On This Day: "The other 9/11" - coup, followed by reign of violence - Chile, Sep. 11, 1973
Last edited Mon Sep 11, 2023, 08:31 AM - Edit history (1)
(edited from Wikipedia)
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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the government [of] democratic socialist Salvador Allende, president of Chile. Allende faced significant social unrest, political tension, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon.
On September 11, 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of a top general who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.
Following the coup, a military junta was established, and suspended all political activities in Chile and suppressed left-wing movements. Pinochet swiftly consolidated power and was officially declared president of Chile in late 1974. The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power. Although he died in the palace, the exact circumstances of Allende's death are still disputed.
Chile had previously been regarded as a symbol of democracy and political stability in South America, while other countries in the region suffered under military juntas. At the time, Chile was a middle-class country. The collapse of Chilean democracy marked the end of a series of democratic governments that had held elections since 1932.
Historian Peter Winn described the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in Chilean history. It led to a series of human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet, who initiated a brutal and long-lasting campaign of political suppression through torture, murder, and exile, which significantly weakened leftist opposition to the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990).
The internationally-supported 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum held under the military junta led to the peaceful Chilean transition to democracy. Due to the coup's occurrence on the same date as the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, it has sometimes been referred to as "the other 9/11".
[Campaign of Terror]
In the first months after the coup d'état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their "disappearance". The military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos (disappeared) were the U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. In October 1973, the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara was murdered, along with 70 other people in a series of killings perpetrated by the death squad Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte).
The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government.
After Gen. Pinochet lost the election in the 1988 plebiscite, the Rettig Commission, a multi-partisan truth commission, in 1991 reported the location of torture and detention centers, among others, Colonia Dignidad, the tall ship Esmeralda and Víctor Jara Stadium. Later, in November 2004, the Valech Report confirmed the number as fewer than 3,000 killed and reduced the number of cases of forced disappearance; but some 28,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured.
Sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September.
40th anniversary
The 40th anniversary of the coup in 2013 was particularly intense. The Association of Chilean Magistrates issued a public statement in early September 2013 recognizing the past unwillingness of judges to protect those persecuted by dictatorship. On 11 September 2013 hundreds of Chileans posed as dead in the streets of Santiago in remembrance of the ones "disappeared" by the dictatorship.
President Piñera held an unusual speech in which he denounced "passive accomplices" like news reporters who deliberately changed or omitted the truth and judges who rejected recursos de amparos that could have saved lives. People who knew things or could have known things but decided to stay quiet were also criticized as passive accomplices in Piñera's speech.
A number of new films, theatre plays, and photography expositions were held to cast light on the abuses and censorship of the dictatorship. The number of new books published on the subject in 2013 was such that it constituted an editorial boom. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights also displayed a collection of declassified CIA, FBI, Defense Department, and White House records illustrating the U.S. role in the dictatorship and the coup. Conferences and seminaries on the subject of coup were also held. Various series and interviews with politicians on the subject of the coup and the dictatorship were aired on Chilean TV in 2013.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#
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Current article here: (9/11/2023)
Chile marks military coup as divisions continue
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-66706064
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