Patricio Lanfranco Interview

After a devastating earthquake rocked Chile in March 2010, Abi Wright, director of the duPont Columbia Awards, interviewed Patricio Lanfranco about his personal experience during the disaster and the destruction it left behind. He also gives an update on Juan Guzmán.

1. Another 6.9 aftershock rocked Chile today (March 15th), and the whole country was hit by a blackout. How are things going there where you are?

I have a little lodge in the mountains 500 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake in a place called Tinquilco, at the Huerquehue National Park, 900 kms. south of Santiago. (www.tinquilco.cl ) The closest town to Tinquilco is a summer resort called Pucón – in the Lake District. I’ve been building the lodge for 20 years, with a high level of self- sustainability, so we were very, very privileged to have our own hydropower system (though limited), which helped us a lot in the emergency. We also have a big green house which provides fresh vegetables, and we have plenty of fresh water provided by the streams. So we were just fine on the day you asked about -- unlike the rest of the country.

2. Where were you when the earthquake hit? Please tell us what happened.

That night, I had a late dinner with guests and came back to our family cabin, which is in the middle of the forest about 200 meters from the lodge. My wife had gone to Pucón that day, and she brought newspapers, and I was reading avidly because I was starved for news. In the middle of the silent forest, a deep and weird sound started, followed by a moderate shaking of the cabin. As a Chilean (this is my fourth big earthquake -- 1960, 1971, 1985 and this one), I was immediately alert, but nothing more. After around 30 seconds, the movement slowed down, but then a new, more violent wave started, and things were falling from the walls. The sound increased. I went to the stairs and called my wife, who was sleeping on the second floor. I saw her at the top of the stairs shaking with the house, which was dancing with the earth. We were staring at each other -- calm, but scared. Then the lights went off, the movement was even worse, and we were shouting at each other to stay where we were. The house slowly stabilized, and we were happy that we were ok. We knew it was a huge earthquake and figured the epicenter was around 300-400 kms. from us and near the coast. We thought of our three sons in Santiago and tried to call them, but there was no way to communicate, no lines working. In the next three minutes I communicated with the lodge by walkie-talkie and people there were fine, and I also reached several neighbors on the same frequency. I went over to the lodge – across 200 meters of forest in the dark. The silence was amazing: no frogs, no night birds, not a single rustle of leaves. Just the river, with no apparent change in its waters. I connected the little hydropower system that we weren’t using at the time, because it’s summer and the water flow is not enough to make it work for all the energy requirements. At the same time, I communicated by radio that all the fridges and other major appliances should be unplugged. Lights came back on, low but enough to see and feel more secure. Everybody was safe, but scared. Some of my guests –foreigners-- were curious more than scared. We turned on the radio. Nothing. After a while we got a radio station from Argentina on the shortwave and we knew that they felt the movement too. Bad news. Then we got a Chilean radio station saying the earthquake was felt in Antofagasta, about three thousand kms. north!! We were devastated, because we knew then that it was a huge catastrophe.

Two hours later we received a phone call from my youngest son. The call lasted for only one minute, but enough to know from him that all the kids were ok and safe, and that the earthquake was huge in Santiago too.

The ground was trembling the whole night. We were just waiting for the daylight, suffering in silence, but relieved to know that our children and grandchild were safe.

3. What has the political impact been of this earthquake? Has it had an effect on the media and their coverage of the earthquake?

As with perhaps any disaster, it shows the best and the worst of a society. You could see the first reaction (in a country that is supposed to be used to and prepared for earthquakes) was solidarity among the victims. Thousands of people for 1,500 kms. were sleeping on the streets, on the hills, on the squares -- afraid that their houses could fall down with the aftershocks and following aftershocks. Nevertheless, some greedy people started to loot from homes and stores. An engineer was convicted and sent to jail this week for stealing appliances like TV sets! Never happened before in Chile, and its very sad. Politicians did not know what to do. The country had no communications at all, no telephones lines, no radio-communication, no satellite communications. Dozens of towns -- especially coastal villages -- were devastated and nobody could reach them for 20 hours. The media did not inform people what to do, what should be the behavior of the population. They emphasized the destruction, the robberies and helped create an image of chaos and poor leadership that finally stimulated more robbing and chaos. The system failed, indicating how stupid we have been in privatizing the basic sources of a society: water, electricity, communications, the media. They were not prepared for an emergency. The systematic efforts to maximize profits by the private companies in all these years clearly affected the security of the country. The media say little about this.

4. Did it surprise you that then President Bachelet was hesitant to send troops into the streets? What has your reaction been?

Yes indeed I was surprised. The armed forces always have usually played a key role when we faced this kind of disaster in the past. The armed forces in Chile are prepared not only for war, but generally to help in a decisive way with emergencies. They have troops, a command structure, and resources like heavy machinery, trucks, tents, mobile hospitals, mechanic bridges, trucks for water transportation, communications, maps, etc, etc that could have been very helpful from the beginning. The President lost a big opportunity to be seen not only as person concerned about the emergency and the victims, but also as a person in charge of providing the state resources to help the people. I don’t agree with the point of view that armed forces on the street could show a political weakness; on the contrary the whole country would clearly understand that this was a national emergency which needed the help of everybody who wasn’t a victim, and especially public servants – which the armed forces are.

5. What is the latest from Judge Juan Guzmán?

Judge Guzmán is representing Mapuche and other clients in Chile in cases that raise issues of human rights. He is also working to form an organization which could promote more widely the defense of social, economic and cultural rights for minorities and other groups facing discrimination in Chile. This year he will travel to Colombia to teach human rights workshops and to Mexico to serve as a member of a commission investigating massive layoffs of workers. He will receive an Honorary Degree at Haverford College in Pennsylvania on May 16.

6. What are you working on now?

After The Judge and the General, I wanted to take a break and think about the subject for a new documentary. But clearly the earthquake and what we are living now changed everything. I think the new subject will be related with this experience, probably with the “new businesses” that are rising, taking advantage of the “opportunity” that the earthquake provides.

7. In your acceptance speech at the duPont Awards you asked the audience to keep an eye on Chile. What should we be looking for in the coming months?

Transparency. The new authorities are appointing business leaders in key public positions, crossing the line of ethics in my view. I see conflicts of interest. For example, the same people who are owners of big real estate companies are now appointed “intendentes” – the regional governors and are in charge of re-construction after the earthquake. Former executives of companies who built highways, hospitals, and jails are in the Ministry of Public Works. The President himself finally sold his shares on LAN Airlines only a few days ago in a way that he saved millions of dollars in taxes, at the very same moment that the state need all the money possible to help the victims.

The past huge earthquake under the Pinochet dictatorship in 1985 provided it with the excuse to give away some of the companies belonging to the state, because the “re-construction needed fresh money”. Now, different leaders of the corporate organizations (like your National Association of Manufacturers) are saying that “new taxes on companies are not the right way of obtaining fresh money for re-construction, because it’s bad for investments. On the contrary, the state should sell some of their remaining assets”. For very little money, of course.