NOT JUST CAR DRIVERS

UK Finds Distracted Officer Chatting Online Caused Collision Killing Two

Scot Carrier is standing off in the background after returning to the scene of the collision (photo courtesy of Sjöräddningssällskapet)

PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2023 4:27 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The UK Marine Investigation Branch released its Accident Report on the December 2021 fatal collision between a UK-registered cargo ship and a small Danish hopper barge off Sweden that resulted in the death of the crew of the Danish vessel. The report is the latest instance of a distracted crewmember using a personal electronic device causing an accident while it also finds that alcohol could have influenced decisions and neither vessel was following international standards and requirements for nighttime lookouts.

The collision happened at 0327 on December 13, 2021, in the traffic separation lanes between Sweden and Denmark. The Scotline vessel Scot Carrier (4,789 dwt) was sailing between Latvia and Scotland with a crew of eight and transporting a load of timber. Traveling in the same direction in the lanes was the Karin Høj, a small (492 dwt) hopper barge with silt and water as ballast and a crew of just two people. Its minimum safe manning was four. 

Using data from the Scot Carrier, which was fitted with a voyage data recorder, the MAIB reconstructed the events noting it was focused on safety and not legal prosecution, which was undertaken separately in Denmark. The smaller vessel did not have a data recorder so they had to rely on AIS data, coastguard surveillance, radio communications, and the subsequent search and rescue and survey of the ship.

The second officer of the Scot Carrier was on the watch having assumed it from the master at 23:00. The vessel’s chief officer had been removed from his watch because the master believed he smelled alcohol on the CO’s breath during a dinner break. 

The Scot Carrier was traveling at approximately 12 knots and they reported the weather conditions and visibility were good. The second officer was alone on the bridge and the vessel was on autopilot so he sporadically watched a video, listened to music, and around 0148 started using his tablet computer entered a chat site, and randomly chatted with strangers. He at times turned on the lights on the bridge or outside to show the people he was chatting with his situation, before around 0200 altering course at the predetermined waypoint. He went back to chatting with several random individuals on the site.

At approximately 0300 the Scot Carrier’s AIS system identified the Karin Høj as a dangerous target. The larger ship had been overtaking the smaller ship for some time, but the alarms on the navigation systems were turned off on the Scot Carrier. At 0322, while chatting the second officer again made a pre-determined course change and this time the MAIB believes he did not check his surroundings. About four minutes later he is heard exclaiming “Wait, Wait, Wait,” as he pulls back the main engine propeller pitch control, switches on a second steering motor, and disengages autopilot. He then puts the ship into full astern. Less than a minute later, the Scot Carrier collided with the port side of the Karin Høj at a speed of 8.7 knots, and the smaller ship rolled and capsized. The captain of the Danish ship was later found near his cabin raising the belief that he had begun to respond to the collision and the body of the mate who should have been on the bridge was never found.

On the Scot Carrier, the second officer is heard exclaiming “Oh, my god!” and is reported to be pacing. Instead of stopping, he steers the ship and ultimately goes back on course. When an engine alarm sounds, he denies anything is wrong and it is only 17 minutes after the collision that the master is alerted. That is only after the Swedish Coastguard contacted the ship and began questioning its actions. The Scot Carrier does return to the scene of the collision and is later ordered into port in Sweden.
The UK investigation finds a litany of issues beyond the distraction. The second officer had consumed several beers at dinner and later blood tests showed he was most certainly over the legal limit but had not displayed any outward signs during the handover from the master. The Scot Carrier did not have a lookout as required by law and company policy during hours of darkness. 

It is harder for the MAIB to make definitive comments on the Karin Høj because of the lack of data or survivors. However, they point out the ship had initially sailed with three crewmembers, but the Able Seman had disembarked the day before the collision to join another company ship. The vessel also did not have a nighttime watch on the bridge and appears to have been on autopilot. They believe the officer on the bridge while aware they were being overtaken did not see the danger but he may have reacted moments before the contact.

The Courts of Denmark convicted the Scot Carrier’s second officer of manslaughter and maritime drunkenness. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment.

The MAIB lists a series of recommendations in the report, starting with the unmet requirement for lookouts during hours of darkness. They also cite Scotline for the alarms being turned off and the violation of the alcohol policy in two unrelated incidents on the same day, i.e. the chief officer and the second officer. The report finds while he was not incapacitated, the second officer’s actions were likely influenced by his alcohol consumption. The report also cites the falsification of hours and rest records on the ship.

The operator of the Karin Høj has reiterated rules and the safe manning standards to its masters. Intrada Ship Management which was managing the Scot Carrier issued reminders on rules including the use of personal electronics, amended rules on lookouts, started comprehensive audits on navigational practices, and increased random drug and alcohol screening.

