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Protests Against The Chilean Boat Esmeralda In Quebec
By Nicolas Phebus
SOURCE: ProtestNet http://www.protest.net/view.cgi?view=1894
DATE: August 4, 2000
These days, there are always many tourists in the port of Quebec who come
here from everywhere. Normally from July 30 to August 3, there is the
launching of the famous Québec/Saint-Malo pageant, a race of sailing ships.
This Sunday morning (July 30, 2000) however, the specter of social protest
came to haunt the port when a group of protesters came to protest the
presence of the Esmeralda, that splendid sailing boat known as "The White
Lady," a boat that--for a number of Chilean exiles--is irredemiably
associated with the darkest hours of Auguste Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile.
Indeed, in September 1973, when the coup d'etat that reversed the social
democratic government of Salvadore Allende--the democratically elected
president of Chile three years earlier (in 1970)--the Chilean Navy began an
attack against Allende's socialist government at the port of Valparaiso,
which is also the home port of the Esmeralda. Consequently, this "pride of
the Chilean Navy" became a floating hell--became at the same time a prison
and a space of torture.
This was confirmed by many leftist reports, by the Inter-American Human
Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS), and by the
National Chilean "Truth and Reconciliation" Commission.
All these reports confirmed that Pinochet tortured at least 3000 people on
the The Esmeralda. It was also confirmed that that a group of special
Chilean naval officers installed an "Interrogation Center" on the boat and
tortured people there with electrical currents ran through water. Several
militants died on the boat while being tortured.
Several testimonies attest to these events, like that of a Chilean lawyer
exiled in Montreal. And yet as the Esmeralda has traveled all over the
world during and after the dictatorship, the Chilean Navy has
categorically denied any responsibility for Esmeralda's bloody history.
This was why there were 60 protesters against the boat in Halifax, which is
where Esmeralda began is Canadian voyage. Later when the boat got to
Qeubec, many more portesters, double the number in Halifax and coming from
Quebec, came to the port inform the public of the boat's history.
The Federal Government of Canada had invited the boat to Canada. Four human
rights organizations--one called Amnesia International [trans note: the
French Amnésie internationale is a play on "Amnesty International"] was the
main local organizer of the protests.
About 50 protesters {not bad for a Sunday morning) looked like a crowd of
amnesiacs. About a dozen Chilean punks, a few militants from Amnesty
International, and sevaral leftists showed up.
Fortunately, another hundred more protesters showed up on this beautiful
Sunday morning at this tiny provincial capital of Quebec where nothing ever
happens. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the oppressive
condition of oppressed minorities have not improved.
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