WORLD & NATION
7
January 29, 2010
Billionaire Piiiera to be next Chilean president
By Becca Heller
Staff Writer
In a Jan. 17 election, Chileans
selected billionaire Sebastian
Pinera as the country's next presi
dent. Having narrowly beaten the
liberal candidate Eduardo Frei, 52
percent to 48 percent, Pinera will
take office on March 11 as the
country's first right-wing leader
since dictator Augusto Pinochet
left power in 1990.
At age 60, Pinera amassed a
large portion of his $1.2 billion
fortune by setting up Chile's first
credit card network. He now owns
one of Chile's four television sta
tions, a popular football club, and
a big stake in Latin America's big
gest airline, LAN.
Pinera spent over $13.6 million
on the campaign. Business Week
reported. According to the Wall
Street Journal, he plans to apply
his entrepreneurial skills to Chile's
already-stable economy. He has
already declared that Chile will
experience an average annual
growth rate of 6 percent during
his term. Many experts, includ
ing Harvard University economist
Ricardo Hausmann are doubtful as
to the plausibility of this goal.
While Pinera has garnered much
support with his talk of economic
prosperity in Chile, many people
still express ambivalence regard
ing his election. Current Chilean
president Michelle Bachelet has
questioned the probable conflict of
interests of Pinera's many invest
ments.
Other concerns have arisen
regarding Pinera's treatment of
human rights. Pinera found the
majority of his support coming
from the same parties that stood
behind dictator Augusto Pinochet,
whose regime tortured over 28,000
people and murdered over 3,000.
Bachelet's term and the term
before hers saw much improve
ment on human rights, and Pinera
seeks to assure voters that there
will be no departure from this
progress.
"I have condemned human
rights violations all my life, with
no hesitation," Pinera said in a
Business Week article. "Human
rights are sacred. Our govern
ment will be a government of the
future."
During his campaign, he
assured that he would hire no
former Pinochet cabinet members,
but he later retracted the statement
due to backlash from angry sup
porters.
"Having collaborated loyally
and honestly with a government
is not a sin or a crime," he said,
according to USA Today.
According to Business Week, two
of Pinera's top campaign advisers
held posts during Pinochet's dicta
torship, while a third was a former
minister to Pinochet.
"The fact that the candidate who
represents the parties that support
ed Pinochet has won shows how
much Chile has changed," said
Patricio Navia, a Chilean political
scientist at New York University
in Manhattan.
Some are saying that this shift
of power in Chile could reflect
a more general shift of power in
Latin America away from the left.
In an e-mail interview. Assistant
Professor of Sociology and
Anthropology Maria Amado point
ed out that Panama also recent
ly elected conservative Ricardo
Martinelli, while in Honduras the
democratically elected leader was
deposed in a military coup by
a group representing right-wing
agendas.
"While these events, along with
the election of Pinera in Chile, may
not be sufficient evidence to pre
dict a significant shift to the right,
they are certainly indicators of a
Sebastian Pinery, accompanied by his wife Cecilia Morel, after the
first round of general elections in Santiago, Chile, on April 13,2009. Pinera
went on to win the second and final round on Jan . 17
possible change in that direction,"
said Amado.
Assistant Professor of History
Alvis Dunn speculates that the
election was more a result of the
specific conditions of Chile's cur
rent political system.
"I think Pinera's victory was
more a function of the fraying forc
es that have held the left-wing par
ties together in the past," he said.
"The coalition on the left seems to
have lost cohesion and this permit
ted a more unified non-left."
According to Dunn, Pinera has
a difficult task ahead of him. In
the midst of keeping promises of
economic growth, Pinera will also
need to focus on coalition-build
ing and maintaining popularity
among his own constituency.
"Bachelet's economic policies
were really quite successful,"
Dunn points out. "I don't think
Pinera will really change the eco
nomic policy all that much. I
don't think he can afford to. There
will probably be a lot of talk that
sounds different to please his con
stituency, but I think if he changes
the economy too much, it will
suffer."
Cyber-attacks prompt Google to
question its future service to China
By Sharp Hall
Staff Writer
Google has announced it will no
longer censor search results in China
following cyber attacks from the Chinese
government on its Chinese subsidiary,
Google.cn.
Launched by Google in 2006, Google,
cn drew criticism from supporters who
believed its partnership with the Chinese
government conflicted with Google's
"don't be evil" mantra, listed online in
Google's Code of Conduct.
In addition to the attacks, e-mail
accounts may have also been monitored.
"We have discovered that the accounts
of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-
based Gmail users who are advocates of
human rights in China appear to have
been routinely accessed by third parties,"
said David Drummond, Google's SVP of
Corporate Development and Chief Legal
Officer, in the company's official blog.
"We look to the Chinese government
for an explanation," said Hillary Clinton
in a statement on Google's operations
in China. "The ability to operate with
confidence in cyberspace is critical in a
modern society and economy."
Meanwhile, Google's president Dave
Girouard has reassured American users
that their data was not affected by the
cyber attacks.
Teresa Sanford, director of user services
at IT&S, agrees. "Google Apps for
Education, where we live, is not part of
their consumer side — the Gmail side —
which is where everybody tries to hack,"
said Sanford. "I feel that it's safer out
there."
Some, such as the Cult of the Dead Cow
computer-hacking collective's Oxblood
Ruffin, feel that Google has been straying
further and further from its "don't be
evil" mantra and that this action is an
attempt for Google to put themselves in
a good light.
"When you're being chased out of town,
it can be face-saving to grab a flag and say
that you're leading a parade," said Ruffin
on cDc's blog. Another reason for Google
leaving China, according to the Wall Street
Journal, is that it would have proven too
technically difficult to continue complying
with China's censorship mandates.
"It looks like an incredibly smart
business decision," said Associate
Professor and Chair of Political Science
Ken Gilmore.
"We have a view of large technology
corporations as being bad," he said.
"So, what's a really good thing to do? To
say this is the Internet, and we're going to
protect what the Internet stands for."
Nevertheless, Gilmore feels better
about using Google knowing that they
are standing, not participating in Chinese
censorship.
"I am absolutely on the side of Google
on this," said Gilmore. "I think it's really
admirable what they did."
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