Missing

There is an Argentinian music-comedy group called Les Luthiers, they are famous for creating new instruments out of daily life tools but also because in a keen way they mock many things and insitutions. One of their acts is called “La Comision” The commission, where two very corrupt politicians are assigned to modify the national anthem, so it can contain the ideals of the current party in power, they hired a musician and the three of them work in those changes. One of the lines of the act says “No se olvide usted que los Estados Unidos han sido los principales propulsores de nuestra actual democracia...;¡Y de nuestras anteriores dictaduras! ” (Do not forget that the United States have been the main promoters of our actual democracy, and the other guy responds and of our previous dictatorships.) I remember not understanding this line for a while; it just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Later on I asked my mom about it and she kind of explained it to me, but it was never very clear till a couple of years ago. And now it makes much more sense to me.
While watching the movie Missing in class, this statement kept coming to my head all the time. The role of the United States ambassador, consul and other American characters, without Charles Horman’s family was very interesting. I feel their role was never very defined, I am aware they had a lot of American families calling and showing up all the time complaining and asking for help to find their relatives and friends, but this movie was just about one case, and it is a case that even though this case was later declassified by the United States government I still believe it is true.
Les Luthiers are an Argentinian group by the reference many things of Latin America and that is of course majorly their audience. In their act La Comision they never mention a recognized name, they made up, the name of the party, the politicians, the musician and the music and lyrics of the national anthem, but it is very clear for all the audience that they are depicting the dictatorship era of Latin America, and I don’t know if a dicator ever went that far to even modify the national anthem, but they definitely did some things and worse crimes.
Missing has some similarities with the act mentioned above, in the movie they don’t make up the name of the dicator, but at the same time they never mention him, and they barely mention the country, they only mention Santiago and Viña a few times, but the word ”Chile” is never used. And still without even mention that information the film was banned in Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and the US ambassador suit against the director of the movie. If the movie had absolutely nothing to do with them, why would they have such reactions against it? In the movie the ambassador, the consul and the other characters from the United States that are part of the government never show a much identified role. In an opportunity they claim their neutrality in the whole situation, but in some instances it seemed as if they were in cooperation with the Chilean government and they weren’t even touched when Charles’ dad almost cried in their office. Their role and side in the movie really leaves much to ponder.
As a non-United States citizen I have been able to seen the involvement of the United States in my country and in other countries of Latin America, in conflicts and in other circumstances, and I personally believe they always want to and get more involved than what a neutral country should. Charles Horman case is just one, but not the only one, there are a lot more with similar stories and there are still in these days families trying to figure out what happen with their loved ones, looking for the traces and looking for their bodies. Charles Horman, apparently knew too much, that even his own country’s embassy wasn’t really cooperating with his search and not really sharing the information they had with his family; they were not sharing the truth because they were hiding something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD0gAAju1bU
The video that I mention. Unfortunately I couldn't find one with subtitles.