The images of the Hawker-Hunter air raid on the Presidential Palace, La Casa de La Moneda, on September 17th 1973, circulated around the world. This was the opening bombing raid that was to lead to the fall and death of President Salvador Allende, who was in the palace at the time. Very soon after, heartrending images of beatings, people packed into football stadiums and the capital being bombed flooded the news.
So, when, in 1974, Bob Fulton, who worked as an engine inspector at the Rolls-Royce East Kilbride factory, (about 13km east of Glasgow) was asked to repair and service some Chilean Air Force Rolls-Royce Avon engines, Fulton immediately realized that these engines came from the very planes being used to bomb the population of Chile. He was very upset and refused to allow the engines to go through servicing in protest, expecting to be fired. However, with his colleagues and Union support, they held their ground. In the end, the boycott was to last for a full four years, until the engines were mysteriously removed one night without warning from the factory yard where they had been slowly rusting.
There had been marches and unrest in Chile before the coup, but there was no existent guerrilla army, so that the exceptionally bloody executions, disappearances and tortures that followed (that inevitably included many innocent people) caught the population totally unawares. Latin America has been notorious for constant coups and take- overs, since they became independent from Spain in the 19th century, but these were largely bloodless affairs that affected only a few individuals. The population was completely unprepared for the brutality that ensued. Let alone the appalling consequences of the presence of CIA trained officers, from the infamous Panama school of Torture, who were sent to control US interests in the region.
This remarkable documentary by Felipe Bustos Sierra follows the plight of the engines and the Union workers that led the protest. As they themselves said: “Union power is people power”. What began as an humanitarian gesture ended up having huge political repercussions as they managed to ground half of the Chilean Air Force from the other side of the world, in one of the most effective acts of solidarity against the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet. The group that led the boycott, Bob Fulton, Stuart Barrie. John Keenan, Robert Somerville and others, were completely unaware of the impact they had had, as for them, it had just been a matter of conscience and solidarity.
It was only 40 years later, when the filmmaker Felipe Bustos Sierra, now based in Edinburgh and himself the son of a Chilean exile, reunited the leading figures of the protest that they all understood how vital and important a role they had played in saving the lives of many people.
Bustos Sierra then takes them all on a journey to discover what happened to the missing engines and he involves other people from Chile who were also involved or affected. He reunites the wonderful characters of Bob Fulton with his colleagues Robert Somerville, Stuart Barrie and John Keenan, and then meets survivors of the coup, so that they can learn about the Chilean side of the story. There is also an extraordinary interview with a retired Chilean Air Force General, who seems oblivious of the brutality they had caused, ironically criticizing ISIS for their bloody campaign in the Middle East.
The film aptly had its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival, and has been very well received. To see how these men gradually discover the impact they had, and their active participation in the search for the missing engines, finally discovering them in Chile, is very moving. I genuinely shed a tear or two. Bustos Sierra has captured a vital moment in history and brought it to life again, a quiet protest that was forgotten is now remembered and its full effect on the people of Chile is finally properly appreciated.
Bob Fulton, Suart Barrie and John Keenan receiving their medals.
An example of international solidarity at its best, as the director says:
“It was important that everybody in the film, who had carried their own history for so long without an outlet, would be treated as a personal expert on what they’d lived through”.
It was a very long journey of painstaking research and constant funding problems to complete the film, especially because in Chile, when Pinochet stood down, they passed a law that all ‘sensitive’ archives should be destroyed. “It was like doing a 2000-piece puzzle with 200 pieces”. Nevertheless, one of the engines has been found, rescued and returned to Scotland with the help of Unite Scotland and the Glasgow Museums.
Were it not for the persistent and relentless music track, the film would be near perfect. Highly recommended.
Earlier short of the film shot in 2013-13 minutes.
https://voyeurmoviez.ml/review/download-for-free-nae-pasaran-2017-by-fe…
Writer/Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra
Camera Peter Keith
Production Company Debasers Filums
Cast: Bob Fulton, Stuart Barrie, John Keenan , Roberto Somerville.
