This past Saturday was the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. Several events were held nationwide including in New York where over 3000 people died when the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
While most people in the States associate September 11th with the tragedies in 2001, that date has a different significance for some Chileans. On that day in 1973 the Chilean military carried out a coup d'etat against the government led by Salavdor Allende. Over 3000 people marched in Santiago on Saturday in order to "pay homage to the victims of the military dictatorship" under Augusto Pinochet Others, however, view Pinochet's legacy in a more positive light and defended the coup. Opinions differ in Chile over whether the coup was justified but September 11,1973 was a key date in that nation's history.
"The Battle of Chile" was a critically acclaimed documentary filmed in three parts by Patricio Guzman. Filmed in 1975, 1976, and 1979, the movie examined the conditions that led to the coup against Allende as well as the deep social and political divisions before and after the golpe. The following clip from Guzman's film shows the military onslaught against the Chilean presidential residence, the military junta's first post-coup televised address, and the start of the infamous crackdown against government dissidents.
Online Sources - BBC News, Press TV, NPR, Icarus Films, YouTube
I never forget the 9/11... Such a sad memory that I have witnessed in my whole life.
ReplyDeleteThe post author "forgets" to mention US and CIA role in the coup.
ReplyDeleteThe video mentions the role played by U.S. intel behind the coup. Your conspiracy is false.
ReplyDeletefrom de Clermont - thank God for Pinochet. Yes, there may have been some unnecessary human rights violations committed, but Pinochet no doubt saw the problems with the Soviet Communists and their potential inflitration of Chile's society just as before. If it were not for him Chile would be Cuba - oppression and misery. I remember those times (watching on the tele from Europe) and the people in the streets with their caserolas. Allende was a Soviet plant and they would have done to Chile what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe. Read the book (a lot to read) "The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West" co-authored by KGB intelligence agentVasili Mitrokhin. Even if you do not read for KGB's Chile involvement, it is an amazing historial. Great for a movie or mini-series. If Pinochet is so bad, why is Castro so good and accepted amongst the world's so-called intelligentsia and Leftists? Hypocrisy. At least Pinochet left Chile economically healthy and with the most socio-economic equality in the region and in most of the world.
ReplyDelete@Erwin C.
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't mean to pick on you.
@ Anonymous
I stopped reading your post at "some unnecessary human rights violations." Under Pinochet, 30,000 Chileans were arrested; 29,000 were tortured; and at least 5,000 were killed or have have disappeared. The Chilean dictatorship doesn't seem to have been as bad as that of Argentina, but those numbers are far more significant than you seem to concede.