They're homeless

and have a week-old baby

(Woman) What's it like

to live in these conditions?

The cold at night is hardest for the baby,

Do many people live like this in Chile?

There are plenty, and worse off than we are,

They don't get any help from anyone,

Where will you go?

Back to the streets,

We've slept rough before,

Abroad, in Europe and the USA, it's said that

life in Chile is rich and comfortable - is that so?

It's true for the well off, but not for us,

Chile is a democracy now, in theory

A complicated voting system splits the vote

and discourages real reform

It's a product of General Pinochet

based on a constitution

that's also a product of Pinochet

The general may be dead

but the power of the m*llitary remains

It's all very modern the media is safe

and many believe it's wise to be silent

Like the graves of their forgotten compatriots

It's Washingtons ideal democracy

The dictatorship was a great success in Chile

in that it established

the political, economic and social model

that prevails to this day,

Basically, the constitution imposed in 1 980

has not been changed,

We don't belong to a democracy

because that word has been so badly used,

It's not understood,

Here there is a persecution against the poor,

and not just in Chile,

but this is happening all over Latin America,

I think. educated people realize

that this is reaching a breaking point,

I believe the people will wake up

and say, "That's enough,"

This is Bolivia

another laboratory experiment

The majority of the population of this spectacular

brutalized country high in the Andes

have also been invisible until recently

The indigenous people

the Aymara and Quechua

carry memories of a culture

and civilization and wealth

Iong before the Spanish arrived

They remember how a single hill of silver

underwrote the entire Spanish empire

while they became the poorest

This is the National Congress of Bolivia,

Until recently,

the faces here were almost all white,

the descendants of a tiny Spanish elite

which plundered the nation's riches

and reduced the indigenous majority

to serfdom.

It was a pattern of control

repeated all over Latin America,

The pattern has been broken in Bolivia

with the rise of social justice movements

of a kind never seen before,

and whose democratic home

is not Westminster or Washington,

or any other so-called model,

but in the streets, the minds,

the barrios, the fields,

Governments that defy this popular power,

this true democracy,

do so at their own peril,

This is El Alto the highest city on earth

and perhaps the poorest

The occupants of this cemetery

on the roof of the world are mainly children

Protected they say

by the sacred mountain, Illimani

El Alto overlooks Bolivia 's capital La Paz

Juan Delfin, a priest and a taxi driver

has lived here for most of his life

This is Villa lngenio,

It's the cemetery of northern El Alto,

There is a sorrowful bitterness here,

Our brothers, our children,

our grandparents

are dead and buried here,

There was one family

that poisoned themselves,

the whole family,

because of lack of work and lack of money,

First the husband poisoned his wife

and children, and then he poisoned himself,

We have seen cases like this,

(Car horns)

When I first came too Bolivia in the 1 960s

El Alto barely existed

The million people living here

are peasants run off their land

and miners made redundant by policies

similar to those imposed in Chile

Infrastructure that didn't make a quick buck

was privatized

The message was clear -

sell it, strip it or scrap it

The indigenous people were scrapped

(Juan Delfin) We wonder why,

If I am Bolivian, born rich,

why am l begging?

We had the sea, silver and gold,

We had everything, Why are we still suffering?

And yet the people here have held together

their sense of identity their community

(Singing)

In the year 200000, the people

of Bolivias second city Cochabamba

fought an epic struggle to win back

their most basic resource, water

from a foreign consortium dominated

by the American corporation Bechtel

and they won

Three years later, in 20003,

Bolivia 's power brokers

were about to get another shock.

This is Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada

Known as Goni

he was brought up in Washington

His English is better than his Spanish

They knew him here as El Gringo

I saw him as a fat man

sitting on a golden chair,

Arrogant,

Perhaps he was arrogant because of

the power he had, which was his wealth,

When Goni was elected president of Bolivia

in 20003,

he backed a law that amounted too

a fire sale of the countrys resources

Almost everything was up for grabs

including Latin America's

second-biggest gas reserves

We know we have gas

and it's being sold abroad to the almighty US,

yet still I use wood for cooking,

This is why the w*r starts,

We will block, strike and demonstrate

until we get a response,

The people of El Alto fought back.

blocking the roads leading into La Paz

(Atencio) There were calls to start blockades,

Not even a fly would move,

We stopped traffic and so on, but it gradually,,,

What's the word?

