The other day, I was thinking about this past year’s commemoration of September 11 events. As traumatic, savage, and world changing as it was, I was not thinking of US 9/11, but those of September 11, 1973 in Chile. The day when a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, and plunged the country into one of the bloodiest dictatorships of post world war 2.
A dictatorship that ruthlessly imprisoned, tortured and killed people, because they had a leftist political view. A dictatorship that literally killed over 3,000 people, because they believed in socialism, and made ‘disappear’ over 38,000. Among methods of murder, was throwing the victims off the planes into the sea all gagged up.
There have been ample studies and supporting documents to prove the complacency and later full support the US, UK, and Australian governments gave the perpetrators in the aftermath of the coup. In fact, the CIA initially financed the kidnapping of René Schneider, the commander-in-Chief of the Chilean armed forces, who opposed any coup d’état. This attempted kidnapping, financed by CIA, turned into his murder. His disappearance facilitated General Augusto Pinochet’s power grab. It is one of history’s shame that Pinochet died a free man, was never bothered for his crimes, and when he was arrested in a later visit to the UK, due to Spain’s investigation of his murders, the UK government set him free on the basis of ‘humanitarian’ reasons!
So what am I writing all this for? Well, for one, to commemorate one of humanity’s most somber acts since the end of WW2. An act which received covert and quickly an overt support from the two countries that pretend to be the ‘guardians’ of democracy, freedom, and the rules-based international order!!! Yep and 50 years have gone by.
Paris, January 18, 2024
Zeejay