The recent death of Augusto Pinochet, the former head of the Chilean military junta from 1973-90, has been greeted with relative silence by the mainstream U.S. media. Indeed, few Americans are even aware of the brutal dictator's recent passing. Ironically, he died on Human Rights Day.
What few Americans know (or want to know) is that the U.S. under the Nixon administration not only supported Pinochet's brutal coup d'état in 1973, but continued to finance his reign of terror until his cession of power in 1990. Pinochet was seen as a bulwark against the growing socialist radicalism in Latin America at the time. When socialist President Salvador Allende came to power democratically in 1970, the threat that his leftist economic measures — including nationalization of the mining industries, administration of the health care system and a land redistribution program — posed to U.S. corporations convinced Nixon's now-infamous secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, that something needed to be done.
On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military seized control of the government in Santiago, bombing the Presidential Palace in an event that symbolized the death of democracy in Chile. While U.S. participation in the actual events of the day remains highly ambiguous (many crucial documents remain classified), it is clear that the U.S. took an active hand in disrupting the social progress of the Allende era and funded violent right-wing elements in the process. The role of American corporations in the years preceding the coup is also of great interest: They not only aided Chilean military officers, but also pressured the U.S. government to take immediate action against Allende. Kissinger's own comments on the subject are probably an accurate synopsis of U.S. involvement: "We didn't do it. I mean, we helped them. [Garbled] created the conditions as great as possible."
Following Pinochet's seizure of power, Chile was plunged into an era of despotic darkness. The human rights violations of the regime are well-documented: An estimated 3,000 people "disappeared," 28,000 were imprisoned and thousands more were tortured. Legitimate political opposition was crushed, social progress movements destroyed and a national apparatus of repression to quell all forms of dissent was established. Finally, the economic reforms achieved by Allende were reversed, while Chile was ushered into a period of neo-liberal devastation — to the delight of U.S. corporations.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to pump money into the Pinochet regime and actively colluded with the military to rid the country of its "communist" elements (i.e. anyone that expressed support for progressive causes). A document released by the CIA in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile," revealed that many military officers involved in human rights abuses were kept on the U.S. payroll and that the CIA worked closely with DINA (the Chilean secret police) in its efforts to squash all forms off dissent.
U.S. involvement in Chile was part of a broader strategy to aggressively defend corporate interests abroad and defeat the increasingly popular Communist movements in the Third World during the Cold War era. In the context of Latin America, Operation Condor was a coordinated policy on the part of the U.S. and Latin American dictatorships consisting of assassination, counter-insurgency and general state-sponsored terrorism to defend the nexus of big capital and repressive power in defeating the leftist elements that opposed it. Henry Kissinger's central role in this underhanded business, and his part in similar imperialist projects in other parts of the world, such as support for Indonesia's genocidal policies in East Timor, have earned him the title of the Cold War's most notorious war criminal.
Since the end of the Cold War, the impetus for the worst of the era's policies has waned. However, there is little doubt that the U.S. will not hesitate to employ its traditional tactics to defend its interests abroad. The reality is that the death of the U.S.S.R. has meant a decline in movements within the Third World that seriously threaten U.S. hegemony, so the muscle behind U.S. involvement has waned in kind.
Nevertheless, in an era of a nefarious war in the Middle East and a growing military budget, it seems that the U.S. is showing its true colors abroad in the traditional manner once again. This contemporary reality and the devastating U.S. legacy in Chile serve as chilling reminders of the real nature of America's foreign policy.
Kyle Szarzynski ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and history.
