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Sebastián Piñera, President elect of Chile, and the richest person in his country will take office tomorrow after his inauguration today. The change in Presidential administration takes place less than two weeks after a devastating earthquake on February 27th. Of Chile’s 17 million residents, two million are now homeless. In 2005, Chile ranked 12th in a World Bank list of the most inequitable societies in the world, a consequence of Dictator Augustin Pinochet’s free market economic policies. Under his regime, shanty towns boomed and unemployment increased ten-fold. The democratically elected governments that followed the Pinochet regime claimed to have made an effort to reform the nation’s economy. However Piñera’s adherence to free-market ideology is leading many to fear that his administration will pursue policies that further erode the social fabric of Chile.

GUEST: Roger Burbach, author of “The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice,” and director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA).

His article Chile’s Social Earthquake can be found at http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ca155b417819e90c485a1fcee022fcdd