Mother Jones has a disturbing piece by Janis Terrugi Page, sister of Frank Teruggi, one of two Americans killed in the aftermath of Chile’s 1973 military coup. She quotes one of her brother’s last letters from Chile, in which he describes his personal situation as “one of relative safety…as a foreigner, I should have little trouble leaving the country if the situation should ever get so bad that it be necessary.”
The Financial Times has an article on the business dealings of General Augusto Pinochet’s former son-in-law, Julio Ponce, who oversaw the military regime’s privatization program and ended up as director of one of these former state companies, the Sociedad de Química y Minera de Chile (SOQUIMICH), which has become the world’s largest producer of potassium nitrate, iodine and lithium. One of the company’s minority shareholders has charged that more than 100 illegal operations took place between 2009 and 2011, including one in which people with direct ties to Ponce benefitted by over $100 million. He could face a ten-year prison sentence.
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/09/17/chile-potash-a-billionaire-and-scandal/#axzz2fSr5JBif
Forbes profiled Ponce three months ago, estimating his net worth at $3.3 billion.
Notes on the Americas 