Papers by PABLO LEIGHTON
Reseña de “Emociones y pandemia: esbozos de la incertidumbre. Algunos aspectos de la realidad chilena durante la primera ola”, 2022
El libro contiene artículos de 13 autores asociados al Grupo de Investigación en Emociones y Soci... more El libro contiene artículos de 13 autores asociados al Grupo de Investigación en Emociones y Sociedad, que surge el 2013 para investigar la condición social de las emociones. El volumen destaca por documentar una encrucijada histórica inusual de la sociedad chilena, un tránsito extremo contenido en unos meses: el paso de la explosión de emociones de la revuelta popular de octubre de 2019 a su literal opuesto, las emociones sofocadas por la pandemia mundial que arriba a Chile en marzo del 2020. La publicación cubre el miedo inherente transmitido desde la dictadura a la eterna transición de los 30 años hacia un estallido de emociones que, desde la rabia y el deseo de cambio social inmediato, vuelve a nuevos miedos, en un proceso de menos de 5 meses.
Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research , 2016
Neo Journal, Jan 6, 2008
This article is about the covert intervention of the United States targeting the democratic gover... more This article is about the covert intervention of the United States targeting the democratic government of Allende in Chile. Later, once Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet’s political powers were gone, both countries allowed an archival exploration around that intervention. Although there is a level of consensus around the U.S. sabotaging against Allende, official historical accounts still offer uncertainty after decades. The article argues that this uncertainty comes from the nature of archives and of that intervention, which in great part was through media propaganda.
Books by PABLO LEIGHTON
Este capítulo del libro “Archivos de Frontera. El gobierno de las emociones en Argentina y Chile ... more Este capítulo del libro “Archivos de Frontera. El gobierno de las emociones en Argentina y Chile del presente” versa sobre el discurso televisado de la noche del Golpe de Estado en Chile en 1973, que no sólo confirma la instalación de la dictadura sino que contribuye al control disciplinario y a diseminar aquiescencia entre la población, en particular cuando da comienzo a una cadena nacional ininterrumpida por varios días. Se argumenta que la represión violenta y la propagación del miedo y la disciplina no excluyen sino que incluso requieren desde la primera noche un grado de consentimiento y de prácticas culturales, siendo ejemplar la opción de la dictadura por la televisión. De esta manera se marca un camino hegemónico de décadas, incluida la actual post-dictadura, aunque hoy esa ruta podría estar afrontando un quiebre final.
This book chapter examines the cultural power of the Chilean junta led by Augusto Pinochet (1973–... more This book chapter examines the cultural power of the Chilean junta led by Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) during its first years, with an emphasis on the mass event of the first anniversary of the coup d’état, on 11 September 1974, broadcast live on national television. Pablo Leighton scrutinises how the violent Chilean dictatorship from the very beginning also developed culture and discourse to hold and justify its power. The chapter points to the rarely acknowledged sense of ceremony and spectacle of the Chilean regime through a televised simulcast event, which showed hundreds of thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary of the coup in Santiago. The author brings to light that the first year of the dictatorship was not only the most violent year but also one of the most hegemonic as well.
This book introduction discusses the significance and legacies of the 27 June and 11 September 19... more This book introduction discusses the significance and legacies of the 27 June and 11 September 1973 coups in Uruguay and Chile. The book is a compilation of papers presented at an Australian conference by specialists on Latin American studies. The range of topics addressed in the different chapters demonstrate that the 1973 coups continue to be a key point of interest for researchers and that the study of this topic is far from exhausted.
