About that video (below this entry)

The video in the post below was recorded on June 9 in my Buenos Aires hotel room. It was impossible to upload using the hotel's wi-fi connection and for fun I tried it out when a few days ago. (It still look a long time on Towson's dedicated line).

Even though I thought eight minutes flew by, I understand now that's an eternity in when watching online videos. Next time I'll know better. Still I'm including it in the spirit of sharing as much as I got.

BsAs video

Links to South American pictures

I still owe some pictures, particularly from Argentina. In the meantime I highly recommend the pictures from two other seminar participants:

Katharine Bjork's photo site:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ksbjork/BuenosAiresJune2008?authkey=9jzseSMadk8

John Buck's photo site:
http://ciee2008.site.shutterfly.com/

Chile v. Argentina v. Finland (plus a memorial note)

Something all three countries have in common is that a large percentage of the population (between 20 and 40%) lives in a large capital city.

Buenos Aires clearly reflects its European roots. You can see this in the people (some mestisos, though the vast majority of the people walking down the streets look European), the architecture and the city planning.  As far as the look of the city, Santiago isn’t dramatically different. There are fewer (though some) big squares with facing buildings. Also the structures themselves tend to be less ornate.

The vast majority of cars in Buenos Aires are European: Citröen, Renault and Fiat. In Santiago Toyota is the dominant brand, with a fair representation of Nissan (not that many Hondas interestingly) and a noticeable number of Kias and Hyundai. Some but not a lot of U.S. brands.  Much more of a mix (Euro and Asian) in Finland, maybe slightly skewed toward their EU neighbors.

Argentina exists under the shadow of its large neighbor to the north and the continent’s dominant social and political power, Brazil.  The fate of Argentina to a large extent is influenced by relations with Brazil and their economic agreement, MERCOSUR.  Chile on the other hand puruses a more independent economic (perhaps even political) agenda through the negotiation of multiple bilateral trade treaties.

Finland is a member of the EU and the euro-zone.  It’s a relatively small player on a big stage. Finland’s relatively remote location provides some advantages and challenges.  The country is blessed with natural resources (fishing, timber, arable land), a desireable tourist location (for summer getaways and winter sports).  The strong presence of Nokia gives Finland a bit of a natural advantage when it comes to communications technologies. (I don’t’ want to play this up too far, since I haven’t seen any numbers on what percentages of Nokia’s operations take place in its home country).  Of course Finland is very much “off the beaten path” and you can’t get to main parts of the continent (e..g Germany, France, etc.) without taking boat or plane (ok, you could theoretically take the long way around, through Russia).

Finland is a beautiful country insofar as it’s exceptionally green, there’s an abundance of clean water and shorelines and it’s well-maintained.  There’s very little garbage on the streets (unlike Santiago and BsAs where it seemed like the mountains would never go away).  There have been a few homeless people around the main city parks and streets but considering the size and dynamism of Helsinki these numbers are negligible.

Couple of other observations about Finland: Finns smoke in higher numbers than anywhere else I’ve been recently (including Latin America), the Finnish language seems absolutely impenetrable, even though I’m not supposed to be distracted by the high prices I am- this is an expensive place, and there is a noticeable presence of heavy metal/punk/goth types (don’t ask me to account for the differences). Lots of black leather clothes adorned with shiny hardware, face piercings and bright pink, green and purple hair.   And that’s just the senior citizens.

The high prices in Finland are somewhat mitigated in that tax (at the retail level, and it's 22%) and the tip (for services) are included in the price.  Of course that's a bit of a double-edged sword.  In Latin America many restaurants have a hawker outside trying to get you to come in. In Finland there's none of that, so it feels much more leisurely. Of course when you go into a Finnish restaurant the service tends to be slooooow and indifferent (why should they care? The servers get paid the same either way).

Also, the Finns pretty much invented the cell phone. Maybe that explains why neither of my hotel rooms has a land line.

Finally, RIP George Carlin, the friend I never had a chance to meet. Thanks for the wisdom, and the laughs.

from Finland

ok, whatever I wrote (two weeks ago today as a matter of fact) from Montevideo applies just as equally here.

I just finished attending my annual IABS conference in Tampere (two hours north of here). More info about that available at www.iabs.net

Anyway my hotel here in Helsinki makes internet available free here, but there's a 15 minute limit, so I have enough time to say it's exciting to be here and I'll post again soon. I've already been thinking about a blog on Chile v. Argentina v. Finland. Interesting stuff.

