Teen dies in clashes on Chilean coup's anniversary (September 11, 1973)

[Judi Lynn]

Teen dies in clashes on Chilean coup's anniversary

Monday, September 12, 2005 Posted: 1317 GMT (2117 HKT)
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A teenage demonstrator was killed and 87 were detained overnight in protests marking the 32nd anniversary of the military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, police said Monday.
(snip)

A 17-year-old demonstrator was killed by a stray bullet to the heart in Penalolen, a suburb in southeast Santiago, police said. It wasn't clear who fired the shot.

Gunshots were heard elsewhere, and the demonstrators blocked traffic at several intersections with barricades of tires and other objects that they set on fire.

Pinochet seized power in a bloody September 11, 1973, coup that toppled freely elected Marxist President Salvador Allende.
(snip/...)

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/12/chile.anniversary.ap/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legal Documents
KISSINGER TO NIXON: "WE HELPED" COUP FORCES IN CHILE

New Telephone transcript records conversation with President


TELCON: September 16, 1973, 11:50 a.m. Kissinger Talking to Nixon (pages 1,2)

Washington D.C. May 26, 2004 - In one of his first conversations with President Richard Nixon following the bloody military coup in Chile, Henry Kissinger stated "we helped them," according to declassified transcripts of a telephone conversation obtained today by the National Security Archive. "That is right," Nixon responded.

The transcript records a call made by President Nixon to Kissinger's home on the weekend following General Augusto Pinochet's violent overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger reports to the president that the new military regime was "getting consolidated" and complains that the press is "bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown." When Nixon notes that "our hand doesn't show on this one though," Kissinger responds that "We didn't do it" . I mean we helped them….created the conditions as great as possible."

The September 16, 1973, "telcon" was found by the Archive's Chile analyst, Peter Kornbluh, among thousands of pages of transcriptions of Kissinger's telephone calls dated between 1969 and 1974, declassified today at the initiative of the Archive. Kornbluh, the author of The Pinochet File, called the new document "damning proof, in Kissinger's own words, that the Nixon administration directly contributed to creating a coup climate in Chile which made the September 11, 1973, military takeover possible."
(snip)

In his conversation with Nixon, Kissinger suggested that the press should be "celebrating" instead of being critical of the coup. "In the Eisenhower period we would be heroes," he tells the President. "But listen," Nixon replies to his national security adviser, "as far as people are concerned let me say they aren't going to buy this crap from the Liberals on this one."
(snip/...)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/chile.htm

[no name no slogan]

1. The "other" September 11

This is a dark day in the history of Chile and the US. We should NEVER FORGET what our country did in the name of "freedom".

Kissinger is a war criminal and should be brought to justice for his actions in Chile.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. Ditto

[Say_What]

5. "I have faith in Chile and its destiny."

Workers of my Nation, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will go beyond this gray and bitter moment when treason tries to impose itself upon us. Continue to know that, much sooner than later, we will reopen the great promenades down which free men pass, to construct a better society.

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!

These are my last words and I have certainty that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I have certainty that, at the least, I will be a moral lesson to castigate felony, cowardice, and treason.
"

Allende's last speech. September 11, 1973
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His speech to the UN in December 1972 is also well worth reading.

http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/foh12.htm

[buzzsaw_23]

3. "It is firm & continuing Policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup"

The Pinochet files

A series of declassified US documents have revealed the extent of America's role in the Chilean coup, reports Jonathan Franklin

September 11 1973 was a day of terror and bloodshed in Chile. After months of rising tension, army troops stormed the presidential palace, leaving President Salvador Allende dead and thousands prisoners throughout this previously democratic nation.

Now, on the 30th anniversary of the coup, professors, journalists and citizen activists around the world are continuing to expose the full role of the US government in financing and promoting this bloody coup, which ushered in the 17-year military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet.

Thousands of top secret documents which were declassified over the past five years have now been synthesized in a new book, The Pinochet File, by investigative reporter Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives, a Washington-based investigative centre. "The US created a climate of a coup in Chile, a situation of chaos and agitation," said Kornbluh. "The CIA and state department were worried that the military ... were not ready for a coup."

The top secret documents accumulatively detail the crude workings of Washington during the Cold War. "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup," reads a CIA document from October 1970. "It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,13755,1038615,0...

Must continue to tell the truth of what lies in the dark corners of the room. Only then can we find the light.