This book chapter explores the unrecognised role of Australia’s intelligence agencies in undermin... more This book chapter explores the unrecognised role of Australia’s intelligence agencies in undermining Salvador Allende’s government (1970–1973) and supporting the more well-known actions of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Chile. Florencia Melgar and Pablo Leighton show the difficulties in making that role transparent more than four decades after the coup. The actions of Australia in Chile have involved forms of censorship over the revelations in the years after the coup. A 1977 investigation by an Australian Royal Commission headed by Justice Robert Hope still has its section on Chile blacked out. The chapter reveals the internal conflicts between Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972–1975); the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Bill Robertson; and Labor Minister, Clyde Cameron, about the withdrawal of agents from Chile. Finally, the authors show the haunting consequences of the relationships between Australia and Pinochet’s regime through intelligence surveillance over the Chilean exiled community and the current extradition process of a Chilean human rights violator who also found refuge in Australia.
On 4 June 2014, the Opposition Shadow Attorney-General, Labor Senator Mark Dreyfus, presented a p... more On 4 June 2014, the Opposition Shadow Attorney-General, Labor Senator Mark Dreyfus, presented a petition to the Federal Parliament on behalf of the Chilean community in Australia. Around 600 Chilean expatriates, most of them Australian citizens, demanded the government approve the extradition request of former intelligence agent Adriana Rivas,
who escaped from trial in Chile where she is accused of seven cases of torture and aggravated kidnapping and disappearance.
This petition followed what started a year earlier when Adriana Rivas was found by investigative reporter Florencia Melgar living in one of Sydney’s housing commission buildings. The Special Broadcasting Services’ report of her declarations triggered the reaction of human rights movements and political activists in Chile and Australia and the extradition request. These groups are manifestly against the presence of Chilean violators of human rights living in the same land where they, as refugees, were welcomed after Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973.
The fact that Adriana Rivas has been living for decades in Australia might not be a mere coincidence or plain misfortune. According to author Mark Aarons, there have been hundreds of war criminals hidden in Australia since 1945. Aarons has said that the war criminals living in the country come from many places and organisations, including Chile’s DINA, the Directorate of National Intelligence, the dictatorship’s secret police between 1973 and 1977. These security officers who found “sanctuary” in Australia, Aarons added, are guilty of “torture and summary executions”. More tellingly, Aarons argued that a number of those people were brought to Australia “as intelligence assets by our intelligence services and resettled here for purposes of ongoing intelligence operations by our own services”.
The current presence of a former intelligence agent in Sydney might show another aspect of the practices of support of the Australian secret services to the same Chilean forces that unleashed the coup d’état and sustained a violent dictatorship.
As ambiguously revealed in Australia during the years after the coup, the secret services of Australia worked in Chilean territory to undermine the democratic government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973). This chapter looks into how Australia’s involvement in Chile’s coup four decades ago remains under a cloak of secrecy, encouraged by the same secret services that seemed to have worked above government and parliament powers. Together with the contentious issue of transparency in today’s world, this four-decade old history is still prominent and continues to haunt thousands of Chilean-former refugees
living in Australia and many others in Chile that were victims of DINA and other secret services.
Book Reviews by PABLO LEIGHTON
e-l@tina. Revista electrónica de estudios latinoamericanos, vol. 21, núm. 83, 2023
Reseña de libro publicado en noviembre del 2021 está compuesto por 13 artículos de autores asocia... more Reseña de libro publicado en noviembre del 2021 está compuesto por 13 artículos de autores asociados al Grupo de Investigación en Emociones y Sociedad de varias universidades chilenas. El volumen presenta una gran diversidad en el estudio de sociedades desde las emociones y destaca por documentar una encrucijada histórica inusual en Chile, un tránsito extremo contenido en unos pocos meses: el paso de la explosión de emociones de la revuelta popular, reducida ya universalmente como el estallido de octubre de 2019, a su literal opuesto, las emociones sofocadas por la pandemia mundial que arriba en marzo del 2020.
A review on a book that offers more than a necessary contribution to the elucidation of the conti... more A review on a book that offers more than a necessary contribution to the elucidation of the continuing and extreme issues of poverty, exclusion and social violence operating in the Latin American subcontinent, demonstrated here through an analysis of this violence in one country which rarely receives attention. The book offers a clear urgent call for all Latin American scholars to attend to the difficulty of this ongoing question.
