Chileans pay a compulsory 7.5% of their wages to the ISAPRES health businesses that make millions for their shareholders but often fail to provide the attention customers need.
Schools are now set up on a shared finance basis: parents can pay more to enrol their children in better schools. The normal monthly fee for one child in a “better” school represents between 12 and 40% of the minimum wage.
One in three children live in extreme poverty: Chile ranks as the ninth worst country in the world for income distribution.
The current Frei Government still works within the constitutional framework set up by the dictator Pinochet, who remains ensconced as head of armed forces until 1998, when he will take up a special place in the senate, along with others selected by the military to form a block on human rights initiatives.
Under the two elected “civilian governments” that followed the dictatorship, torture has continued to be practised by the security services and is well documented. Sixty-five people have been killed in supposed “confrontations”, and about a hundred men and sixteen women remain as political prisoners, subject to military courts (in addition to being tried in civilian courts for the same “offences”), where they are tried by one person, regardless of the severity of the charge, tortured to get confessions, often denied access to lawyers, and kept in special high security jails. Meanwhile the small number of military men who have served sentences for the crimes of the dictatorship have done so in a specially built luxury prison.
Chilean political prisoners have resisted with hunger strikes and protests (the most recent, by women, started on 23rd October). In December 1996, four of them were rescued by comrades. One, Patricio Ortiz Montenegro fled to Switzerland, where he is now claiming asylum. Patricio’s father was arrested by Pinochet just after the coup. His brother was shot trying to escape from prison in 1992 (an attempt in which Patricio was wounded). Now, the many organisations supporting Chilean political prisoners are mounting a worldwide campaign to support his application.