Monday 17 December 2012 photo 1/2
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Ambassador: Gustaf Harald Edelstam
1913-1989
A true defender of humans rights, Edelstam risk his life for people he did not know.
Norway
As a diplomat in occupied Norway during WWII's end, Edelstam saved the lives of hundreds Norwegian resistance fighters and Jews, and served as a liaison between the Germans and the Resistance Hjemmefronten, who called him the "Black Pimpernel". He was active in exports, namely with smuggling of threatened resistance fighters and Jews to Sweden. He sheltered persecuted fighters in his home and was above all a great instigator of the illegal press.
Chile
In 1972 became Edelstam ambassador in Santiago de Chile. He openly expressed sympathy for the elected socialist president Salvador Allende in conjunction with Augusto Pinochet's military coup 1973rd He offered safe passage and political asylum in Sweden at about 1300 persecuted Chileans and other Latin Americans who fled to Chile, and thereby saved the lives of many of these.
He conducted several major operations after the military coup. His neighbor, the Cuban embassy was besieged by Chilean troops. He assisted when his Cuban colleague and managed to stop the shooting by going into the Cuban embassy area and begin negotiations with the Chilean military, which resulted in the evacuation of the Cuban staff. Harald Edelstam undertook immediately Protecting mission, in agreement with the Prime Minister, Olof Palme, and took over all Cuban buildings. The day after he hoisted the Swedish flag on the Cuban embassy, to show that it was under Swedish protection and if chilean soldiers wear to enter the embassy it were be seen as an act of war.
Edelstam protected now both the Swedish Embassy and the Cuban, quickly filled the Embassy of refugees from several other Latin American countries. Most were Chileans but there were also Brazilians, Argentines, Cubans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians and Bolivians. All had previously fled to Chile after Allende's election victory, on the run from their home countries.
The most spectacular operation took place when he managed to save 54 of the Uruguayan National Stadium that would have arkebuserade day. Following the advice and pleas from prisoners, he managed and Vice-Consul Bengt Oldenburg dislodge the death threatened the prisoners and bring them to safety. That night was Mario Lavanderos arkebuserad on the orders of Colonel Jorge Espinoza, head of the National Stadium, as he helped Edelstam.
The new regime appreciated of course, commitment, and deported Edelstam after a fight between the Swedish embassy staff and the Chilean military when a sick, asylum seekers woman was abducted by the Chilean military. According to the Foreign Affairs Council Wilhelm Wachtmeister, this was not entirely unwelcome for the Swedish government that saw itself freed from "the need to RECALL him." 4 December 1973 he was declared as "persona non grata". Later Edelstam visited Fidel Castro in Cuba, where he was hailed as a great hero.
During the 1970s Edelstam hailed as one of the Swedish student left main heroes. Among the tens of thousands of Chileans who now lives in Sweden, and the Left in Latin America, considered Edelstam remain as a hero.
Har filmatiserats:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796206/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAUt_iMQkD4
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