SalvadoreAllende, the
democratically elected President of Chile,
was killed in a CIA-sponsored military coup. His government
was
toppled on September 11, 1973. For many in Chile,
Latin America
and around the world, that day is at least as dark as
September
11,
2008 is for people of the United States. It is Henry Kissinger,
Richard Nixon and the CIA that they hold most responsible.
Bottup, Spain
The September 11
that Washington Ignores … 1973
"It's not about that
overworked- and at the same time
completely unclear - September 11th, the little workhorse that keeps the most
backward sectors of the political right in the United States in power that we
want to talk about."
the 'Tribute in
Light' over the World Trade Center site. Like no other day
on the calender, 9-11 remains like an open wound to Americans and people
around the world. But for Latin America and especially Chile, September
11 brings to mind, first and foremost - the bloody dictatorship of
General Augusto Pinochet, brought to power in a CIA coup on 9-11-73.
On that day - the first of
the 17-years that Chile's military dictatorship lasted - it was more than a man
of the moral and political stature as Salvador Allende
that died in combat .
We can say without fear of being wrong that neo-liberalism - the justification and practice of the most
savage and criminal part of the already criminal and savage capitalism - can
find no better occasion to express itself as a global system - that condemns
all of humanity to repeat, over and over again, on a morning without a future -
than the two September 11ths that the calendar gave us in 1973 and 2001.
[Editor's note: On the
Latin-American left, the word neo-liberalism is synonymous with
capitalism run amuck, and control of the economy by a few well-connected
individuals with ties to the United States. In essence, the term implies a
reliance on free-markets and free-trade rather than government interventionism .]
The majority of the
propagandistic, self-proclaimed communications media, especially the
electronic, will devote many hours and bytes of the available electromagnetic
spectrum in concession to the "memory" of just the second of these
dates: that of the tragic attack on the part of - it is said without being
satisfactorily proven - the Taliban-al-Qaeda organization on the so-called
"Twin Towers" which housed the global headquarters of the World Trade
Center in New York.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
But it's not about that overworked - and at the same time
completely unclear - September 11th, the little workhorse that keeps the most
backward sectors of the political right in the United States in power that we
want to talk about. Instead, we wish to discuss the other
September 11th, when the Chilean armed forces, ordered by the
Commanders-in-Chief of the Army, Air Force and the Navy, the general director
of Carabineros, the
felons Augusto Pinochet ,
Gustavo Leigh , José Toribioand César Mendoza ,
attacked the La Moneda Palace [the office of the
Chilean presidency ].
General
Augusto Pinochet and his henchmen, no
doubt some of those mentioned above, just after
the coup that brought down Chile's democratic
government. This ushered in one of the darkest
periods of that nation's history. To put it bluntly -
the world was in the midst of the Cold War, and as
one U.S. president said, he was 'our sonofabitch.'
On that day - the first of
the 17-years that Chile's military dictatorship lasted - it was more that a man
of such moral and political stature as Salvador Allende
had died; the construction of a people's government was also canceled, a
promoter and defender of collective rights, a custodian of social freedoms and
individual guarantees, an advocate of non-intervention, a respecter of
sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples, the guarantor of a state
rules by law and genuine justice, freedom and democracy as premises. It was on
that day that neo-liberalism began.
Allende, always acting with the mandate of his people, had
begun structural reforms to a legal system whose postulates - to put it in his
own words - reflected an oppressive social order: "Our legal system - the
way social relations between Chileans are ordered - today answer to the demands
of the capitalist system … Our legal system must be modified … It depends in
large measure on the realism of Congress, that capitalist laws be succeeded by
a socialist legal code, in accordance with the socio-economic transformations
that we are implementing, without allowing a violent break in the code of
justice to open the door to excess and arbitrariness that we, responsibly, wish
to avoid."
It was under this new legal
relationship that the Chilean people and their leader, theor
companion Allende, understood that "an economic
structure characterized by private ownership of the basic means of production,
concentrated in a small group of companies in foreign hands and a negligible
number of domestic capitalists, is the very negation of democracy." So the
copper, iron, steel, saltpeter, iodine industries, the banks and industrial
companies and the distributors and services, were nationalized.
Economic democracy was
accompanied by political and social democracy, opening the door for large
segments of the population to fully exercise their political, collective and
religious rights and liberties, as well as their freedom of expression and
association - which all included, among other characteristics, the open
participation of women.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Intense
work was done to ensure universal access to health care and education,
retirement and social security laws were amended, land reform were undertaken
that hurt large land-holders under the creation of the Campesino
councils [councils of rural poor], Land Reform Centers and Production Centers
run by the foeld workers themselves; a law for
indigenous people was enacted that fundamentally emerged from the Indian
community itself; city workers (of both genders) spoke through a Central Unica [a large labor union ]
that was part of the government. The "rebellious but constructive
will" - as Allende would say - "of my
nation's young people," to understand that "revolution" isn't
just a word, that socialism cannot be imposed by decree because it is a process
of social development (one that is permanent, Celia Hart would say, remembering Lev [Marxist theorist Leon Trotsky ]), and to undertake its historic duel-mission:
"to act and prepare to act."
Henry Kissinger is greeted by General Augusto
Pinochet at his
office in 1976. Engineering Pinochet's rise to power - just like
the CIA-sponsored coup of
1953 against Iranian Prime Minister
Mohammed Mossadegh -
may have looked good to some at the
time, have resulted in a
black mark on the reputation of the U.S.
Nevertheless,
on September 11, 1973, the United States - the principal champion of the
dubious benefits of neo-liberalism - put an end to the "Chilean way of
socialism," and let it be known that it would not allow those of us who
live in its "backyard" to follow any other path than continuing to
remain one of its colonies. All that is left is what our people still have to
say on the matter; all that is left, as Marcos
said, is all that is left.
[Editor's
Note: Marcos refers to Philippine despot Ferdinand Marcos, a friend and
ally of Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet ].