It gradually intensified,

Gooni's response

was the traditional Latin American way

He sent in the army too crush dissent

(Shouting)

(Screaming)

Scores were sh**t dead

(g*nf*re)

Many were brought too Juan Delfin's church

The tables were here,

The bodies were here,

They removed the b*ll*ts with nails even,

It was sad to see this,

The place was full, There were doctors

everywhere, The smell of death was intense,

All the orphans were crying and shouting,

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!

Tens of thousands of people

poured down into La Paz

Like the people of Venezuela's barrios

demanding the return of their president

they demanded their country back.

If the rich and powerful of Latin America

had a nightmare

this was it

Suddenly we heard

that Goni was about to resign,

With one down, we felt inspired,

It gave us strength,

That was the aim. To make him resign,

Goni fled to the United States

and is today living in a smart suburb

of Washington

In October 20004

the Bolivian Congress ordered his arrest

on charges of bloody m*ssacre

George Bush has said

"Governments that harbour t*rrorists

"are as guilty as they are"

(Speaking Spanish)

This extraordinary mural

was painted by Juan Delfin

It's a cry of freedom

from an entire continent

They k*lled us all, but we defend

the Aymara people with the pututo horn,

with our voice, with our fist, with the flag,

We wave the Whipala

against the United States,

This is the United States flag,

We are against this,

because they have put us

in the situation we are in,

The fist is very important,

That's how we are,

That's us,

In 20005 the people of Bolivia

took an historic step

For the first time ever, an indigenous person

was voted president in a landslide

Like Chavez in Venezuela

Evo Morales offered

a new democracy and a new beginning

We ask. everyone to start working,

The party is over,

The honeymoon is over,

And it's over forever, for a new Bolivia!

There is no doubt that it is growing,

It is propagating itself,

over the whole continent of Latin America,

of the Caribbean too,

but mainly in South America,

I go around Latin America

and to Montevideo, La Paz,

There is a fervor sparking off everywhere,

There is a fervor,

In Latin America there's now a host of leaders

offering new beginnings

Of course, history is crowded with heroes

who offer new beginnings

The respectability of great power and its games

and deals and plunder always beckon

If these new leaders succumb their biggest

thr*at may not be from Washington

but from the people on the hillsides

# I was born by the river

#In a little tent

#Oh, and just like the river

#I been running ever since

#Its been along

#A long time coming

# But I know a change gonna come

#Oh, yes, it will

#It's been too hard living

#But I'm afraid to die

# Cos I don't know what's up there

# Beyond the sky

#It's been a long

#A long time coming

#But l know

# A change gonna come

#Oh, yes, it will...

The future is for my children,

for our young people,

This isn't just Chavez's struggle,

it's our struggle,

What Chavez has unleashed

is a recognition of this struggle,

and we are in it together

and we'll carry on fighting,

So the empire's struggle isn't with Chavez,

it's with us,

The great awakening has arrived,

And I think Victor Hugo, let's end with him.

I'm with him on this,

Victor Hugo wrote this - "There is nothing

so powerful as an idea whose time has come,"

The American empire has reached its end

and the world must now be governed by

the rule of law, of equality, justice and fraternity,

Muchas gracias, John,

I want to see you again,

What happened here

at the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile,

has a special place in the struggle

for freedom and democracy

throughout Latin America and the world,

The vow is - never again,

And yet it has happened again

at Guantanamo Bay

and all the other secret places

where imperial power,

regardless of its democratic pretensions,

hides and tortures its perceived enemies,

The questions raised in this film are urgent,

Are the lives and dreams

of the ordinary people of Chile,

Like the people of Venezuela,

Like the people of Bolivia,

Like the people of Nicaragua,

Like the people of Vietnam,

and lraq, and lran, and Palestine,

expendable - worth only a few seconds

on the news if they're lucky?

The answer is no,

and those who see the world

through the eyes of the powerful,

should be warned,

People are rising

from the tyranny and oblivion

to which we in the West

have consigned them.

Indeed, their resistance is well under way

as this film has shown,

I would say it never stopped

and is unbeatable,

#I go to the movie

# And I go downtown

# Somebody keep telling me

don't hang around

#Its been a long

#A long time coming

# But I know a change gonna come

#Oh, yes, it will

#Then I go to my brother

# And I say, "Brother, help me, please"

# But he winds up

#Knocking me

# Back. down on my knees

#Ohhh

# There been times that I thought

I couldn't last for long

# But now I think. I'm able to carry on

#Its been a long

#Along time coming

#But l know

# A change gonna come

# Oh, yes, it will #