By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
There was good news this week. You couldn’t have missed it. Always happier with spectacle than substance, the American public — indeed, the entire world — took satisfaction as 33 Chilean copper/gold miners were lifted to safety after spending more than two months underground. A rescue of this magnitude had never happened before, and humans had never before survived such an ordeal. Proceeding with an abundance of caution, and taking an entire news cycle to pull each miner through a half-mile of rock, an active government took part in the rescue process as an international team accomplished a technological miracle for 33 of Chile’s trapped citizens.
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As it happened: rescue of Chile’s final trapped miner. Chilean
miners: ‘We never lost faith. We knew we would be rescued’. Photo: YouTube Video. |
Mining is the backbone of Chile’s economy, so it was obviously in the best interests of President Sebastian Piñera to appear devoted to the miners’ welfare. Piñera can be described as an elitist himself, and Chile a country divided between exploited workers and their wealthy masters. The cave-in occurred on August 5, sealing off exits for the trapped workers. Nothing was known for 17 days, until a drill probing for air pockets poked into the small lunchroom where the men huddled in the dark. The drill returned to the surface along with a note. Outcry from the families encouraged government to attempt a rescue at the mine, which is not a series of shafts and elevators but rather a corkscrew configuration sloping gently down over a half-mile. Shafts supplied air; not so food or water. Surviving the weeks before discovery was an act of faith for the disciplined miners, who shared minimal provisions every other day, hoping for eventual relief.
Although mine safety was unsurprisingly lax, Chile did not circle the wagons and refuse assistance from others, as some nations do when facing such a disaster. Instead, Piñera gathered an international team to shepherd the rescue attempt, personally attending to the news cycles over the last two months. This week, he and his wife met each miner for a hug and word of encouragement as they came topside. You can’t buy PR like that, and while I’m sure much of his emotion was genuine, the opportunity to increase national popularity was a major coup for this conservative politician.