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Pinochet's Gold: Gone with the Wind

Categories: Latin America, Chile, Politics

These past weeks, the news of Pinochet's investments in gold was enough to make bloggers write, not only from Chile, but also around the world.

Carololine (ES) [1] posts the complete Facts about this development, and also the magnitude of the news:

Este “peso en oro” supera los cien millones de dólares, son más de más de mil lingotes de oro los que brillan en nombre de Pinochet .El Consejo de Defensa del Estado (CDE) presentó ayer un escrito para que el ministro a cargo pueda decretar medidas cautelares sobre estos bienes.
A partir de ahora Pinochet entró en la categoría de los grandes dictadores que lavaron fortunas a nivel mundial.

This “weight in gold” is more than US$ 100 million. There are more than 1000 ingots of gold that shine in the name of Pinochet. The State Defense Council, submitted a letter to the ministry demanding that resolutions are made about this property.

Benjamin (ES) [2] , a right-wing student published an imaginary dialogue about the topic. He starts:

El oro de Pinochet ya existe, aunque no esté en ninguna parte. Ya la noticia dio la vuelta al mundo.

“The gold of Pinochet exists, even though no one knows where. The news has alreaddy made its way around the world.”

He continues explaining that the bank account of US$ 27 million dollars, attributed to Pinochet doesn’t exist; it was “only” US$ 8 million , but no one clarified the news.

Other people, have the concern that this chapter has more to do with political rhetoric, as Sebastian (ES) [3] explains:

Muchas veces nos hacen creer que la verdad siempre es la que prevalece antes que todo, sin embargo, las situaciones son controladas por estrategias comunicacionales, con esto quiero referirme al caso chile-deportes, los hechos concretos son claros; irregularidad en los dineros asignados para la institución. Donde figuran asignaciones a políticos esencialmente de la bancada de concertación, cuando este escándalo se hizo público, se publico una supuesta cuenta en lingotes de oro por parte del señor Pinochet, información que supuestamente fue entregada al canciller, lo cual es totalmente falso…

A lot of times they made us believe that the truth is what always prevails over everything else, even though the situations are controlled by strategic communications. With this I am referring to the case of Sports-Chile: the facts are clear, irregularity about the money that was allocated to the institutions. There were assigned for the politics of compromise and when the scandal was made public, they published an assumption of the gold account of Mr. Pinochet – information that had been given to the chancellor, and which is totally false.”