Repost with additional information
On September 11, 2001 the USA experienced a great tragedy,I join people all over the world in remembering the lives lost on that day, and the hundreds of thousands more killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the other wars that followed.
Today though I also remember another 9/11, when on this day on September 11 1973, the democratically elected Government of Chile's socialist President Allende was brutally overthrown in a bloody, military coup led by fascist General Augusto Pinochet, friend of Margaret Thatcher. An American sponsored coup that crushed a democratically elected government, which would lead to years of repression, torture, forced disappearance, false imprisonment, fear, death and for many Chileans exile. Democracy would not return for 17 years with the Chilean people having to endure years of autocratic military rule.
In Chile in 1970 Salvador Allende won 36.6% of the vote and established his Popular Unity government in power much to the alarm of the United States government who feared his leftist government would slide into one party rule like Fidel Castro's Cuba. Allende's political platform was populist and he promised the nationalization of many sectors of the Chilean economy and the distribution of wealth to the country's poor. These plans, however, were not accepted in Washington, which saw Chile as the new “red menace”, a cancer to be eradicated and in a way to make it an example to anyone who dared to follow in its footsteps.The involvement of the CIA is proved by documents and files decrypted that confirm what we already knew: the coup had its legitimation from President Nixon and the National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, the future Nobel Peace Prize.
Today in 1973 the Chilean military, under Pinochet's command, announced a coup and Air Force planes attacked the presidential palace. Within a few hours, the military had seized control of the government, and Allende and many of his ministers were left dead in the presidential palace as the military unleashed a wave of brutal repression against the population and the people's movements, ushering in almost two decades of right wing military rule under Pinochet.
The military and secret police began rounding up thousands of
people loyal to President Allende.Many disappeared" into army-run, CIA-supported torture
centers, never to be heard from again.Over 20,000 people are established to have been killed during
Pinochet's reign of terror. and 60,000 tortured, hundreds of Allendes
supporters alone were gunned down in Santiago Soccer stadium, so today in Chile this event is still marked with
anger, people taking to the streets and displaying it, Chileans still
having to deal with the devastating legacy of life under a fascist
regime.
Today on this tragic anniversary, it is time to remember again, a time in our history that still holds daily reverence to most Chileans lives,and for much of Latin America, and for the many democratic reformers and carriers of solidarity's message worldwide.
In Florida in June,2016 a jury found a former Chilean army officer liable for the murder of folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in 1973. Jara was tortured and shot more than 40 times in the days after the U.S.-backed coup. The verdict against Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez marked what The Guardian newspaper called "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/victor-jara-pedro-pablo-barrientos-nunez-killing-chile Speaking on the steps of the Florida courthouse, on , Jara’s widow Joan Jara Turner said at the time, "What we were trying to do for more than 40 years, for Víctor, has today come true."
Since then in a form of justice eight retired Chilean military officers have been sentenced to 15 years in prison for Victor's murder.This hero of the people whose life and music has been celebrated ever since.
Victor Jara - Venceremos
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/40th-anniversary-of-chilean-coup.html
Today on this tragic anniversary, it is time to remember again, a time in our history that still holds daily reverence to most Chileans lives,and for much of Latin America, and for the many democratic reformers and carriers of solidarity's message worldwide.
In Florida in June,2016 a jury found a former Chilean army officer liable for the murder of folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in 1973. Jara was tortured and shot more than 40 times in the days after the U.S.-backed coup. The verdict against Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez marked what The Guardian newspaper called "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/victor-jara-pedro-pablo-barrientos-nunez-killing-chile Speaking on the steps of the Florida courthouse, on , Jara’s widow Joan Jara Turner said at the time, "What we were trying to do for more than 40 years, for Víctor, has today come true."
Since then in a form of justice eight retired Chilean military officers have been sentenced to 15 years in prison for Victor's murder.This hero of the people whose life and music has been celebrated ever since.
Yet no US presidential apology, has ever been made for
what was unleashed on the workers, students and ordinary people of
Chile on this day. So today as America remembers their own 9/11 lets not forget the other injustice that they helped cause.
I am sadly reminded that years after the world watched as planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center ( that caused a further millions deaths, also creating millions of refugees, malnutrition, birth defects and other health disasters on generations of children in Iraq and other war zones), the harrowing cycle of violence never ended.
My only hope now is that we continue to express true sorrow, whilst collectively recognising the terrible legacy of these two 9/11's. Let us chart a more just and peaceful path forward. Lets hope the forces of truth and reconciliation long continue to be fostered and that all victims are rightfully remembered.
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/40th-anniversary-of-chilean-coup.html