I've also expanded my Finnish vocabulary to two words.. Moi and Kiitos. (hello and thank you respectively).

Back again soon.

Human Rights in Chile: Pedro's Story

For some time I’ve been meaning to record our meeting with Mr. Pedro Matta, a captive of the military dictatorship in Chile during the 1970s. Mr. Matta spent several hours with us; about an hour for a lecture at our hotel and then taking us on a tour of Villa Gramaldi, a torture/detention center just outside of Santiago. Two weeks later, here are my recollections of our time together.
Shortly after the 1973 coup, the military government declared itself to be “at war”. Communists, socialists, trade unions, student leaders were considered as threats and labeled as enemies. Initially the detention activities were conducted in an unsystematic fashion. This changed however in 1975 with the creation of “DINA”, a sort of military intelligence unit. At the peak of its operations DINA operated 850 detention centers throughout Chile. One of them was Villa Grimaldi. As suggested by its name Villa Gramaldi had been a very upscale property. It became the property of the government in the 1960s. The location and configuration of Villa Grimaldi made it well suited as a detention and torture center in the 1970s.

The story from here quickly becomes very grim. Pedro walked us through the grounds, describing the careful, even scientific methods of torture. The interrogators knew how far to take the torture without killing or somehow incapacitating the prisoners. Every few meters we would stop, seen the remnants of a building foundation. We might hear about how this site was used for the application of voltage (applied with various intensities, durations and to body locations) or prisoner containment areas (e.g. four prisoners in dark box about four feet in width and length). Also about twenty percent of the prisoners were women.

A comment came from our group that the personnel that participated in the operations of Villa Grimaldi (and similar torture centers) had to be “sociopathic sadists”. Pedro’s response was very telling. These people had been trained to see the detainees as “less than human” and “the enemy”. Once that thought was successfully implanted (not a difficult thing to do) the captors readily accepted the notion that the prisoners deserved this treatment.

After several hours of hearing about torture center operations in precise detail my revulsion reflux was overworked and I became numb to the vivid descriptions. Plus Pedro’s affect seemed rather flat during much his presentation. Certainly there were moments his outrage and pain came through, but almost always in a controlled way. He described himself following his release from custody as a “zombie”. Makes sense I thought, you’d have to put some major distance between yourself and these events just to survive.

At the final point of our tour, Pedro described the circumstances of his release. When the captors decided a prisoner was of no further use and there was no new information to be learned a decision was made: to release the prisoner back into society or make the “disappearance” more permanent. Fortunately for Pedro he was allowed to return home (though he sought asylum in the US and lived here for fourteen years). Upon release from a torture center most prisoners were transferred to other facilities, so at least some of the worst wounds (physical and mental) might heal.

Pedro told us that shortly after arriving at this facility he was befriended by another prisoner. “What did you tell them skinny?” the prisoner asked while offering Pedro a cigarette. Pedro was immediately suspicious and just repeated what he had already shared. “I told them everything skinny,” the prisoner continued. “When they tortured me, I told them very little. Then they brought in my wife, and tortured her in front of me. I still said nothing. Then they brought in my eight-month old child, and tortured him in front of me. At that point I told them everything. What would you do?”

At this point, Pedro’s eyes had tears. He told us early on he gave up nothing and no one during his imprisonment. “No one was tortured because of what I said. No one followed me and I can look myself in the mirror because of that” he told us. But now Pedro shook his head. “What would I have done? I had a wife; I had a baby at home. What would I have done? That question haunted me.”

This tragic set of circumstances gives us many haunting questions, about then and now. I am very grateful to Mr. Matta for sharing his story.

South American presidents

The CIEE group met with a senator from the Argentine congress. As we discussed the future of Argentina and the South American continent, the profile of the current presidents was discussed. Here’s an overview of the presidents of the twelve nations of South America:
• Two are women
• Only one is over the age of sixty
• One is of African descent
• One is Hindi
• One is a former Catholic bishop
• Four did not wear neckties to the meeting
• Only one has military service (Chavez)
• There is one doctor, one teacher and one steelworker.
• One president had a father killed by a military dictatorship
• One president was born into to such severe poverty that four of six brothers died before the age of five.