the question posed to Obama on Chile and his answer

[Bacchus39]

looks like it may have been the first question:



Q President Pinera, President Obama, good afternoon. President Obama, you have emphasized and highlighted the economic management of Chile, the leadership in the region -- those were your words -- and even the successful transitioning to democracy in the difficult years of the ‘90s. However, in Chile, President Obama, there are some open wounds of the dictatorship of General Pinochet. And so in that sense, leaders, political leaders, leaders of the world, of human rights, even MPs (members of parliament), the son of the murdered Orlando Letelier, foreign minister, have said that many of those wounds have to do with the United States. I ask you, justice is investigating cases of Allende and the death of President Eduardo Frei Montalba. In that new speech that you will announce, do you include that the U.S. is willing to collaborate with those judicial investigations, even that the United States is willing to ask for forgiveness for what it did in those very difficult years in the ‘70s in Chile?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, on the specific question of how we can work with the Chilean government, any requests that are made by Chile to obtain more information about the past is something that we will certainly consider and we would like to cooperate. I think it’s very important for all of us to know our history. And obviously the history of relations between the United States and Latin America have at times been extremely rocky and have at times been difficult.

I think it’s important, though, for us, even as we understand our history and gain clarity about our history, that we’re not trapped by our history. And the fact of the matter is, is that over the last two decades we’ve seen extraordinary progress here in Chile and that has not been impeded by the United States but, in fact, has been fully supported by the United States.

So I can’t speak to all of the policies of the past. I can speak certainly to the policies of the present and the future. And as President of the United States, what I know is that our firm commitment to democracy, our firm commitment to eradicating poverty, our full commitment to broad-based and socially inclusive development, our full support of the robust, open markets that have developed here in Chile and the work that President Pinera and his predecessor, President Bachelet, have done in order to transform the economic situation here -- those are all things that the United States strongly supports.

And so, again, it’s important for us to learn from our history, to understand our history, but not be trapped by it -- because we’ve got a lot of challenges now and, even more importantly, we have challenges in the future that we have to attend to.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/21/remarks-president-obama-and-president-sebastian-pinera-chile-join-press-