There was another anniversary on 11 September, of an event whose consequences were just as insidious as those of 2001’s calamity.
The Chilean victims were chosen deliberately, however, rather than as random collateral damage.
I’m talking, of course, about the military coup that removed President Salvador Allende from power in Chile in 1973, the 40th anniversary of which was marked by the publication of this book in hardback.
These days, the coup is a touchstone. Some on the right claim that Allende did not have a widespread mandate, he was bankrupting the country and who knew what would happen if communism was allowed to spread through South America?
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, the CIA and the Coup against Salvador Allende, 11 September 1973
- by Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
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- Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book
This book, written by a London-based Colombian academic, demolishes such assertions punctiliously and without polemic.
Firstly: Allende’s mandate was comparable to, but stronger than David Cameron‘s now. It was a coalition government with the important difference that Allende’s partners, the Christian Democrats, were in many respects as reform-minded as his own Popular Unity party.
Note: “reform” here means “drive to egalitarianism”. It was about nationalising, or removing key industries from private hands to public ones.
Second, the effects that Allende’s policies had included the slashing of unemployment and inflation, the redistribution of wealth and the feel-good knock-ons such results produce.
Third: the election was fair, democratic and constitutional. General René Schneider, leader of the armed forces, was a sworn constitutionalist, pointing out, when the question arose earlier, that any military assault on the elected government would be treason.
Which, if you accept such a statement, would make General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, formerly in charge of the Pisagua concentration camp for leftist political activists, a particularly egregious traitor.
Even if you are familiar with what happened, this is a book you ought to read.
As Guardiola-Rivera is at pains to point out, Chile’s problems started much earlier.
As well as taking a long view of South American politics, the book takes us back to Allende’s teenage years, when he would visit a radicalised cobbler after finishing his studies for the day.
(An unfamiliarity with the nuances of English and possibly a weak editorial hand mean this first chapter is unfortunately called “Outlaws and Political Cobblers“.) The proximate causes of the end of democracy in Chile were the decisions made by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: to assassinate Schneider, to mobilise the vested interests who stood to lose most from nationalisation and to make the country ungovernable.
The whole story is heartbreaking but necessary to read, especially if you are involved in any movement for popular justice and underestimate the power, paranoia and ruthlessness of the vested interests of capital.
(I confess, though, to some surprise that the election result that first brought Allende to power was allowed by these interests at all. You would think that they would have rigged another outcome.)
It is rare for history to appear in such black-and-white terms: Allende was honourable to the end, as his broadcasts urging non-violence from his supporters from the besieged presidential palace attest; whereas the tally of assassinations, kidnappings, and tortures comes from one side only and is disgustingly large.
So where injustice remains, the struggle continues: here is one of its handbooks.
• To order Story of a Death Foretold for £10.39 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.
Adonis Diaries 
Notes and comments on FB and Twitter. Part 35
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 29, 2017
Notes and comments on FB and Twitter. Part 35
Who would answer to the terrible obstinate crimes against humanity? If Not the obstinate witness, and whistle-blowers?
Ce n’ était poutant pas ma faute si ma guerre n’ était pas brillante: Tous les jours, j’ étais au rendez-vous dans le ciel et mon avion revenait criblé d’ éclats et moi sain et sauf.
Je bombardais seulement, pas un metier spectaculaire, comme dans la chasse.
La solitude du soldat face a la mort: C’ était le lot de tous les armées du monde Arab en guerre contre Israel. La sociéte civile s’ en fouter pas mal de la condition du soldat. Syrian soldiers left by the side of their tanks for Israeli jets to bomb them
Dans le tier monde, la frontiére entre vie et mort se dilue dans la pauvreté, la famine, la négligence et l’ insouciance. La mort des jeunes est habituelle et generalisé
Le proper de la guerre est de prendre sous ses ailes noires tout le monde, sans exception
Deux langue differentes seulement? Celle de ceux qui ont participés directement á la guerre et celle des civiles? Même en temps de paix, le dialogue est obscure et hystérique
Before this cold winter, my health nurtured adolescent dreams. Hope was still high.
We take it for granted that the eyes are always kept moist. Our inclination to take delicate matter for granted is the source of our difficulties.
I discovered that “eye drops” are the main cure for many health difficulties at a certain age, particularly during the flu season and dry season.
Erdogan of Turkey is ever ready to please the superpowers in public speeches, and never was capable of delivering on promises. He desperately wants to remain a dictator for another decade
Erdogan has been smoking nasty weeds, far longer than Donald Trump. He has no idea where to go from here and how to alienate everyone, inside and outside Turkey
Very funny: explaining False facts as Alternative facts. Kind the difference between conjecture and pseudo-science?
Que le silence régne. Ce sont plutot les témoins des crimes qui sont jugés et maltraités: Il fallait pas voir, entendre, crier, appeler au secours, intervenir…
Le cours devastateur du temps: vider les crypts anciens d’ un covent, une cimetiére… pour ériger un hotel 5 etoiles.
Est-ce vrai? Les cheveux continuent a pousser 1 cm par mois, même après la mort? Les designers de perruques n’ ont qu’ a ouvrire les crypts anciens et tondre les cheveux
Ecoutez le silence qui accable les pays regorgeant de prisons. Les ennemis du silence sont forcés au “silence”
L’ enjeu de la lute contre le silence est la vie humaine des systémes accablés de crime contre l’humanité.
Le silence est un signe de malheur et de crime. Demandez a une mére que veut dire le silence de son bébé dans la chamber voisine
Victoriano Gomez, 24 ans, était le Robin des Bois de Salvador. 14 familles régnees sur tout le territiore, et chaque famille avait son Guardia Rural, recruité parmi les droit-commun. Victoriano encourageait les paysans a reprendre leur terre.
L’ homme craint l’ homme qui a le potential de se faire prendre sa place: l’ emploi publique, á l’ ecole pour son enfant, le lit á l’ hospital…
Le guerillero du Salvador, Victoriano Gomez, a été fusiller par un peloton militaire au stade de foot, avec les équipes de televisions et reporters filmant directe l’ évenement, et le stade était bondé de spectateur. Middle-Age beheading ceremonies
From the port of Bagamoyo in Tanzania in East Africa, one million slaves were exported to the USA
Nos partisans vont á la lute, un fusil á la main et une ardoise d’ écolier sur le dos. On doit rattraper 5 siècles de retard.
Che Guevara and Allende have started the first chapter of the history of Latin America’s popular revolutions. It is looking good, so far.
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