Remembering the other 9/11
Police attack workers on Chile coup anniversary
By Greg Butterfield
On the night of Sept. 11 and morning of Sept. 12, police
arrested 445 people in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Many
thousands had come out of their homes to demonstrate on the
29th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew
pro-socialist President Salvador Allende and installed a
terrorist right-wing regime headed by Gen. Augusto
Pinochet.
It has been an open secret since 1973 that the U.S.
government under Richard Nixon and big U.S. companies like ITT
were involved in planning and carrying out the coup. A 10-man
CIA "coup team" had been operating inside Chile since Allende's
election in 1970. U.S. Ambassador Nat h aniel P. Davis shuttled
between the military coup leaders and the White House.
Washington even acknowledged that it had 24 hours advance
notice of the coup.
According to a government report, 3,190 leftists were killed
during the coup and under Pinochet. This is a minimum number.
Over 1,000 more were "disappeared." Their bodies have not been
found.
For the first time since Pinochet left office in 1990, the
coup anniversary was not officially marked as a national day of
mourning. But the government's effort to make the infamous date
pass quietly failed. After getting home from work, tens of
thousands of toilers in Santiago's working class suburbs took
to the streets. They erected barricades of burning tires at
major intersections.
Demonstrators reported that police attacked with water
cannons, tear gas and live ammunition. The cops later denied
shooting into the crowd. Some protesters defended themselves by
throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police.
Earlier, on Sept. 8, an official protest called by workers'
parties and unions was held. Several thousand marched from
downtown Santiago to the city's main cemetery, where a memorial
wall commemorates the thousands of victims of U.S.-Pinochet
terrorism. Many carried Communist Party flags and portraits of
Allende.
Police attacked this demonstration, too. Masked youths
responded by setting fire to a McDonald's restaurant, burning a
U.S. flag and throwing rocks at U.S.-owned banks.
Chile's workers and peasants are not only fighting the
terrible depression gripping all of South America. They are
still fighting for some measure of justice for the crimes
committed by Pinochet, the Chilean bosses and their friends in
Washington.
Allende, leader of the Socialist Party, was elected in 1970.
He established friendly ties with socialist Cuba and embarked
on a series of popular reforms aimed at benefiting the vast
majority of Chileans. ITT, Anaconda Copper, Kennecot and other
U.S. companies began working for Allende's overthrow.
Allende enjoyed the support of many Chileans. Unfortunately,
his perspective of a peaceful transition to socialism didn't
take into account the determination of U.S. imperialism and
Chile's capitalist state machinery--the military, police and
courts--to crush the revolutionary process. The necessary
measures to arm the masses and organize them for self-defense
against the counter-revolutionaries were not taken.
On Sept. 11, 1973, the Air Force bombed the Presidential
Palace. The coup plotters murdered Allende, though to this day
U.S. press agencies continue to report the myth that he "chose
to die by his own hand." A deadly witch-hunt began against
communists, socialists, union members and other progressives
that continued for the next 17 years.
Documents released by the U.S. government in 1999 and 2000
provide more evidence of Washington's involvement in the coup.
Ambassador Davis, for instance, said that while it would be
"politically risky" for the U.S. to help Pinochet set up
concentration camps for political prisoners, it could safely
provide material support for that effort.
Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under Nixon and Gerald
Ford and a key advisor to the Bush Sr. administration, met with
Pinochet in 1976 and assured him that his terror campaign had
Washington's full backing.
Earlier this summer, Chilean Judge Juan Guzman announced he
was considering starting extradition proceedings against
Kissinger, who has refused to cooperate or testify in the case
of Charles Horman, a U.S.-born filmmaker and journalist killed
after the coup.
Among the charges being investigated: whether Ambassador
Davis gave the military lists of U.S. citizens in Chile
considered sympathetic to Allende.
Reprinted from the Sept. 26, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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