 

Maersk Gets Short-Term Green Methanol Supply from Equinor for Feeder Ship

Maesk's feeder ship fueled at several ports including Singapore and at the Suez Canal before arriving in Europe (MPA Singapore)

PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2023 8:29 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Maersk has secured a short-term supply of green methanol to help the company launch its new feeder ship which is also seen as a demonstrator for the future of net zero operations for the company and the shipping industry. Ever since Maersk ordered the first of its dual-fuel methanol containerships, the company has said the challenge would be building the infrastructure and supply of clean fuels for the ships.

Under the terms of the agreement with Equinor, which has established methanol production at its Tjeldbergodden plant in Norway will be supplying green methanol that meets Maersk’s goals of low lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of 65 to 80 reductions compared to fossil fuels or very low emissions which will be between an 80 and 95 percent reduction to fossil fuel. Equinor regards the agreement as a step in its ambitions to be a key provider of green methanol in the marine fuel segment.

The new 2,100 TEU feeder ship is the first containership to be built with dual-fuel engines to operate with methanol as its primary fuel. It was built in South Korea and recently completed a more than 11,000 nautical mile trip to Rotterdam using green fuel. After its official naming ceremony and events to mark the beginning of the new era in container shipping, the vessel will enter service on Maersk’s Northern Europe loop into the Baltic Sea. 

The agreement with Equinor will provide bio-methanol produced from biogas from manure, which will be bunkered in Rotterdam. According to the company, the biogas is upgraded to bio-methane and injected into the existing gas grid. The methanol is produced from the bio-methane in the grid on a mass-balance basis. The green methanol is produced in existing infrastructure and plants, using the existing European biogas certificate system, enabling a quick route to market. 

The green fuel will be used during the feeder ship’s initial months of operation from September 2023 and into the first half of 2024. Long term, the vessel will be fueled by e-methanol from a plant in Southern Denmark, operated by European Energy, which is expected to come on-stream in the first half of 2024. 

The company aims to have a quarter of its ocean operations using green fuels by 2030. The feeder ship will provide a learning platform for the operations and operational training for future crews. Maersk has 24 additional methanol vessels on order for delivery between 2024 and 2027 and has a policy to only order new, owned vessels with a green fuel capability.

In the upcoming events next week in Copenhagen, Maersk will be highlighting its ambition to reach a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. The company is working to support the growth of the e-methanol supply and infrastructure with broad partnerships and investments in an emerging global network. 

 

Salvage Completed on Fire-Damaged Car Carrier Fremantle Highway

The salvage was completed removing all of the possible car and debris from the fire-damaged ship (Netherlands Ministry of Defense)

PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2023 6:32 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The salvage operation to remove cars and debris from the fire-damaged car carrier Fremantle Highway has been completed. It is thought that as many as 1,000 vehicles may have been removed mostly from the lower decks of the ship and many appeared undamaged while others were burnt and at least one caught fire on the dock.

“We have returned the ship to the owner,” a spokesperson for Boskalis which was leading the salvage operation with Multraship told Dutch media today. The salvage companies reported that the operation went mostly without incident and that they had done as much as possible.

Boskalis acknowledged that at least one car thought to be electric caught fire while it was being removed from the ship. Images appeared on Dutch TV of a Mercedes-Benz, likely an EQE Sedan or EQS (they look the same at a distance) being hoisted off the ship. While it looks fine it is lowered into a steel bin and firefighters can be seen spraying water into the bin and steam rises. They then cover the bin with a tarp to cut off oxygen to the fire – a standard method accepted for fighting battery fires on EVs.

 

TV images showing one of the smoldering cars placed into the bin

 

A Boskalis spokesperson told the Dutch media the company had been prepared for all the risks including the possibility of some of the cars starting to burn. Experts are saying the batteries were likely overheated and removing the cars from the enclosed spaces permitted them to overheat and start burning.

During the salvage operation, all the cars were washed to remove any chemicals or residue from the fire before they came off the ship. TV images showed apparently undamaged gasoline-powered cars or possibly hybrids being driven off the ship through a side ramp. Others damaged in the fire or possibly the EVs were being hoisted off by crane. The cars were being placed in a secure lot on the dock for insurers to determine their fate while the wash water was contained on the ship for proper disposal.

While the fire is still officially listed as under investigation, the trade Automobilwoche contends the preliminary survey and report say apparently the fire was not caused by electric cars. The manifest showed there were 498 electric vehicles and hybrids and a total of 3,784 vehicles including some heavy equipment in addition to cars.

