SEPTEMBER 11 and The United States of Amnesia

SEPTEMBER 11 AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA


September 11, 2004


September 11, 1973 was the day when a bloody US-backed coup d'état was instigated to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile. President Salvador Allende died that day and General Augusto Pinochet took over at the head of a military dictatorship, during which at least 140,000 people were arrested and 3,000 socialists and left-wing supporters of Allende were systematically tortured and murdered. All this so that profit, capital and big business could survive in Chile at the expense of the poor. On October 1, 1973, Patrick Ryan, a US naval attaché in Chile, stated that "Chile's coup de etat [sic] was close to perfect".

The scene had looked much brighter for Chile in September 1970. In spite of a massive campaign of destabilization and disinformation by the CIA, the people elected Allende, who called for a redistribution of wealth to help the poor, the nationalization of major industries like copper mining and for a policy of international independence - meaning that Chile would not simply subordinate itself to the United States.

A few days after Allende's victory, President Nixon met with the CIA Director Richard Helms, Secretary of State Kissinger and others. As Helms reported in his notes, there were two points of view. The "soft line" was, in Nixon's words, to "make the economy scream". The "hard line" was simply to aim for a military coup. The US Ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, was given the job of implementing the "soft line", which he described as "to do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty". Economic sabotage began in order to bring the country to its knees: the USA saw to it that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund cut off all economic aid when Allende was President. That aid flowed in again immediately after Pinochet took power.

Everything we need to know about the intimate United States involvement in Chile's 9/11 is available in documents at the National Security Archives. Just do a "google" search on "Allende coup Kissinger" or any related word combination. You will discover "Chile and Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup" by Peter Kornbluh, with access to those documents.

Anyone who was surprised about the news of Americans torturing Iraqis must have forgotten that the US government has been involved in torture in Chile and numerous other countries throughout the 20th century. Unfortunately, when something happens such as the attack on Iraq and subsequent occupation, Americans without the time to do research do not have a historical frame of reference by which to judge present events.

31 years after the savage destruction of the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, a repeat performance is being planned for Venezuela. An attempted coup in 2003, once more supported by the USA, against the democratically elected Hugo Chavez, was repulsed when throngs of Venezuelans forced the coup leaders to vacate the government offices they had occupied. Vast amounts of US financing for an August 2004 referendum on Chavez's mandate were not enough to bring him down. Chavez won the vote easily, and all the international observers, including Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States, declared the process as entirely clean. And yet, John Kerry had stated that "Chavez is becoming a dictator". The US Ambassador in Caracas, Carlos Shapiro, was quoted as saying "there is a consensus among these two politicians [Bush and Kerry] when it comes to Venezuela".

What are we to make of this? To those of us who remember September 11, 1973, the similarities are ominous. Chavez faces enemies that Allende would recognise: the 'oligarchies' which held power since the 1950s have declared war on the reforming President, especially his modest agrarian reform that allows the state to redistribute idle land to the poor (77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population.) Prof. James Petras of New York State University, who has studied the subversion of the Allende government, says "the IMF and financial institutions are fabricating a familiar crisis. The tactics used are very similar to those used in Chile…a false picture of Chavez as a dictator is established, then the military is incited to make a coup for the sake of the country.". Unfortunately, such historical comparisons are largely absent from official American discourse - and don't expect to find them in the major media in the US. They abdicated long ago their responsibility to keep the public informed and to help analyze current events.

September 11, 1973 is but one of many significant dates that have been effectively erased from the collective memory of the American public, but no political struggle can be won without bringing history back into the collective consciousness. For over a century, the United States has maintained political and economic domination over Latin America, overthrowing elected governments and training thousands of Latin American military officers in the techniques of torture and domestic repression at the infamous "School of the Americas" at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Americans, please be aware that every surviving victim of Chilean torture, every Chilean parent of a "disappeared" student, every Chilean who lived in mortal terror knows that, without American involvement, exemplary Chilean democracy would not have been destroyed by a violent and brutal dictatorship.


* with thanks to Gore Vidal