51st Anniversary of U.S. Coup in Chile

Stand with the Chilean People in
Their Fight for Justice

Demonstration in Santiago, September 8, 2024 marking the 51st anniversary of the U.S. coup d’état

September 11 of this year marks the 51st anniversary of the coup d’état carried out by the U.S. in Chile. On that date in 1973, troops under the command of General Augusto Pinochet seized power. Moneda Presidential Palace was bombed and the constitutional President Salvador Allende was assassinated. A military junta was established and in the first months after the coup, thousands were killed or disappeared. The National Stadium of Chile was turned into a mass detention site, where 40,000 political prisoners were detained and tortured. In the first three years after the coup, some 130,000 people were arrested. An estimated 200,000 people are thought to have fled the country during the dictatorship, which lasted until 1990.

The 1973 coup in Chile unleashed a sustained campaign of U.S. state terrorism against the people of Chile and other South American countries that became known as Operation Condor. This was a campaign of political assassination and repression officially created in 1975 in Santiago, Chile by the ruling circles of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil to eradicate socialist and communist influence and ideas and to eliminate opposition movements against the participating governments. The U.S. first proposed the plan for Operation Condor in 1968, calling for “the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries.” Operation Condor was responsible for at least 60,000 deaths, 30,000 “desaparecidos,” and 400,000 incarcerated. Operation Condor led to what became known as dirty wars in Central America and the Caribbean.

Pictures of victims of the Pinochet coup cover walls in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago Chile.

Salvador Allende had run for president of Chile against Eduadro Frei in 1964 and again in November 1970 when he prevailed. His candidacy was opposed by the U.S. because Allende, an avowed socialist, sought to put the natural wealth and economy of Chile at the disposal of the people and their needs, not private foreign interests. On June 27, 1970, Henry Kissinger, as National Security Advisor in the Nixon administration, put the matter of Chile to the Forty Committee, the interagency body he headed that was responsible for approving CIA covert operations. “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” he said.

The U.S. State Department had a plan, called Track I, for electoral manoeuvres to block Allende from assuming office after winning the election. Kissinger and the CIA also had Track II, aimed at finding military officers who would support a coup, which the CIA could then back. An October 1970 cable from the Track II group to CIA operatives in Chile stated, “It is firm and continuing policy that [the democratically elected government of] Allende be overthrown by a coup…. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [United States Government] and American hands be well hidden.”

After Allende’s election, the U.S. and others sought to economically strangle Chile. This was articulated by the then U.S. Ambassador to Chile, who reported to Kissinger that he had sent a cable to outgoing President Frei, trying to persuade him to join a coup. “Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty,” Korry had written to Frei.

One Year of the National Search Plan for the Disappeared Detainees

Demonstration in Santiago, Chile, September 8, 2013, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the coup.

The Chilean people have been fighting to hold to account those responsible for the coup for the past 51 years.

One year ago, on August 30, 2023, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Chilean government launched the National Search Plan for the Disappeared Detainees, to find out that happened to those who remain unaccounted for after being detained and disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. According to official data, a total of 1,469 people were detained and forcibly disappeared or murdered during the 17 years of the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship. The whereabouts of 1,100 is still unknown.

One year after the creation of the National Search Plan, Alicia Lira, President of the Group of Relatives of Politically Executed Persons, spoke with Prensa Latina about the plan and the ongoing significance of the work of the families fighting for justice for the disappeared. “We cannot talk about full democracy when 51 years after the coup d’ tat many are still looking for their loved ones to bury them and be able to grieve,” she said.

Lira noted the importance of the National Search Plan in which the Chilean state committed, together with social organizations and memorial sites, to finding out where the victims’ remains may be. From there, a governing body was formed in which the Ministries of Justice, Labor, Defence, Culture, universities, academics and members of groups are represented to advance the work of the National Search Plan. However, she pointed out the reticence of the Armed Forces, particularly the Army, which thus far have not delivered the information they have in their possession.

Regarding information on possible locations of remains, Lira underscored the need for caution so as not to create false expectations for families who have suffered so much pain. She also raised the need to reinforce the human rights brigade of the Investigative Police, incorporate more leaders of family groups into the team and increase the number of experts.