The trades are reporting from the images and information they can glean that the largest number were from BMW, which may have had more than 1,000 vehicles abroad. Cars being transported to the destination which was Singapore included MINIs, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, and maybe a small number from the Volkswagen group. The lower decks were less impacted, while cars on the upper decks were reportedly heavily charred and many melted into the decks. Portions of the decks are reported to have been weakened in the fire to make them unsafe for access now.

It is unclear what the vessel’s owners, Shoei Kisen Kaisha and charterer K Line plan for the ship. The Dutch media reports the ship is expected to remain for the next few weeks in the ports of Eemshaven, but port executives are saying it must leave by October 14. The berth where she is sitting reportedly has been promised to a cruise ship, likely the Carnival Jubilee, which is due to make the conveyance from Meyer Werft in Papenburg and will be completed before handover to Carnival Cruise Line. 

 

 

 

Commercial Ships Carrying Grain are Getting Air Support from UK's RAF

UK says its air force is deterring Russian actions toward commercial ships carrying grain (file photo)

PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2023 1:47 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak revealed today that the UK is undertaking efforts to support commercial shipping in the Black Sea transporting grain from Ukraine and deterring Russian attacks on cargo ships. This comes as Russia has continued its nightly attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube seaports despite continuing calls to resume the grain agreement.

On the eve of the G20 Summit starting in India, the prime minister’s office announced a series of new initiatives by the UK designed to promote global food security and respond to “Putin’s weaponization of Ukrainian grain.” The UK blames a spike in global food prices on Russia’s actions highlighting that since “Putin’s decision to rip up the initiative,” Russia has declared that all ships transiting to Ukrainian Black Sea ports are treated as military vessels irrespective of the cargo they are carrying.

In response, the UK said as part of its surveillance operations, “the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft are conducting flights over the area to deter Russia from carrying out illegal strikes against civilian vessels transporting grain.” The UK notes that Russia however did fire shots and board one cargo ship bound for one of Ukraine’s Danube ports, “Actions which may constitute a violation of International Humanitarian Law,” they said in their statement.

Since July, the UK assesses that Russia has also damaged or destroyed at least 26 civilian port facilities, warehouses, silos and grain elevators. These attacks they believe have directly reduced Ukraine’s export capacity by one-third and destroyed enough grain to feed more than one million people for an entire year.

Ukrainian officials highlight that the attacks are continuing with reports that 14 drones were destroyed over the Odesa region, including the Danube ports, on Thursday night. The Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council told the BBC that more than 270,000 tonnes of grain have been destroyed during the recent attacks. The attack on Wednesday night into Thursday morning lasted three hours with additional damage to grain silos and conveyors. 

Before the war, the UK reports Ukraine was the world’s fifth largest wheat exporter, fourth largest corn exporter, and third largest rapeseed exporter. Grain accounted for 41 percent of Ukrainian export revenue, and almost two-thirds of the grain exported by the country goes to the developing world, said Sunak.

“We will use our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to monitor Russian activity in the Black Sea, call out Russia if we see warning signs that they are preparing attacks on civilian shipping or infrastructure in the Black Sea, and attribute attacks to prevent false flag claims that seek to deflect blame from Russia,” Sunak said outlining the UK efforts.

In November, the UK supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, will convene an international food security summit. The focus will be on tackling the causes of food insecurity and malnutrition. In addition, the UK will contribute £3 million to the World Food Program.

These efforts came as Ukraine reported it is expanding grain exports from the ports in neighboring Romania and now Croatia. Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister admitted that Croatian ports are a “niche trade route,” but said it is popular and they look to increase exports along this route. Romanian previously said it was expanding access from the Danube to its seaport of Constanta. This is happening as Russia has not shown any willingness to restart the Black Sea grain agreements.
 

 

Barclays to cut hundreds of jobs across trading, investment bank

Jan-Henrik Förster, Harry Wilson and Irina Anghel, Bloomberg News

C.S. Venkatakrishnan , Photographer: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg

Barclays Plc is preparing to cut hundreds of jobs as soon as next week as the firm looks to trim costs amid quieter markets.

The lender is planning to dismiss about 5 per cent of client-facing staff in the trading division as well as some dealmakers globally as part of the cuts, according to people familiar with the matter. Separately, the firm is also preparing to restructure teams within its U.K. consumer-banking unit, the people said, asking not to be named discussing personnel information.

“We do not comment on speculation,” Barclays said in a statement. “We regularly review our operations to ensure we meet the evolving needs of our customers and clients in an efficient and effective way.”

Barclays Chief Executive Officer C.S. Venkatakrishnan has been under pressure to boost profits and improve the bank’s share price. As part of that, he’s vowed to reduce expenses across the firm and embarked on a wide-reaching review of strategy.

