The coup in Chile, 50 years later
Mila Burns is an Associate Professor at the Department of Latin American & Latino Studies at Lehman College, CUNY. She is the Associate Director at the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Burns is the author of Dona Ivone Lara's Sorriso Negro (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019; Editora Cobogó, 2021) and Nasci para Sonhar e Cantar: Dona Ivone Lara, a Mulher no Samba (Editora Record, 2009). For over two decades, she has worked as a journalist in Brazil and New York, currently as a political commentator at ICL Notícias. She has served as editor-in-chief and anchor to shows dedicated to the Latino community broadcast at TV Globo International, and has worked at TV Globo, The Economist, O Globo, and others. This text was originally written for issue 83 of the WBO Newsletter, published on September 8, 2023. Fill in the form at the bottom of the text to access and subscribe to the WBO weekly newsletter in English.
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende addressed his fellow citizens for the last time before dying by his own hand while bombs exploded at the La Moneda presidential palace. Chileans listened over the radio to the democratically-elected socialist blaming his fall on “foreign capital, imperialism, united to conservatism.” He nominally pointed to members of the military, but did not directly mention the United States, who had been plotting to overthrow his government or Chilean leftist groups who had been pressuring him to fast-deliver his promise of a “Chilean path to socialism.”
Fifty years later, Chileans still debate the causes of the coup that inaugurated the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, a violent regime that lasted 17 years, murdered over 2,000 people, tortured more than 30,000, and left a trail of economic failures. President Gabriel Boric announced his plans for a 50th anniversary commemoration that clearly condemned the coup. Among the organizers that he appointed was Patrício Fernandez, who resigned after being criticized for saying that “history can continue to debate” why the coup happened.
When it comes to the Chilean September 11, the narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean is large enough to fit numerous contradictions. According to a CERC-MORI poll conducted in May, 60 percent of Chileans consider that Pinochet will be remembered as a dictator. However, 36 percent argue that he modernized the economy, and the military was right to overthrow Allende.
In October 2020, Chileans rushed to the polls amid a pandemic to scrap the constitution designed during the Pinochet administration. Last year, however, over 60 percent of the population rejected the change. In 2019, during the Estallido Social de Chile (Chile’s Social Outburst) thousands protested against neoliberal policies established during the authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, some of the leaders of the country were Pinochet’s heirs. The head of National Defense was Javier Iturriaga del Campo, whose uncle, Pablo Iturriaga, was accused of human rights violations. Andrés Chadwick, minister of the Interior during the first government of Sebastián Piñera, was a member of the Pinochetista youth group Frente Juvenil de Unidad Nacional (Youth Front of National Unity) and of the legislative commission of the military junta. Piñera is Chadwick’s cousin and the younger brother of José Piñera Echenique, who served as Pinochet’s minister of Labor, Social Security, and Mining. He was one of the Chicago Boys, the pupils of U.S. economist Milton Friedman who championed privatizations and laissez-faire policies.
“the Brazilian government considered training guerrilla groups in the Andes to fight against Allende and provided money, weapons, medicine, expertise, intelligence reports, and even torturers to the enemies of the socialist government”
This polarization has accompanied the country since the narrow election of Salvador Allende, in 1970, with 36 percent of the vote. At the time, the Chilean constitution determined that in case of a victory by a plurality, Congress needed to confirm the winner. Allende was only declared president after he signed the Estatuto de Garantias Constitucionales (By-laws for Constitutional Guarantees), promising to preserve the democratic regime.
Allende’s program expressed a deep commitment to social and economic reforms. His policies envisioned the nationalization of banking and key industries—including U.S.-owned cooper mines—accelerated agrarian reform, and increased government control over the economy. Terrified, businesspeople, media conglomerates, and the governments of Brazil and the United States decided to act. The United States suspended loans. The CIA provided support to opposition groups and spent millions of dollars in covert operations that created an acute sensation of crisis through propaganda and support to strikes and protests against the government. Shortages of consumer goods became frequent, and inflation escalated. Many Chileans seem to attribute that to Allende’s incompetence, forgetting the heavy investments to deliver President Nixon’s demand to make the Chilean economy “scream” to “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.”
The playbook came from Brazil. The Marches of the Empty Pots—large demonstrations reuniting thousands of upper-class women beating pots in protest against Allende’s economic policies—was led by the group El Poder Feminino (Feminine Power), inspired by the Brazilian Campaign of Women for Democracy (CAMDE). Furthermore, the Brazilian government considered training guerrilla groups in the Andes to fight against Allende and provided money, weapons, medicine, expertise, intelligence reports, and even torturers to the enemies of the socialist government. In Chile, Brazil internationalized its model of State terror and political repression much earlier than the infamous Operation Condor, a campaign implemented in 1975 by the Southern Cone dictatorships with the support of the United States, which resulted in 60,000 deaths and 400,000 imprisonments. The interchange of ideas, strategies, military supplies, and diplomatic policies between Brazil and Chile facilitated the fall of Allende, the strengthening of the Pinochet regime, and the intergovernmental terror campaign carried in the Condor years.
The lack of consensus on the condemnation of the coup can seem like a formality. It is, however, instrumental in the solidification of Chilean democracy. So is accountability. Gabriel Boric launched a “Truth and Justice” program to investigate forced disappearances under Pinochet. The United States and Brazil should follow suit. Recognizing the state’s errors and responsibilities is part of good government and one of the few effective ways to prevent the memory of terror from fading.