“The work must be accelerated, the elements of the judicial power must be handed over and the information that radiates from the files must be applied in places where it is suspected that there may be victims,” Lira said.

At Chile’s commemoration of the International Day of Victims of Forced Disappearances this year, held at the Memorial of the Disappeared Detainee and the Politically Executed of the General Cemetery of Santiago, another activist emphasized the necessity for the National Search Plan to keep the families of the disappeared at the Centre of its work. Gaby Rivera, President of the Group of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees (AFDD), in her remarks at the commemoration, noted that the families organized in AFDD only found out about an important decision taken by the National Search Plan through the press, even though it is part of its governing body. This decision concerned a $620 million contract with a private company to develop a platform to facilitate the management of information on each of the 1,469 disappeared Detainees. “It is unacceptable that the Search Plan be transformed into a business environment,” Rivera stated at the ceremony.

In this way, the Chilean people are continuing their fight for their right to have a say in the National Search Plan to see that justice for their loved ones is finally achieved.

Canada’s Role in Events Surrounding the Coup

Canada had a role in putting economic pressure on the Allende government and then supported the military junta after the coup. The government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau had backed the government of Eduardo Frei, providing various forms of economic aid to Chile after he prevailed in the 1964 election against Allende. When Frei was defeated by Allende in 1970, this aid was cut off and Canadian banks withdrew from Chile. In 1972, Canada followed the U.S. lead to vote to cut off funding from the International Monetary Fund.

After the coup, Canada’s Ambassador to Chile contacted the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau to inform, “Reprisals and searches have created panic atmosphere affecting particularly expatriates including the riffraff of the Latin American Left to whom Allende gave asylum … the country has been on a prolonged political binge under the elected Allende government and the junta has assumed the probably thankless task of sobering Chile up.” The Trudeau government recognized the coup government of Pinochet not long after it seized power, despite being exhorted by various Canadian organizations not to do so.

The Canadian government was put under sustained pressure by the Canadian people to provide refuge for those fleeing the military junta in Chile. Historian Jan Raska points out that anti-communist considerations were first and foremost for the Canadian government, not humanitarianism:

“Initially, Canadian officials were cautious to resettle Chilean refugees in Canada. Worried about the possible leftist sympathies of the Chilean refugees, Canadian officials provided little government planning and assistance to individuals fleeing the repressive right-wing military regime. Aware of American support for the new Pinochet government and uncertain about the political affiliation of the aforementioned refugees, the Canadian government acted slowly for nearly a year before implementing rigid security screening to prevent communist sympathizers from entering Canada.

“Soon, the Canadian government was criticized for its inaction in bringing Chilean refugees to Canada. With heightened public awareness and lobbying efforts on the part of the UNHCR, Amnesty International, Canadian churches, and voluntary service organizations, the federal government loosened selection criteria and exclusionary measures to permit nearly 7,000 refugees from Chile to enter Canada.”

Canada’s role to block the victims of the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship from receiving refuge in Canada is all the more outrageous in light of its policy of giving refuge to Nazi war criminals and Nazi collaborators to escape being brought to justice for their crimes in World War II. Today, the Trudeau government has taken up the aim of the Harper government which came before, to have an anti-communist monument in Ottawa to commemorate Nazis and Nazi collaborators. Called “Memorial to the Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge” – it is all the more shameful and despicable when one considers Canada’s treatment of Chileans who suffered under the Pinochet regime. It begs the question: where is Canada’s monument to all of the Chileans and all the peoples who suffered or were killed or disappeared in Operation Condor carried out by the U.S. across South America, and its dirty wars in Central America and the Caribbean that followed?

Today, some 40,000 people of Chilean descent live in Canada and on this occasion, CPC(M-L) stands with them to remember the victims of the Pinochet regime and Operation Condor. It joins all peace- and justice-loving people in Chile and around the world who are demanding an international rule of law and institutions that do not condone impunity, as is taking place today in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Such crimes must be stopped and it is up to the peoples of the world to make it so.