The Struggle For Justice

This is the tragic chronicle of how democracy was destroyed in Chile in the early 70’s by Kissinger, Nixon, the CIA and the corporatists, viz. IT & T and the copper mining companies owned by Anaconda and Kennecott.

But first in 1970 Salvador Allende, as head of the Popular Unity party, was elected President of Chile. Chile had been a democracy for 30 years and Allende, who was a democratic socialist, believed in the ballot box as the road to power rather than armed revolution. A significant plank in his platform was the nationalization of the phone company and the copper mines as well as a number of other well known companies. We have here an excellent example of the power of private corporations because as soon as it became clear that Allende had won the election, the private investors both in Chile and America began a concerted campaign to subvert and undermine Allende’s government.

Nixon became apoplectic when he was told that Allende had won. The CIA had been assigned the job of stopping him but had failed. Nixon’s instruction to Helms, the head of the CIA, was to do anything that caused the collapse of the Chilean economy. His expression was “make the economy scream”. It sounded a little like present day torture. In the meantime the US would stop lending money to the Chilean government and buying from Chile. Also the CIA funded mass anti-government strikes to no avail. Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” had an economic project in Chile opposed to Allende and in favor of continuing privatization of the important industries. But the public had moved so far in favor of Allende that the “Chicago Boys’” project was dead on arrival.

Before Allende was elected Kissinger made two statements both of which were hypocritically arrogant and ignored Chile’s sovereignty. First and I quote: “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves regarding Chile’s government.” Second: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist (sic) due to the irresponsibility of its people.” Kissinger took considerable bashing for these statements as patronizing and disparaging. His egomania, as resistant as Kevlar, prevented any attacks from making an impression.

Despite all the assaults against Allende in the three years that he managed to stay in power, he gained more support than the number that elected him in 1970.

But Nixon and Kissinger persisted in pressing for a coup and assigned the CIA chief of covert operations to push for a coup. It became the official policy of the US government (USG).During the three years that Allende was in office, the USG with the help of the incompetent CIA created havoc in the economy of Chile. But Allende managed through it all to become more popular. When the coup finally occurred in 1973 led by Pinochet, Allende was surrounded by the military and died either by his own hand or was killed. The official explanation was suicide. And that was the end of any semblance of democracy in Chile for 17 years.

Pinochet murdered, tortured or imprisoned any opposition to the military dictatorship. His repression was called the “Caravan of Death”. That was the CIA contribution to the Chilean people. Do you still wonder why we are hated? They have not forgotten. We were responsible for the death of the Chilean military commander in 1970 who refused to lead a coup against the legal government because he supported the Chilean constitution. Since he stood in the way, he was ambushed and fatally shot multiple times. His son today is still trying to seek justice in the courts for the murder of his father. Sometime after the coup a personal friend of Allende’s and his Ambassador to the US was killed by a car bomb in Washington D.C., 14 blocks from the White House. The bombing was planned by Pinochet and carried out by a paid CIA agent who was a Chilean national.

In 1975 the military intelligence leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with the Chilean secret police to plan “Operation Condor”. Kissinger was aware of the plan. The members used assassination and covert intelligence to eliminate left of center opposition. The operation was intended to liquidate all dissidents in the so-called “Southern Cone” of South America. Its members were all right wing military dictatorships similar to Pinochet’s”. The USG provided support through consultation with both Nixon and Kissinger (Secty of State). Operation Condor organized the “death squads” that traveled throughout the country torturing and assassinating all who opposed the right wing governments. In Argentina alone 30,000 persons were tortured and murdered or just disappeared.

Kissinger as Secretary of State maintained diplomatic relations with the Southern Cone governments. He encouraged the atrocities committed by Argentina and Chile. In recent years he has been asked to answer questions by France, Brazil, Spain, Argentina and Chile regarding human rights abuses. He has refused. His personal papers are inaccessible until his death.


References:

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. 2007
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes. 2007
Wikipedia