Meet Carolina Tohá: Her job, defeat Sebastián Pińera and get Frei back in La Moneda

[rabs]

Carolina Tohá



Frei embraces his new campaign manager Carolina Tohá in Santiago on Monday.



Tohá resigned today from Michelle Bachelet's Cabinet to take over Frei's campaign for the runoff next month. In accepting her resignation, Bachelet today said her ex-spokeswoman represents Chile's younger generation, women and the new style of politics in Chile.

Tohá is a former Socialist who joined the PPD (leftist Party for Democracy of former President Ricardo Lagos) and who has been Bachelet's Minister of the Presidency and chief spokeswoman.

Her task now is to swing progressives who voted for MEO over to Frei's campaign.

For those who are not fully aware of her background, Tohá is another of those who lost their father to the Pinochet dictatorship. The family was forced to live in exile in Mexico City for several years.


Her father was José Tohá, Interior and Defense Minister in the Salvador Allende government. He was arrested (photo shows him reporting to the Defense Ministry) the day of the Sept. 11, 1973 coup along with Orlando Letelier and other top Allende officials.

He was sent with the others to Dawson Island, a makeshift prison camp in the freezing Strait of Magellan.

José Tohá was later returned to Santiago with the others after an international outcry over the harsh conditions on Dawson Island.

He was repeatedly interrogated and tortured at the Air Force Academy until he, according to the Pinochet Junta, committed "suicide" at the army's military hospital in Santiago.

There was a big problem with the "suicide." The pinochetistas said he had hanged himself in a hospital-room closet. But witnesses later testified that José Tohá was too weak to even get out of bed, much less hang himself. At his death he weighed about 105 pounds.

The witnesses testified that the closet bar was about five feet from the floor. José Tohá was 6'5'' tall so it would have been impossible for him to hang himself with his legs doubled on the floor. A forensic doctor later testified that José Tohá had been strangled.

His widow still has an engraved copper plate that says: "To Jose and Moy, with eternal loyalty and affection, Augusto (Pinochet) and Lucia."

http://grace.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/chile/torre/tanquetazo_files/tancazo.jfif
José Tohá with military officers on the day the army loyal to Allende put down the "Tanquetazo" coup attempt three months before the Sept. 11 coup. You can see how tall he was compared to the milicos.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thanks for the photos! So much pain! It's hard to fathom!

Those who have recovered from these horrors, and are working for a better future, are much to be admired.

It's something how many of the current leftist leaders suffered imprisonment and/or torture, and/or loss of family members to torture and murder, exile and other persecution. Let's make a list:

Michele Batchelet, president of Chile
--father was tortured daily for 7 months and died in prison of heart failure; she and her mother were imprisoned and tortured, and then exiled--all compliments of the USA's dictator, Pinochet

Carolina Tohá, her chief presidential aide
--lost her father to torture and murder by Pinochet

Lula da Silva, president of Brazil
--spent a month in prison under the US-supported military dictatorship

Jose Mujica, new president of Uruguay
--14 years in a military prisoner including 2 years at the bottom of a well--compliments of the USA

Fernando Lugo, president of Paraguay
--uncle persecuted and exiled; father imprisoned 20 times, elder siblings exiled; he himself banned from Paraguay for 2 years--by US supported dictator

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia
--jailed and beaten nearly to death for his coca farmer union activities; 5 supporters killed on his farm by the DEA (U.S. "war on drugs")

Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua
--mother jailed by US-supported Somoza dictatorship; one brother killed by the Contras; arrested at 15 for political activities; jailed again by Somoza, released in a prisoner exchange.

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Am I leaving anyone out? Chavez spent two years in jail, but he never claimed it was unfair. He apologized for his part in an armed rebellion against a murderous (US supported) rightwing regime, when he was a young officer, and became a hero in jail. There are likely many cabinet ministers, legislators and other office holders in the many leftist governments that now blanket Latin America, who suffered from US-supported rightwing juntas, whom I don't know about.

