With pain and nostalgia, Chile remembers coup

[Judi Lynn]

11 Sep 2003 23:16:59 GMT
With pain and nostalgia, Chile remembers coup



By Fiona Ortiz

SANTIAGO, Chile, Sept 11 (Reuters) - A prosperous and democratic Chile painfully looked back 30 years on Thursday to the military coup on Sept. 11, 1973, that split the nation and ushered in 17 years of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.

President Ricardo Lagos began official commemorations by reopening the door through which firemen carried the corpse of socialist President Salvador Allende, who killed himself after the air force bombed the Moneda palace. The door had been sealed by the military regime.

"Our mission is to build a Chile where what happened 30 years ago can never occur again ... where differences are part of normal democracy and not battle trenches," Lagos said at the ceremony in the palace.

The military, under a new generation of commanders, turned out for a Mass attended by army chief Gen. Juan Emilio Cheyre, who has recognized the military's role in human rights violations as Chileans continue to clamor for justice. (snip)

(snip) More than 3,000 people died, many of them leftists who were tortured, killed and dumped into the Mapocho river, after the U.S.-backed overthrow of Allende's elected government. (snip/...)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11197446.htm

[Cha]

1. How very very sad! There good with those 9/11 dates, aren't

they? :-(

ANd whose damn fault was this?

[Dirk39]

2. Correct me if I'm wrong,

but didn't about 30.000 people died in Chile?
In the german press during the last days, there was reported that Allende commited suicide and wasn't killed. And that the USA was highly involved in trying to destabilize Chile after Allende did win the election, but that the USA was less involved in the putch, that most people think.
When the WTC towers collapsed, my first thought was to relate this to the putch in Chile.
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[dfong63]

3. killed himself???

carried the corpse of socialist President Salvador Allende, who killed himself after the air force bombed the Moneda palace.

someone has got to object to this... Allende's death was murder, not suicide.