WE'RE NOT FREE UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE

SURVIVING silence Versus DYING because of silence in Pinochet's time

I only knew about the Chilean dictator, Pinochet, because of the song They Dance Alone that I heard on someone else's CD years ago. Hearing news stories about anything in South America was rare for me. Frankly, most of our USA "news" stories center around us. Or maybe I should say...all of our "news". Even when I was being formally "educated" the only continent I remember focusing on was Europe. And North America, was mostly limited to the United States, disregarding Canada. And the history of North America, dismissed the history of the indigenous peoples and the black Africans shipped in for slave purposes, except when auxiliary to the European immigrants' slant of history.

Today, I saw an HBO movie Pinochet's Last Stand which didn't really inform us of the 17 years of terror that he inflicted upon his country's own people, but it was still enlightening, in so far as it did cover how Pinochet's life played out in the end.
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They Dance Alone
(Cueca Solo) by Sting

From: rdpajarillo from the Phillipines

Pinochet's Last Stand

In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet overtook Chile in a violent military coup. During his 17-year rule, he ruthlessly repressed all opposition to his regime, leading to the deaths of 3,000 civilians and the torture of another 30,000.

HBO Films presents the true story of the 82 year old, retired Chilean dictator, Pinochet and his surprise 1998 arrest for crimes against humanity while undergoing back surgery during a vacation in London. Caught in international conflict, Pinochet's time in London forever changed his life - and the prospects for dictators across the globe. Emmy®-winning actor Derek Jacobi stars as Pinochet; also with Peter Capaldi, Phyllida Law and Anna Massey. Written and directed by Richard Curson Smith. (TV14)

I'm still learning about what happened and I don't like that the United States of America supported Pinochet. Apparently, we Americans are way too self-absorbed. The things being done in our name is dreadful. The following is one of the many sites telling the story.

The Stalinists and the Popular Unity government promoted unfounded and ultimately fatal illusions in Chilean parliamentary democracy, with the Stalinists describing the Chilean army as “the people in uniform.” It was Allende himself who brought generals into his cabinet and named Pinochet commander in chief of the Chilean armed forces, a position that Pinochet utilized to prepare and execute the coup that ended the Socialist Party president’s life.

In the days that followed the coup, tens of thousands were rounded up, many of them herded into Santiago’s football stadium, where most were beaten and tortured and many were executed. Among those murdered were two US citizens, Frank Teruggi and Charles Horman. Subsequent evidence has indicated that senior US officials not only worked to cover up the crime, but were complicit in these killings.

The coup itself enjoyed the full sponsorship of the administration of President Richard Nixon. Millions of dollars were covertly sent into Chile by the CIA to finance employers’ strikes and fund fascist groups seeking Allende’s overthrow. Nixon’s explicit order to the CIA was to “make the economy scream” in order to bring down the government. The plans of the military coup plotters were shared and coordinated fully with both the CIA and the Pentagon.

Henry Kissinger, then Richard Nixon’s national security advisor—and today a key advisor to the Bush administration—was the principal American architect of the coup in Chile. In 1970, when Allende’s Popular Unity government was first elected, Kissinger commented, “I don’t see why we need to stand idly by and let a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”

The US government subsequently set out to reverse the results of this popular election by means of covert subversion, terror and military force.

While Pinochet is dead, Kissinger still lives and is liable for criminal prosecution for his role in fomenting a coup that claimed the lives of thousands.

Nor is he the only US official complicit in the crimes of the Pinochet dictatorship. George H.W. Bush, the former US president and current president’s father, was CIA director during the period in which Pinochet’s regime served as the axis for “Operation Condor,” a coordinated campaign of murder and repression carried out by military regimes throughout Latin America against left-wing opponents.

Declassified US documents have proven that the CIA was kept fully informed of this operation, in which hundreds if not thousands were murdered or illegally imprisoned and tortured.

Part of the operation included what was at the time the worst act of international terrorism ever carried out on US soil. On September 21, 1976, a car bomb took the life of Orlando Letelier, Allende’s former foreign minister and a prominent opponent of the Pinochet regime, as well as that of his American aide, Ronni Moffit, as they were riding through the streets of Washington, DC.

The CIA, under Bush senior’s leadership, worked to cover up the Pinochet regime’s responsibility for these murders. The killers themselves were subsequently placed under US protection and given new identities and financial support under the federal witness protection program.

Vice President Dick Cheney and outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are likewise implicated in Washington’s support for the Pinochet dictatorship during this period. Cheney was the White House chief of staff and Rumsfeld was also defense secretary then, overseeing US ties to the Latin American military as Operation Condor was unfolding.

Pinochet’s ability to escape prosecution until his death at the ripe old age of 91—more than 16 years after surrendering power—is testimony to the fact that the horrors his regime unleashed against the workers of Chile were carried out to defend the interests of the ruling elite both in that country and internationally, which continued to protect him.

This protection also constitutes a serious warning. The brutal methods of mass murder, torture and dictatorship that will forever be associated with the name of Augusto Pinochet remain the ultimate recourse of capitalism in crisis.
Source: www.wsws.org

Chile and the United States
Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973

The retrospective history of Chile

See Amnesty International