The moves are part of the bank’s annual culling of underperformers in its markets division and corporate and investment bank, the people said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is also planning to begin those annual cuts as soon as next month.

Barclays and its rivals have been contending with a slowdown in trading revenue compared to a year ago, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine juiced volatility across markets.

Despite the impending cuts, the bank has hired more than five dozen managing directors and directors for the markets division since the start of the year, including Scott McDavid, who joined as global head of equities, and Igor Cashyn, who’s the bank’s head of US inflation trading. Torsten Schoeneborn, co-head of Group of 10 foreign-exchange trading, also joined from BNP Paribas SA.

Barclays is reeling from higher-than-usual attrition among dealmakers, which Venkatakrishnan has attributed to the firm naming two new global co-heads of the business. In response, the company has hired more than 30 managing directors and directors across the banking division.

“When you do that kind of organizational change, sometimes it has impacts,” Venkatakrishnan said in a Bloomberg Television interview in June. “We’re losing a few investment bankers, but not that much more than what is normal annual turnover.”

Still, the planned dismissals come in the midst of a prolonged dip in deals and capital markets. Barclays and rivals have been hit by the slowdown following aggressive interest-rate increases by central banks around the world seeking to tame inflation.

In response, the company earlier this year already cut about 100 roles in its investment-banking group. The London-based bank previously eliminated about 200 jobs in the division in November.

U.K. banking changes

Venkatakrishnan has been vocal about his desire to make Barclays more efficient, and the firm is seeking to lower its cost-to-income ratio, a measure of how much it costs to produce a dollar of revenue. As a result, the company already spent about £63 million (US$78 million) in firmwide restructuring and redundancy costs in the first six months of the year.

“We have also continued to exercise cost discipline against this backdrop by capturing efficiency savings to manage inflation, and by being thoughtful and careful about how we invest in our businesses,” Venkatakrishnan told investors in July.

Barclays has begun discussions with the U.K. union Unite as it seeks to streamline operations in its U.K. banking unit, the people said. Those changes will likely result in some roles being eliminated, though employees may be offered roles elsewhere in the company, they said.

The firm’s U.K. division is home to a mortgage business as well as personal and business banking. 

“We are focused on capturing cost efficiencies,” Barclays Finance Director Anna Cross said on the July call. “For example, in Barclays U.K., we are investing in transformation to improve service for our customers by automating, digitizing and simplifying our offerings, whilst also driving a lower cost-to-income ratio over time.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Kroger agrees to pay up to US$1.4 billion to settle opioid lawsuits

Geoff Mulvihill, The Associated Press

A Kroger grocery store in Houston, Texas. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

One of the nation's largest grocery chains is the latest company to agree to settle lawsuits over the U.S. opioid crisis.

In a deal announced Friday, the Kroger Co. would pay up to US$1.4 billion over 11 years. The amount includes up to $1.2 billion for state and local governments where it operates, $36 million to Native American tribes and about $177 million to cover lawyers' fees and costs.

Kroger currently has stores in 35 states — virtually everywhere save the Northeast, the northern plains and Hawaii. Thirty-three states would be eligible for money in the deal. The company previously announced settlements with New Mexico and West Virginia.

Over the past eight years, prescription drug manufacturers, wholesalers, consultants and pharmacies have proposed or finalized opioid settlements totalling more than $50 billion, including at least 12 others worth more than $1 billion. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments later this year on whether one of the larger settlements, involving OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, is legal.

Most of the settlement money is to be used to address an overdose epidemic linked to more than 80,000 deaths a year in the U.S. in recent years, with most of the latest deaths connected to illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl rather than prescription painkillers.

Still, Jayne Conroy, a lead lawyer for the governments suing the companies, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that it makes sense for players in the prescription drug industry to have a major role in funding solutions to the crisis.

“It really isn’t a different problem,” she said. “The problem is the massive amount of addiction. That addiction stems from the massive amount of prescription drugs.”

The companies have also agreed to change their business practices regarding powerful prescription painkillers, consenting to restrictions on marketing and using data to catch overprescribing. Conroy said those noneconomic terms for Kroger have not been finalized, but they'll look like what other companies have agreed to.

Kroger said it intends to finalize its deal in time to make initial payments in December.

The company would not admit wrongdoing or liability as part of the deal, which is called in a statement a milestone in efforts to resolve opioid lawsuits. “Kroger has long served as a leader in combatting opioid abuse and remains committed to patient safety,” the company said.

While most of the biggest players have settled, the opioid litigation is continuing. Cases are being prepared for trial involving the supermarket chains Publix and Albertsons, the latter of which is attempting to merge with Kroger. Pharmacy benefit managers such as Express Scripts and OptumRx also face opioid claims from governments.