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Papers by PABLO LEIGHTON
Books by PABLO LEIGHTON
who escaped from trial in Chile where she is accused of seven cases of torture and aggravated kidnapping and disappearance.
This petition followed what started a year earlier when Adriana Rivas was found by investigative reporter Florencia Melgar living in one of Sydney’s housing commission buildings. The Special Broadcasting Services’ report of her declarations triggered the reaction of human rights movements and political activists in Chile and Australia and the extradition request. These groups are manifestly against the presence of Chilean violators of human rights living in the same land where they, as refugees, were welcomed after Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973.
The fact that Adriana Rivas has been living for decades in Australia might not be a mere coincidence or plain misfortune. According to author Mark Aarons, there have been hundreds of war criminals hidden in Australia since 1945. Aarons has said that the war criminals living in the country come from many places and organisations, including Chile’s DINA, the Directorate of National Intelligence, the dictatorship’s secret police between 1973 and 1977. These security officers who found “sanctuary” in Australia, Aarons added, are guilty of “torture and summary executions”. More tellingly, Aarons argued that a number of those people were brought to Australia “as intelligence assets by our intelligence services and resettled here for purposes of ongoing intelligence operations by our own services”.
The current presence of a former intelligence agent in Sydney might show another aspect of the practices of support of the Australian secret services to the same Chilean forces that unleashed the coup d’état and sustained a violent dictatorship.
As ambiguously revealed in Australia during the years after the coup, the secret services of Australia worked in Chilean territory to undermine the democratic government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973). This chapter looks into how Australia’s involvement in Chile’s coup four decades ago remains under a cloak of secrecy, encouraged by the same secret services that seemed to have worked above government and parliament powers. Together with the contentious issue of transparency in today’s world, this four-decade old history is still prominent and continues to haunt thousands of Chilean-former refugees
living in Australia and many others in Chile that were victims of DINA and other secret services.
Book Reviews by PABLO LEIGHTON
who escaped from trial in Chile where she is accused of seven cases of torture and aggravated kidnapping and disappearance.
This petition followed what started a year earlier when Adriana Rivas was found by investigative reporter Florencia Melgar living in one of Sydney’s housing commission buildings. The Special Broadcasting Services’ report of her declarations triggered the reaction of human rights movements and political activists in Chile and Australia and the extradition request. These groups are manifestly against the presence of Chilean violators of human rights living in the same land where they, as refugees, were welcomed after Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973.
The fact that Adriana Rivas has been living for decades in Australia might not be a mere coincidence or plain misfortune. According to author Mark Aarons, there have been hundreds of war criminals hidden in Australia since 1945. Aarons has said that the war criminals living in the country come from many places and organisations, including Chile’s DINA, the Directorate of National Intelligence, the dictatorship’s secret police between 1973 and 1977. These security officers who found “sanctuary” in Australia, Aarons added, are guilty of “torture and summary executions”. More tellingly, Aarons argued that a number of those people were brought to Australia “as intelligence assets by our intelligence services and resettled here for purposes of ongoing intelligence operations by our own services”.
The current presence of a former intelligence agent in Sydney might show another aspect of the practices of support of the Australian secret services to the same Chilean forces that unleashed the coup d’état and sustained a violent dictatorship.
As ambiguously revealed in Australia during the years after the coup, the secret services of Australia worked in Chilean territory to undermine the democratic government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973). This chapter looks into how Australia’s involvement in Chile’s coup four decades ago remains under a cloak of secrecy, encouraged by the same secret services that seemed to have worked above government and parliament powers. Together with the contentious issue of transparency in today’s world, this four-decade old history is still prominent and continues to haunt thousands of Chilean-former refugees
living in Australia and many others in Chile that were victims of DINA and other secret services.