[Say_What]

4. Related thread for more info...

and a link to a well researched website that gives background information from Allende's election to the coup complete with references, footnotes and photos.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4724447

http://www.geocities.com/educhile_1970s/index.html


Hortensia Bussi de Allende (C), the widow of former Chilean President
Salvador Allende is accompanied by Chile's President Ricardo Lagos (R) and
his wife Luisa Duran (L) at La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago
September 11, 2005. Sunday marks the 32nd anniversary of the coup d'etat in
Chile that ushered in a 17-year dictatorship under former General Augusto
Pinochet. More than 3,000 people died or disappeared because of political
violence during Pinochet's rule between 1973-1990. REUTERS/Presidencia-Alex
Ibanez/Handout


A man walks past a sign in Santiago, September 11, 2005, with images of
Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet in a protest in remembrance of the
military coup in 1973. Sunday marked the 32nd anniversary of the coup d'etat
in Chile that ushered in a 17-year dictatorship under Pinochet. More than
3,000 people died or disappeared because of political violence during
Pinochet's rule between 1973-1990. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado Email Photo

more.... http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=chile&ei=UTF-8&c=news_photos

[struggle4progress]

6. Chile remembers 9/11 military coup

<snip> Sunday’s traditional march to the General Cemetery started from the Plaza Los Heroes, with an estimated 3,000 people joining the National Assembly of Human Rights to commemorate ex-president Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president who lost his life during the military bombardment of the government palace, La Moneda, on the day of the coup.

Composed of family members of the disappeared, political action groups, and crowds of university students, the demonstrators called for the end of impunity for human rights violators and protested a recent government move to grant pardons to imprisoned human rights violators for acts committed during the military regime (ST, Sept. 9).

Hortensia Bussi, the widow of former President Allende, spoke at a ceremony in the presidential palace, saying that the ideals her husband gave the country “lived on in the hearts and minds of the Chilean people.”

Chile’s President Ricardo Lagos stood with the former first lady as participants visited the La Moneda entrance on Morandé Street, the site where Allende’s body was removed from the palace and later dedicated as a memorial in his honor. <snip>

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=9925&topic_id=1

[struggle4progress]

7. Violence as Chile marks 1973 coup

<snip> Violence erupted in a cemetery, where thousands had gathered to pay tribute to the more than 3,000 victims of Gen Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 regime. <snip>

At least 9,000 people marched 3km (1.8 miles) to the General Cemetery in the Chilean capital, Santiago. <snip>

Marchers demanded justice for the victims of the military regime and protested against recent moves to pardon some officers convicted of human rights abuses. <snip>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4236948.stm

[Judi Lynn]

8. According to the BBC article you provided, there were roughly 1,000 more

police at the demonstration than there were demonstrators! And they still had trouble, at that.

Concerning Chile's current President, from the article:

President Ricardo Lagos - who has come under fire for pardoning an officer who killed a trade union leader in 1982 - made a call for unity.
(snip)

Looks as if there's more to find out about this guy. I would think pardoning a political murderer isn't the finest thing a leader can do.



Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and _Bush

[struggle4progress]

9. I'm not big on pardoning political murderers, but around the world ..

.. it has been a common act as part of the process of re-assembling a destroyed civil society. The standard argument for this sort of pardon -- take it or leave it -- is that the rifts run so deep that reconciliation is more important than strict justice. But the photos you've just posted remind me that there IS some evil rampant in the world ...

[Say_What]

11. RW Chilean legislators introduced a bill to pardon any convicted milicos..

From another article:

"...A group of right-wing legislators introduced a bill last week that would pardon any convicted military men who have completed 10 years in prison.

The government suggested it may accept the bill as a step toward reconciliation.

"It's important to see how we can advance in healing wounds," said Lagos, but some of his own supporters angrily rejected the legislative proposal...."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002486544_chile11.html

[WhiteTara]

10. the puppets names keep changing but the agenda

never does. It is time to expose the next layer of the onion.

[buzzsaw_23]

12. Pepsi Demands a US Coup

A Marxist threat to cola sales? Pepsi demands a US coup. Goodbye Allende. Hello Pinochet
The Observer, London
Greg Palast

In exclusive interviews with The Observer last week, the former US Ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, told the story in - and behind - these and other top secret CIA, State Department and White House cables recently released by the National Security Archives. Korry filled in gaps in the story by describing cables still classified, and disclosing information censored in papers now available under the US Freedom of Information Act.

Korry, who served Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, told how US companies, from cola to copper, using the CIA as an international debt collection agency and investment security force.

Indeed, the October 1970 plot against Chile's President-elect Salvador Allende, using CIA 'sub-machine guns and ammo', was the direct result of a plea for action a month earlier by Donald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, in two telephone calls to the company's former lawyer, President Richard Nixon.

