Chile's Far-Right Embraces Mass Incarceration Playbook
📰 THE STORY: Bloomberg reports that Chile's incoming president, José Antonio Kast, visited El Salvador's infamous mega-prison, the 'Center for the Confinement of Terrorism' (CECOT), to underscore his commitment to authoritarian 'security' measures upon taking office in March. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: Kast's political leanings are far from novel in Chile. His father was
a member of the Nazi Party, and Kast himself is a vocal admirer of Augusto Pinochet, the US-backed dictator whose 1973 CIA coup overthrew democratically-elected Salvador Allende, ushering in an era of state-sponsored torture, disappearances (30,000+ murdered or disappeared), and mass incarceration of political dissidents. The 'order' Pinochet imposed came at an unimaginable human cost, a cost
Kast's rhetoric seems eager to replicate. Double Standard: When governments aligned with US interests, like El Salvador's Nayib Bukele or Chile's Kast, implement mass incarceration and human rights abuses under the guise of 'security,' the Western press often sanitizes it with phrases like 'tough on crime' or 'bold move.' Yet, similar measures by non-allied nations are immediately condemned as
'authoritarian' or 'dictatorial.' The focus is never on the human rights implications but on geopolitical alignment. Follow the Money: The 'tough on crime' industry is a lucrative one. Construction of these mega-prisons, the technology to surveil populations, and the 'advisers' who help implement such systems often hail from US and Israeli security firms. Bukele's government, despite its