50 years ago today the Chilean military overthrew a democratically elected socialist government and unleashed a ferocious campaign of terror on the Chilean people. The military and the one third of Chileans who supported the coup believed they were waging a moral war against the economic, social, and cultural changes that frightened them. What they did was commit terrorism against a people while redefining resistance as terrorism against the state.
The US government did its level best to help destroy Allende’s government before the coup and cheered on the repression after. Pinochet’s campaign of terror was not the bloodiest in the region, but it did make what happened later in Argentina, in Guatemala, in El Salvador more possible. The language they used and many of the tactics would fit right into the playbook of any right-wing party in the western hemisphere in 2023.
Salvador Allende’s government wasn’t perfect. It was an attempt to make change, to reimagine a more just society and break free of the constraints of colonialism and capitalism, and to do that without attacking its own peiple. That we still in 2023 struggle to imagine how this might be possible is a legacy of Sept 11 1973.