Kendall arranged for the owner of the company's Chilean bottling operation to meet National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger on September 15. Hours later, Nixon called in his CIA chief, Richard Helms, and, according to Helms's handwritten notes, ordered the CIA to prevent Allende's inauguration.

http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=36

[WhiteTara]

13. You mean the entire southern hemisphere was

set in turmoil for decades and a legally elected President of a Sovereign Country was assassinated because of the Pepsi vs. Coke advertising wars?

I may have to take to my bed for a few days, I'm fainting.

(hand back to forehead as body sinks to floor)

You should start this as its own thread immediately!
edited to add another crucial sentence!

[Say_What]

14. THE PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

Allende's words are more true today than ever.

From Allende's speech to the United Nations December 1972:

....THE PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

At the third UNCTAD I was able to discuss the phenomenon of the
transnational corporations. I mentioned the great growth in their
economic power, political influence and corrupting action. That is the
reason for the alarm with which world opinion should react in the face
of a reality of this kind. The power of these corporations is so great
that it goes beyond all borders. The foreign investments of US companies
alone reached US$ 32,000 million. Between 1950 and 1970 they grew at a
rate of 10 per cent a year, while that nation's exports only increased
by 5 per cent. They make huge profits and drain off tremendous resources
from the developing countries.

In just one year, these firms withdrew profits from the Third World that
represented net transfers in their favour of US$ 1,743 million:
US$ 1,013 million from Latin America; US$ 280 million from Africa;
US$ 376 million from the Far East; and US$ 74 million from the Middle
East. Their influence and their radius of action are upsetting the
traditional trade practices of technological transfer among states, the
transmission of resources among nations and labour relations.

We are faced by a direct confrontation between the large transnational
corporations and the states. The corporations are interfering in the
fundamental political, economic and military decisions of the states.
The corporations are global organizations that do not depend on any state
and whose activities are not controlled by, nor are they accountable to
any parliament or any other institution representative of the collective
interest. In short, all the world political structure is being
undermined. The dealer's don't have a country. The place where they may
be does not constitute any kind of link; the only thing they are
interested in is where they make profits. This is not something I say;
they are Jefferson's words.

The large transnational firms are prejudicial to the genuine interests
of the developing countries and their dominating and uncontrolled action
is also carried out in the industrialized countries, where they are
based. This has recently been denounced in Europe and in the United
States and resulted in a US Senate investigation. The developed nations
are just as threatened by this danger as the underdeveloped ones. It is
a phenomenon that has already given rise to the growing mobilization of
organized workers including the large trade union organizations that
exist in the world. Once again the action of the international solidarity
of workers must face a common enemy: imperialism.

...Ours is not an isolated or a unique problem. It is the local expression
of a reality that overwhelms us, a reality that covers Latin America
and the Third World. In varying degrees of intensity, with unique
features, all the peripheral countries are threatened by something
similar.

http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/foh12.htm

[buzzsaw_23]

15. ITT-Kennecott-Anaconda and banks (Inter-Amer Development & World Bank)

Allende's Leftist Regime
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people."
Henry Kissinger


Meanwhile, the United States pursued a two-track policy toward Allende's Chile. At the overt level, Washington was frosty, especially after the nationalization of the copper mines; official relations were unfriendly but not openly hostile. The government of President Richard M. Nixon launched an economic blockade conjunction with U.S. multinationals (ITT, Kennecott, Anaconda) and banks (Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank). The US squeezed the Chilean economy by terminating financial assistance and blocking loans from multilateral organizations. But during 1972 and 1973 the US increased aid to the military, a sector unenthusiastic toward the Allende government. The United States also increased training Chilean military personnel in the United States and Panama.

According to notes taken by CIA director Richard Helms at a 1970 meeting in the Oval Office, his orders were to "make the economy scream." It was widely reported that at the covert level the United States worked to destabilize Allende's Chile by funding opposition political groups and media and by encouraging a military coup d'état. The agency trained members of the fascist organization Patria y Libertad (PyL) in guerrilla warfare and bombing, and they were soon waging a campaign of arson. CIA also sponsored demonstrations and strikes, funded by ITT and other US corporations with Chilean holdings. CIA-linked media, including the country's largest newspaper, fanned the flames of crisis. While these United States actions contributed to the downfall of Allende, no one has established direct United States participation in the coup d'état and few would assign the United States the primary role in the destruction of that government.


