¡Mil gracias! All 33 miners in Chile’s Atacama desert have, at long last, been rescued. Fireworks have erupted over the zócalo… probably unrelated, but they express how I feel, as I’ve been riveted to the TV coverage for the past 22 hours.
My thoughts keep returning to the brief time I spent living in West Virginia many years ago… to the miners and United Mine Workers of America officials I got to know. (Still have my Pic and Shovel bar T-shirt, thanks Joe!) And, the words of the last miner rescued, mine foreman, Luis A. Urzua, spoken to Chilean President Pinera resonates, “We want the companies to put in a system such that this will not happen again.”
These mining “accidents” are mostly not accidental — they are the results of conscious decisions by greedy mine owners with government support, who worldwide, practice capitalism’s mantra of, “profits before people.”
Let this be a clarion call to mineworkers everywhere to band together to demand safety regulations worldwide to counter the avarice of multinational and local mine owners.
A Truthout article exposes the hypocrisy of the Chilean government, including its smiling, made-for-TV, president: Chile’s Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued.
Juan Cole asks, Top Ten Questions about Chile Mine Collapse: Was it Nixon-Kissinger’s Fault?
And, the following article appears in the Latin American Herald Tribune: Unions Say Mining Becoming More Dangerous in Chile.
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