50 years later, wounds of Pinochet regime are still raw

By AFP
PublishedSeptember 9, 2023

Patricia Herrera visits the basement of the Chilean presidential palace where she was tortured 50 years ago - 

AFP GABRIEL BOUYS

Magdalena ADVIS

In the basement of the presidential palace in Chile’s capital, Patricia Herrera was detained and tortured for months before being sent into exile. It was early in a military dictatorship that would kill or cause the disappearance of thousands of people.

Fifty years after the US-backed coup that snuffed out Chile’s democracy, the wounds from all that suffering are still raw.

– Torment –

As she returned from class at the university, Herrera was detained by officers in plain clothes because she was “a woman and a socialist.” She was 19.

Herrera was taken, blindfolded, to the basement of La Moneda, as the presidential palace is called. It was then also known as “El Hoyo,” or the pit, as it was one of the first detention and torture centers set up by General Augusto Pinochet’s new regime after the ouster of Socialist president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.

“From the very first night we got there, there was sexual humiliation. At first I thought it was just the guard who was overdoing it with me. I did not think it was an established thing that women had to suffer sexual, in addition to political, violence,” said Herrera, now 68 and a historian.

Herrera was held for 14 months at the palace and in two other buildings in Santiago that were converted into torture centers by the Pinochet regime. She was then sent into an exile that would last 15 years, first in France and then in Cuba.

Two commissions created to study the dictatorship concluded that at least 38,254 people were tortured under the Pinochet regime, which lasted until 1990.

The basement in the presidential palace where Herrera was held was also known as Cuartel, or barracks, N°1 and is now used as office space. People taken there blindfolded could identify it because of its curved wall.

On August 30 of this year, the current president, Gabriel Boric, had a plaque installed in the basement space to mark the horrors endured by around 30 people who were held there.

“We want to put up a marker for everyone to see,” Herrera said, “that here, in the political heart of the nation, there was a torture center.”

Allende committed suicide rather than be captured.

– Disappearance –

Agents of the dictatorship killed 1,747 people, and detained and made another 1,469 disappear, according to an official government tally.

While 307 of the disappeared have since been identified, the other 1,162 remain missing. Fifty years later, their families still wonder where they are.

In 1974, when Pinochet’s police detained a man named Luis Mahuida — a 23-year-old university student active in leftist politics and the father of two young daughters — they also brought an abrupt end to the childhood of his sister Marialina Gonzalez, who was then nine years old.

Their mother, Elsa Esquivel, spent all her time looking for her son; it was a full-time occupation. Marialina Gonzalez looked after her brother’s daughters, who were three and 11 months old when he vanished. “I stopped playing with dolls. My nieces were dolls for me,” said Gonzalez.

She never finished her education. She went to hundreds of places asking for her brother. Gonzalez even staged a hunger strike and recalls being arrested several times while taking part in protest marches in honor of missing people.

She regrets the childhood she never had. “I was not capable of saying: ‘Stop, let me be. I want to go out dancing. I want to have friends.’ I kept quiet,” she said.

Now 59, she dedicates herself to caring for her elderly mother and expects to carry suffering with her into her own old age. “There is no closure just because my brother is still missing. There will be no closure.”

– Exile –

The dictatorship triggered the biggest migratory movement in Chilean history. Just over 200,000 people went into exile, according to the non-governmental Chilean Human Rights Commission.

Employees of the Allende government, union leaders, workers, students and farmers left the country, taking their families with them. Sweden, Mexico, Argentina, France and Venezuela were the main recipient countries.

Most of the exiles were able to return home starting September 1, 1988, when the regime issued a decree allowing them back, a year and a half before the dictatorship ended.

A communist activist named Shaira Sepulveda was tortured in secret prisons called Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Alamos. After her release she left in 1976 for France, along with her husband at that time. She left relatives and friends in Santiago.

“My family was here, my sister, my parents. But what really hurt was having to go to a country where you are a nobody,” Sepulveda recalls.

She returned to Chile 17 years later with two children, but again her family was broken apart. The eldest child could not adapt to life in Chile and returned to Europe.

“I am an old woman, so my grandchildren there will barely know me,” said Sepulveda, who is 74.

Pinochet: Images of a dictatorship

Emilia Rojas-Sasse
13 hours ago13 hours ago

Fifty years after the military coup in Chile, historians describe why Augusto Pinochet's coup had such a huge impact in Europe. A major factor was the power of images.

https://p.dw.com/p/4VwHv

Media coverage of the 1973 coup, including this picture of General Augusto Pinochet, was seen around the world

Image: AFP/epa/dpa/picture-alliance

Everyone knows the image of Che Guevara, his steely gaze directed confidently into the distance. In the counterculture of the 1960s, the "Comandante" emerged as a symbol of the idealistic revolutionary and long remained an icon of youth culture.

