Chile-September 11, 1973 CIA Backed Overthrow of Allende Government

[buzzsaw_23]

State Terrorism and September 11,
1973 & 2001

By Roger Burbach

On the morning of September 11 I watched aircraft flying overhead. Minutes later I heard explosions and saw fireballs fill the sky. As a result of these attacks thousands died. I am not writing about September 11, 2001 in New York City. I am writing about September 11, 1973, when I was living in Santiago, Chile. On that date the target was the presidential palace in Santiago. Both September dates help us understand why George W. Bush has lead the United States into a quagmire in Iraq. 

On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende was the first freely elected socialist leader in the world and after his electoral victory in September 1970, the U.S. government, headed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, then chair of the National Security Council, was determined to overthrow Allende. 

<snip>

Similarities abound between the emergence of terrorist networks in Latin America and events leading to the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden first became involved in militant Islamic activities when he went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight with the mujaheddin against the Soviet-backed regime that had taken power in the country. According to the CIA 2000 Fact Book, the mujaheddin were “supplied and trained by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others.” Even in the 1980s it was widely recognized that many of those fighting against the Soviets and the Afghan government were religious fanatics who had no loyalty to their U.S. sponsors, let alone to “western values.” 

Ronald Reagan, in the mid-1980s when the CIA was backing mujaheddin warriors in Afghanistan, likened them to our “founding fathers.” In Central America, Reagan called thousands of former soldiers of Somoza’s National Guard “freedom fighters,” as they fought the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. When the Sandinistas went to the World Court to press charges against the U.S. for sending operatives to bomb its port facility in Corinto, the Reagan administration withdrew from the Court, refusing to acknowledge  international law. 

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Oct2003/burbach1003.html

[buzzsaw_23]

1. 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

[Cleita]

2. There were so many American and British interests in Chile

at the time that Allende was a real threat to that. When he actually won in a fair election, they pulled out the bugaboo "communist" threat out of their hats. (Communist is like Terrorist today.) This is very complicated, because many nationalistic factions moved in beyond Allende's intent and started a Marxist revolution of sorts and the Russians came in to harvest their interests as well.

He was murdered by suicide by our American operatives who are very good at that.

[Cleita]

3. BTW, thanks for putting this up.

I probably should have done it myself. (My mother was Chilean). However, I didn't even think of it because I know that most Americans wouldn't be interested in another dispicable event, engineered by the American neo-con thugs, that coincided with this.

[buzzsaw_23]

4. "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/0,13755,1038615,00.html

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

:hi:

[Cleita]

5. I met Salvadore Allende back in 1958 in Antofagasta, Chile when he

was campaigning for President back then and didn't win. He had a very enthused following including the woman who introduced him to me. I wasn't supposed to be near any communists. My mom supported Frei.