During the second and third years of the UP, demand outstripped supply, the economy shrank, deficit spending snowballed, new investments and foreign exchange became scarce, the value of copper sales dropped, shortages appeared, and inflation skyrocketed, eroding the previous gains for the working class. A thriving black market sprang up. The government responded with direct distribution systems in working-class neighborhoods. Worker participation in the management of enterprises reached unprecedented proportions. The strapped government could not keep the economy from going into free fall because it could not impose austerity measures on its supporters in the working class, get new taxes approved by Congress, or borrow enough money abroad to cover the deficit.

Allende either was assassinated or committed suicide while defending (with an assault rifle) his socialist government against the coup d'état. Several cabinet ministers were also assassinated, the universities were put under military control, opposition parties were banned and thousands of Chileans were tortured and killed, many fingered as "radicals" by lists provided by the CIA. Although sporadic resistance to the coup erupted, the military consolidated control much more quickly than it had believed possible. Many Chileans had predicted that a coup would unleash a civil war, but instead it ushered in a long period of repression.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/chile/allende.htm



For the lenthy Church Commission report go here:http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/doc/covert.html

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

FRANCK CHURCH, Idaho, Chairman

JOHN G. TOWER, Texas, Vice Chairman


From d.a. levy
"Really"
                     the police try to protect
                     the banks - and everything else
                     is secondary"

[Judi Lynn]

16. This article indicates Pinochet made Sept. 11th a national holiday.

CHILE REMEMBERS 9/11 MILITARY COUP

Protesters Clash With Police In Santiago

(Sept. 12, 2005) Thousands of people took to the streets of Santiago on Sunday in remembrance of the military coup of Sept. 11, 1973. Many demonstrators carried flags and held photos of loved ones disappeared during the 17 years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military regime.

September 11 has been a polemical date ever since the coup: it was celebrated throughout the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship as a national holiday. The holiday was eliminated in 1998, but a sense of unease pervades the nation each year, most especially Santiago, when the coup anniversary date comes due.

On Sunday, protestors clashed violently with police forces at some of the 13 commemorative events approved by government authorities. Demonstrators at the General Cemetery and the Plaza de Armas were the most combative. Thirteen protesters were arrested and three policemen were hurt after protesters hurled rocks at them. The violence first broke out in front of a McDonald’s restaurant on Recoleta Avenue in a march destined to the National Cemetery.

City officials prepared themselves for anticipated trouble by taking a number of steps to curb violence. An additional 10,000 police forces were stationed around the city, empowered by new laws increasing penalties for violent crimes, including the use of Molotov cocktails.
(snip/...)

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=9925&topic_id=1



It would take a true moral pervert to celebrate this
right-wing monster's violent coup in Santiago, Chile.

[phusion]

17. Has anyone seen The Battle of Chile

http://www.frif.com/new98/boc.html

Excellent documentary...

[Say_What]

18. His newest, "Salvador Allende" promises to be great as well...

On edit: Add clip and link to review of "Salvador Allende"

<clip>

"Salvador Allende marked my life," says Guzman in this heartfelt work. "I wouldn't be what I am if he had not incarnated the utopia of a just and free world." For him, Salvador Allende-the film-is important not only to chronicle the life and death of Allende, but also to present the exact history of a man whose legacy has been either defamed or exalted, but rarely understood. "I will never forget," writes Guzman, whose film makes sure the world won't either.

http://www.miamifilmfestival.com/2005/detail.asp?filmid=F05-015



Guzman has an interesting bio:

<clips>
Patricio Guzmán was born in 1941 in Santiago, Chile. As an adolescent in the late 1950's he became drawn to documentary filmmaking when he had the opportunity to see some of the films of Chris Marker, Frederic Rossif and Louis Malle.

...When he returned to Chile, in 1971, he directed his first documentary, The First Year (which covered the first 12 months of Salvador Allende's government), which was shown in commercial theaters that very year. The French documentary filmmaker Chris Marker, who was passing through Chile at the time, happened to see the film and offered to help screen it in France.

Two years later, Chris Marker provided invaluable assistance again when he donated the raw stock necessary to commence filming The Battle of Chile (a 4 and ½ hour documentary trilogy about Allende's final year). Filming on this project continued until the very day of the coup d'etat.

The day of the coup, Guzmán was imprisoned in Chile's National Stadium, where he remained for 15 days. Later, after regaining his freedom, he left for Europe with his film canisters in tow. Once there he began, with the help of Chris Marker, to find the economic means to complete the film.

http://www.frif.com/subjects/guz.html