The photo of Augusto Pinochet, on the other hand, embodies the dictator par excellence. The general who violently overthrew Salvador Allende's government in Chile on September 11, 1973, was commonly regarded as the ultimate evil. But why, compared to other Latin American dictators, Pinochet in particular?

Coup caught on camera (& TV)

While the coup d'etat in Chile shocked the world, the 1964 coup in Brazil went relatively under the radar.

The spotlight on the Chile coup was due in large part to the widespread media presence in the country, noted Caroline Moine, professor of political and cultural history at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in France.

"This coup d'etat did not take place in the middle of the night and in secret, but in front of running cameras," she told DW of the events of 1973. "There were many journalists there, so the images flickered quickly across the screens, even abroad."

This was probably in the interests of the putschists, she said.

"The military wanted people to see what had happened. They wanted to impress not only their opponents, but also their supporters inside and outside the country," she said.

Through media coverage, the scenes were burned into the collective memory. The images of the bombing of the presidential palace, La Moneda, went around the world — as did the photo of the usurper Pinochet in uniform, with dark glasses and an expressionless face, sitting in front of his men.

The government palace in Santiago de Chile was attacked in 1973, and seen on TV

Image: AP/picture alliance / AP Photo

For Joan del Alcazar, professor of contemporary history at the University of Valencia, the image of this dictator was projected in stark contrast to overthrown president, doctor Salvador Allende.

"The figure of a friendly, empathetic doctor, an undeniably attractive man, contrasts with the odious image of an unpleasant, authoritarian, despotic and, moreover, criminal military man," he told DW.
Allende a fallen symbolic figure of left-wing intellectuals

When viewed against the backdrop of the Cold War, events in Chile transcended national borders.

"In West Germany and in Europe, Allende was an important symbolic figure because he represented the democratic path to socialism; he was a very strong symbolic figure for many left-wing intellectuals," said Lasse Lassen, a historian and researcher at the University of Würzburg.

"When he was overthrown, especially in such a brutal way — with the bombing of the government palace and his suicide — he became a shining beacon for the left in Western Europe. And Pinochet embodied the image of the enemy."

Legends of socialist struggle — Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, center, Chilean late President Salvador Allende, right, and Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, left — have been remembered in art

Image: AP

At the time in Europe, the left was divided, said Caroline Moine.

"There were attempts, for example in France and Italy, to unite communist and socialist forces" in the same way as the Unidad Popular, an electoral alliance of leftist Chilean parties led by Allende.

"The coup put an end to that project and destroyed those hopes," she said. Nevertheless, the communist party in particular, but also the socialist party in Chile, very quickly launched a major international campaign after Pinochet's coup.

This not only stylized Pinochet as the embodiment of evil, but also glorified the ousted president.

"Allende was the one who wanted to defend democracy in Chile and died for it. In Europe, too, the idea of heroes who are willing to die for their ideas is highly emotionally charged," said the French historian.

The body of Salvador Allende was carried away after his death on September 11, 1973, along with hope for a democratic Chile

Image: El Mercurio/AP/picture alliance

Yet, she added, the various parties within the Unidad Popular were not always so united.

"It was always said that the UP was a victim of the dictatorship; there was never any public talk of internal tensions. There was a kind of myth."
Brutal repression shocked the world

The extreme brutality on the part of the coup plotters in Chile shocked more than just members of the political left.

Similar repression was being imposed by other dictatorships in the region, including in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay during the so-called Operation Condor camapaigns.

"[Nonetheless] this military coup stands out for its cruelty, its extreme viciousness," said Joan del Alcazar.

Historian Lassen believes knowledge of human rights abuses in Chile and simultaneous Cold War tensions in the West contributed to the coup in Chile being particularly present in people's minds.

Ultimately, however, "neither Franco nor Pinochet were condemned as Hitler was, not even in their own country," he added. "It's a complex process."

This article was originally written in Spanish.

Artists After the Escape: Chile's coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy

DW
13 images

September 11, 1973 changed the lives of many Chileans forever. A coup against President Allende brought Augusto Pinochet to power. Sixteen years later, a spectacular campaign toppled the dictator.Image: DW/S. Spröer

Chile's September 11

September 11, 1973, changed the lives of many Chileans forever. General Augusto Pinochet, commander in chief of the Chilean army, overthrew the incumbent socialist president, Salvador Allende. The military bombarded the presidential palace "La Moneda" in the capital Santiago, arrested government supporters, leftists and Pinochet opponents.