It's a wonder that these leaders don't hate the US, but they really don't. They seem to know what we, the people, here are up against, and how little power we have over what our government does.

[rabs]

2. Sen. Letelier, Sen. Allende, and three Communists

Juan Pablo Letelier, member of Chilean Socialist Party, studied economics at Georgetown University, masters from university in Mexico City. Juan Pablo is now a Chilean senator until 2014 after being a four-time member of the Chamber of Deputies.

http://www.beautifulhorizons.net/.a/6a00d83451577969e20105366a2959970b-800wi


Juan Pablo is the son of Orlando Letelier, assassinated in 1976 when his car was blown up in the heart of Washington by DINA operatives Michael Vernon Townley and Armando Fernandez Larios. (Townley and Fernandez now live in the United States under the Federal Witness Plan. Fernandez live in Miami, Townley -- don't know where.)

http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:tgl4wug2g6qkVM::upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Orlando_Letelier_%2526_Ronni_K_Moffit_Memorial_28375046.jpg&h=94&w=126&usg=__9RYQfX7x25r0fqYsHbujuQTUoCw
Monument at Sheridan Circle in D.C. to Letelier and Ronnie Moffit, a U.S. citizen and aide to Letelier who drowned in her own blood after the blast.

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Isabel Allende, daughter of Salvador Allende, won a seat in the Chilean Senate in the elections over the weekend. Photo posted today shows her with Insulza of the OAS. She is not to be confused with the author Isabel Allende, a niece of Salvador Allende who now lives in San Francisco. (Author Allende was also forced to flee into exile to Venezuela after the coup and before settling in California. If you have not read her books, highly recommend them.)

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Three members of the Chilean Communist Party (all men) were elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the elections Sunday. It was the first time Communists are in the Congress since 1973. I would have to look up their history to see what happened to them during the dictatorship.

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There was a new development in response to the appointment yesterday of Carolina Tohá as "generalísima" of the Frei campaign for the runoff.

Sebastián Pińera reacted by naming FOUR politically-connected women as spokespersons for his campaign, three from his National Renovation Party and one from the extreme rightwing UDI (Independent Democratic Union).

"Generalísima" Carolina seems to have thrown Pińera for a loop.

Things are really going to get interesting in the next four week, with both sides already furiously angling for the MEO supporters.

[Judi Lynn]

3. On edit: sorry, I was attempting to address the O.P.'s information. Yikes.

To speak to rabs' original post, on edit:

Thank you for this new information, and for incluing the "real" Isabel Allende

(I've been deeply bewildered over what the hell was going on with her both in Chilean politics, and writing, and living outside Chile!

Also thanks for the information concerning the younger Letellier. Did not know about him.

A far more complete picture developes concerning how many people were touched in a deadly way by these fascists, after considering the 3 new ones you've introduced.

Here's a photo of José Tohá showing him walking next to average sized men. He WAS a tall guy.

http://www.historia.uchile.cl.nyud.net:8090/CDA/Images/crono/imag_jtoha.gif http://www.lanacion.cl.nyud.net:8090/prontus_noticias_v2/site/artic/20090614/imag/FOTO_0120090614233643.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_JaAuCcqMhKM/SIizWhbf-vI/AAAAAAAAAFI/VVp00J2JC7g/s320/Almeida,+Toha,+Suarez+1971+a+Belgica.JPG http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3148/2731353729_b9f30b7358.jpg
What a shame he was so damaged, so abused by the evil fascist, U.S.-supported puppet Augusto Pinochet.

Hope the new generation will be able to keep this nightmare firmly focused within the national conscience. To forget it is to repeat it, of course.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It would be inconceivable he hung himself in a closet, unless it had been a giant's closet.

Their cynical lie is almost a challenge to the world to do something about it once they had killed him.

It's like thumbing their noses to offer such an absurd explanation for what happened to the man.