"We have been in litigation since 2001, and the truth is that they are in open rebellion. I don't know how it will end. There was no manner for us to reach an accord, and the courts had to resolve the matter."

This quote is from a 2010 interview with Horacio Salinas, after "Inti-Illimani Historico" had released the compact-disc album "Travesuras" and was performing in support of the new release.

I find the words "open rebellion" give me food for thought. In interviews of an earlier date, closer to the 2001 crisis in which Salinas angrily walked away from the group -- and from the brothers Coulon in particular -- the language is more neutral, more cautious, at least on the part of Salinas. As if, earlier on, he feared giving offense; and by 2010 he can speak somewhat more of his opinion.

By "they," it is safe to presume that Salinas meant not just "Inti-Illimani [Nuevo]" in general, but Jorge and Marcelo Coulon in particular. This is the first time, granted that I have missed I don't know how many interviews, that the word "Rebellion" is used, which implies authority as well as conflict -- so that this is something beyond a difference of opinion.

In 1997, Max Berru (Ecuador) left amicably.
A short time later, so did Jose Seves, who was to come back in 2000 and then leave a second time.
Horacio Salinas left once and for all, with much rancor and bitterness, in 2001.
Horacio Duran quietly left in 2004.

These are four of the six core members of the band whilst in exile; while other musicians (notably Renato Freygangg and Jorge Ball) came and went, these six were constant during fifteen years away from Chile. It gives one something to think about, that Jorge Coulon and his brother keep stubbornly (that word "porfia") to one position in the group, and their four comrades from the exile years leave the group rather than continue with them.