OFF/AFP/Getty Images

Salvador Allende, a people's president

The socialist president had only been in office for three years before the coup. After having nationalized companies and dispossessed great land owners, his government faced massive opposition. The US didn't approve of the socialist leader in South America either. With the help of the CIA, Washington boycotted Allende's economic policies and incited Chile's media against the government.

Image: picture-alliance/dp

Chile begins probing 'disappearances' during Pinochet regime

August 31, 2023

A process has begun to try and determine what happened to those who disappeared during dictator Augusto Pinochet's brutal regime 50 years ago.

Relatives of victims at a march commemorating the victims of Augusto Pinochet's regime

Image: Martin Bernetti/AFP

Chile's government launched a program on Wednesday which seeks to determine what happened to more than 1,000 people during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship 50 years ago.

"Justice has taken too long," President Gabriel Boric said as he announced the government project at the presidential palace.

"The only way to build a future that is more free and respectful of life and human dignity is to know the whole truth," he said.

A legacy of abuse

Pinochet seized power in a bloody coup backed by the US on September 11, 1973 and would remain in power until 1990.

During his dictatorship, some 40,175 people were executed, detained and disappeared, or tortured as political prisoners, according to Chile's Ministry of Justice.

Government reports show 1,469 people were victims of forced disappearances, of whom 1,092 were secretly detained and 377 were executed.

Their remains were never returned to families.

Pinochet died in 2006 at the age of 91, and was never convicted for his role in the crimes. Many have been pushing the government for more answers and accountability.

Chile: Pinochet victims want transparency and justice 01:59

Project to uncover truth, a government first

Until now, the circumstances of those who were declared missing has not been looked into, the weight only carried by bereaved loved ones.

The project, officially known as Truth and Justice, will have a dedicated budget and staff, with investigators tasked with reconstructing the victims' final days.

Earlier this week, the US State Department declassified briefings presented to Richard Nixon, the US president at the time, on September 8 and September 11.

The reports show how we was briefed on Chile's impending coup which was part of the wave of military dictatorships in the region in the 1970s.

In Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, families have also pushed for more information on those who were declared missing during military regimes.

rm/kb (Reuters,

Child victims are the forgotten voices of Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship from 1973 to 1990


Eliana Rodríguez holds a photograph of herself with her daughter Yelena Monroy at home in La Serena, Chile, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. The photograph was taken one year after they were released from a detention center where Rodriguez and her two young daughters were imprisoned for over a year during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who was brought to power in Chile after a military coup in September 1973.

 (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Yelena Monroy poses for portrait by photos of detainees who disappeared during the dictatorship Gen. Augusto Pinochet in La Serena, Chile, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. Monroy was 3-years-old when she was imprisoned for more than a year along with her younger sister Natacha and her mother Eliana Rodriguez, a socialist activist persecuted by the regime Pinochet, who was brought to power in Chile after a military coup in September 1973. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

BY EVA VERGARA
 September 8, 2023

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Yelena Monroy was 3 years old when she was imprisoned for more than a year along with her younger sister and her mother, a socialist activist targeted by the regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet after he came to power in Chile in a military coup in September 1973.

“We were scared, we were crying,” recalled Monroy, now a 53-year-old commercial engineer and one of more than 1,000 children and adolescents who were detained in the name of fighting communism and leftist guerrillas during Chile’s military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990.

Eliana Rodriguez adjusts her glasses as her daughter Yelena Monroy searches through a photo album at Rodriguez’s home in La Serena, Chile, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. Rodriguez and her two young daughters were imprisoned during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who was brought to power in Chile after a military coup in September 1973. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Photographed through a plastic window, an entrance leads to the center of “El Buen Pastor,” or The Good Shepherd, originally built to hold detained, female minors and run by Catholic nuns, that was turned into a detention center for political prisoners during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, in La Serena, Chile, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. Yelena Monroy was incarcerated here for more than a year when she was only three-years-old with her mother Eliana Rodriguez and younger sister Natacha. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Yelena Monroy shows a 1973 photograph of her mother Eliana Rodriguez, bottom left, sitting with other political prisoners during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet at “El Buen Pastor” or The Good Shepherd detention center, originally built to hold detained, female minors and run by Catholic nuns that was turned into a detention center for political prisoners during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, in La Serena, Chile, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. Monroy was incarcerated here with her mother and younger sister for more than a year. The 1973 photo is from a visit by the International Red Cross to verify detainees’ condition. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

When Pinochet installed himself as leader, the age of majority in Chile was set at 21 years. But being a minor was no protection from the dictatorship’s crackdown. Children were detained, tortured, killed, and even used as decoys to apprehend their parents.

