[News] September 11th Marks the 50th Anniversary of the Chilean Coup

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Alternate text

Image taken from Chile Si: Poems of Solidarity

 

50 years ago on September 11, 1973, democratically-elected president of 
Chile Salvador Allende was forcibly removed by a violent, US-backed 
military coup and replaced by a dictator, Augusto Pinochet. The years 
that followed were marked by an aggressive program of fascism and 
political repression which resulted in the torture, killings, 
disappearances, and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Chilean 
peoples, becoming one of the largest-scale human rights atrocities in 
history. But it was also, as Isabel Allende reflected in our 2003 audio 
documentary on the coup, Chile: Promise of Freedom 
<https://freedomarchives.org/publications/chile-promise-of-freedom-2/>, 
a time of solidarity.

Salvador Allende inspired popular support through a socialist campaign 
which promised the Chilean people a greater level of self-determination 
and independence through the nationalization of Chile’s natural 
resources and redistribution of Chilean wealth to poor and working class 
people. In 1970, the newly elected Popular Unity government’s 
nationalization agenda meant that US businesses (such as ITT, Anaconda, 
and Kennecott) would no longer be granted control over Chile’s natural 
resources. Unwilling to accept Chile’s right to determine the future of 
their own people, country, and resources, the US formed economic 
blockades in an attempt to thwart progress in the evolving socialist 
state. Among numerous calculated tactics, the US granted tens of 
millions of dollars in military aid, planted CIA agents in the US 
embassy based in Santiago, and by 1973, in unison with right-wing 
Chilean forces, enacted a military junta responsible for what would 
become a 17-year long legacy of brutal political repression and torture.

Despite the brutal conditions of living under a military dictatorship, 
there were still those who put their lives on the line for justice, 
refusing to accept the despotic state of the nation as the new normal. 
Isabel Allende describes the peoples’ will to resist the sweeping 
political repression of the time:

/“[It was] a time in which I realized that for every torture there were 
a thousand Chileans willing to help. For every person who was willing to 
pick up the phone and tell on somebody else and have that person 
arrested, there would be five willing to hide that person. It was a time 
where the worst and the best came to the surface. People who were very 
outspoken leaders went into hiding and people who were quiet priests or 
quiet workers that no one had ever noticed before, became heroes.”/

- From “The Aftermath,” /Chile: Promise of Freedom/ (Freedom Archives, 2003)

On the 50th anniversary of September 11th, we highlight select and newly 
digitized materials from our Chile Collection 
<https://search.freedomarchives.org/search.php?view_collection=288> 
which speak to the dynamic revolutionary spirit of the Chilean people 
and celebrates their legacy of resistance, artistic creation and 
solidarity.

I'm an image 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.Chile.RaiseYourVoices.NoSupportForTheFascistJunta.pdf>

	
I'm an image 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.Chile.RaiseYourVoices.NoSupportForTheFascistJunta.pdf>

Raise Your Voices! No Support for the Fascist Junta! 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.Chile.RaiseYourVoices.NoSupportForTheFascistJunta.pdf> 
raises awareness about the advancements made under Allende's leadership. 
Prior to Popular Unity's rule, Chile had one of the highest infant 
mortality rates in the Western Hemisphere. By establishing a nation-wide 
system of mothers’ centers and providing direct assistance to poor and 
working class mothers, Chile was able to successfully reduce its infant 
mortality rate and address some of the most extreme health issues 
impacting the Chilean masses.

I'm an image 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.Chile.DeclarationOfTheCouncilOfRevolutionaryCoordination.pdf>

	

The joint communique 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.Chile.DeclarationOfTheCouncilOfRevolutionaryCoordination.pdf> 
issued by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) of Chile; the 
National Liberation Movement (Tupamaros) of Uruguay; the National 
Liberation Army (ELN) of Bolivia, and the Peoples Revolutionary Army 
(ERP) of Argentina not only recognizes a common enemy - imperialism - 
but also the need for coordination and cohesiveness between 
revolutionary movements.

/!CHILE! Si: Poems of Solidarity/ 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.ChileSi.PoemsOfSolidarity.pdf> 
is a testament to the creative resistance which took place after the 
coup, with artist and poet reflections ranging from the promise that was 
felt of the moment that Allende was elected, to the grief and challenges 
of life under dictatorship. Poems dedicated to Victor Jara and Pablo 
Neruda, artists who were targeted and assassinated by the dictatorship, 
convey a sense of the immeasurable losses to cultural freedom and 
progress felt among the Chilean people, but also the spirit to continue 
creating.

	
I'm an image 
<https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC51_scans/51.ChileSi.PoemsOfSolidarity.pdf> 


You can revisit the audio documentary *Chile: Promise of Freedom 
<https://freedomarchives.bandcamp.com/album/chile-promise-of-freedom>* 
on our bandcamp page. The documentary can also be heard in two parts 
on/**/*Law and Disorder <https://kpfa.org/program/law-and-disorder/>* on 
KPFA-FM on Monday, September 11 at 8am and Tuesday, Sepember 12th at 8am.


Audio from that project is currently being used in *“Dictators and the 
Disappeared: Democracy Lost and Restored 
<https://www.cabq.gov/artsculture/albuquerque-museum/exhibitions/dictators>,”* 
at the Albuquerque Museum. The Exhibit runs through February 11, 2024.

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