The trauma of that period has made many of the young victims of the military regime reluctant to speak out, and the process of prosecuting that era’s crimes and making reparations generally has made no distinction among victims based on age. So, the child victims of the Pinochet era have not had much visibility, though minors represent nearly 10% of the deaths attributed to the regime.

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“We don’t classify them by age, because they all suffered,” Gaby Rivera, president of Chile’s Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared, told The Associated Press.

However, the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture figures show that the Pinochet regime detained 1,132 minors under the age of 18. Of these 88 were under 13 and 102 were arrested along with their parents — or were born in prison.

Some 307 children under the age of 18 were killed during that period, according to human rights groups’ reviews of documentation from the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission. About 3,200 people overall were killed during the dictatorship, or went missing and are believed dead.

Chile’s National Stadium, in the country’s capital, became the largest detention center of the military government. That is where they arrested — and beat — Roberto Vásquez Llantén, when he was 17, for being an active militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement.

Roberto Vásquez Llantén, 67, poses for a portrait on the stairs that leads to a tunnel at the National Stadium where he was held during the dictatorship in Santiago, Chile, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

View of the women´s dressing room of the National Stadium, which was used as a prison and place of torture during the coup orchestrated by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Santiago, Chile, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

He had been in hiding since the start of the coup, but was arrested on Jan. 15, 1974. Vásquez Llantén, who is 67 today, spent a year in the Chacabuco Prison Camp in the Atacama desert along with 16 other minors. There was no electricity or hot water, he recalled. There were antipersonnel mines outside the barbed-wire to keep prisoners in line, while guards kept watch from towers.

If minors had political significance, they were detained just like adults. But they also were used as lures to trap and detain their parents.

The Fernández Montenegro sisters were imprisoned in February 1974 when they were teenagers.

Viviana, 14, and Morelia, 17, were accused of being guerrillas in the Chilean port of Valparaíso where they lived, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of the capital. Their mother was arrested and released after 24 hours. The whole family, with the exception of the father, were active communists.

The sisters were first held together in the Silva Palma Navy Barracks, on one of the many inhabited hills of Valparaíso.

“I was in a cell, wearing a hoodie, while some guys put electricity cables on my fingers, yelling and screaming profanities and threats,” demanding to know where the weapons were, Viviana Fernández recounted.

“The only thing I did was cry and cry ... I felt very afraid, very afraid,” she said.

Fernández, who is 64 today, and Yelena Monroy are members of the Association of Former Minors Victims of Political Imprisonment and Torture, created nine years ago in part to raise awareness about the fate of children and adolescents under the dictatorship.

Fernández, who is the spokesperson, says the organization has about 100 members, but she thinks there are many more, and that many are still afraid to talk about what happened to them during those years.

Many other minors of that time did not survive to tell their story.


Cecilia Aguilar is reflected in the mirror at home where a photo of her with her then 6-year-old sister Alicia stands in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Her sister was assassinated on Sept. 18, 1973, the day their portrait was taken, by soldiers who arrived shooting into a public square in the Yungay neighborhood where they played during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Cecilia said she was saved because she ran, but later was found by a soldier who applied “the escape law,” telling her to run as he counted to 30. “If I catch you, I’ll shoot you and kill you,” she recalled him saying. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Cecilia Aguilar holds a photo of herself with her then 6-year-old sister Alicia in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Cecilia’s sister was assassinated on Sept. 18, 1973, the day their portrait was taken, by soldiers who arrived shooting into a public square in the Yungay neighborhood where they played, during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Cecilia said she was saved because she ran, but later was found by a soldier who applied “the escape law,” telling her to run as he counted to 30. “If I catch you, I’ll shoot you and kill you,” she recalled him saying. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

José Gregorio Saavedra González, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement, was executed at the age of 18 by soldiers in Calama, in the north of the country, together with 25 other political prisoners on Oct. 19, 1973. He was one of the disappeared who years later were located — and identified.

“They gave us a little bit of a finger in a small box, and a little bit of what I imagine was a small tooth,” recalls his sister, Ángela Saavedra, who is 81.

Monroy and Fernández fault the Chilean government for not fully acknowledging past violations of children’s human rights.

“We have been totally forgotten by the state, it is very much in debt,” Fernández said.

Yorka Salinas poses for a portrait wearing photos of her 18-year-old brother Isidro Salina and mother Margarita Martin, both who were murdered in 1986, that reads in Spanish “I don’t forget. I demand justice,” in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation consider her brother, mother and aunt María Martin to have been executed by the Carabineros national police, and consider their deaths violations of human rights under the responsibility of state agents during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
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